If you wish to know God you must know his word; if you wish to perceive his power you must see how he worketh by his word; if you wish to know his purpose before it is actually brought to pass you can only discover it by his word…

If my compass always points to the North, I know how to use it; but if it veers to other points of the compass, and I am to judge out of my own mind whether it is right or not, I am as well without the thing as with it. If my Bible is right always, it will lead me right; and as I believe it is so, I shall follow it… 

Always stand to it that your creed must bend to the Bible, and not the Bible to your creed, and dare to be a little inconsistent with yourselves, if need be, sooner than be inconsistent with God’s revealed truth… If your creed and Scripture do not agree, cut your creed to pieces, but make it agree with this book. If there be anything in the church to which you belong which is contrary to the inspired word, leave that church…

To the law and to the testimony here is the infallible chart of faith, follow it closely, and if you do, you need have no fear of coming short, for this book cannot lead you astray… We believe in plenary verbal inspiration, with all its difficulties, for there are not half as many difficulties in that doctrine as there are in any other kind of inspiration that men may imagine…

There are many nowadays who refuse to believe in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, but I fail to see how the sense of Scripture can be inspired if the words in which that sense is expressed are not also inspired. I believe that the very words, in the original Hebrew and Greek, were revealed from heaven; and notwithstanding every objection that can be brought from any quarter, I have never been able to get away from the firm belief that, if I give up my Master’s words, I give up his thoughts also. (Online source)

Charles Spurgeon

HT: Discern The Time

See also:

PROPER BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

ROB BELL ON THE RECORD CONCERNING SCRIPTURE

INDEED, DID GOD REALLY SAY?