Ask Christians if God speaks to them and they will probably say yes. Ask how God speaks to them, and you receive differing answers. Most evangelical Christians, no matter what other ways they believe God speaks, agree that God has spoken the Bible. Should we not, therefore, believe the Bible when it teaches it is the only way that God speaks in our day and the only authority for faith and life?

The Bible is the only authority for faith and life. It attests that it is inspired by God. Among 1,000 self-attesting references, 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is God-breathed." Men wrote it, but the Holy Spirit originated it. Since God is perfect, his word is absolute truth, infallible, without error or contradiction. It sufficiently reveals everything man must believe concerning God, faith and man's duties to God and life.

It reveals God's holy law, man's sin, and his need for Jesus Christ, the savior. Jesus perfectly obeyed God's law and gave himself as an atoning sacrifice to the wrath of God to die in place of sinners whom he came to save. Only through God-given faith in Christ is anyone saved. It issues God's command to repent and believe in the Gospel. It reveals Christian duty to obey God's law in loving response to our Lord. The obvious conclusion: the Bible is God's authority for faith and life, to be believed because of the authority of God who speaks in it. "You have magnified your word according to all your name" (Psalms, 138:2).

Further, the Bible is the only word from God for our day. Neither is there new revelation from God.

"God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son." (Hebrews 1:1).

When Christ revealed God, his salvation and his ways — and the apostles completed the record of it — the former ways of revelation ceased (1 Corinthians, 13:8-10). Thus, the Holy Spirit now speaks only through the Bible. Through the reading and correct preaching of scripture, God speaks. He uses scripture to regenerate hearts and instill faith in Christ, as well as teach, guide, reprove, correct, comfort God's people. He influences his people to apply scriptural doctrines and principles to faith and life. But he no longer speaks audibly, nor does he speak of future events in our personal lives.

Where else can we go for faith and life than to the Bible? What other authority can there possibly be than the Bible? How can we need communication from God other than the Bible? Where else must we go?