Who Has the Last Word?
Everyone has a final authority, whether or not he has ever named it. It is whatever settles the argument when two sincere people disagree. For some it is the church. For others it is a beloved leader, a tradition, human reason, or an inward feeling. For Baptists it is the Bible.
We hold the Bible as our final authority for all matters of faith and practice, and we mean both words. What we believe about God and salvation must answer to what God has written. So must how we worship, whom we baptize, how we govern a church, and how we live on Monday morning. That is why biblical authority stands first on nearly every list of Baptist convictions (What Makes a Baptist?). The others depend on it.
The last court of appeal. To call the Bible our only final authority means that in every matter it addresses, what God has said in Scripture decides the question, and no person, church, tradition, or experience can overrule it.
Other pages teach the doctrine of Scripture itself. Inspiration shows that God breathed out His Word, Inerrancy and Infallibility that it is true, The Canon which books belong to it, Preservation that God has kept it, and Sufficiency that it is enough. Here we ask what all of that means for a church.
When the Bible says one thing and your church, your family, or your feelings say another, which one gives way?
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For Deeper Study
- Baptists and the BibleAmazon L. Russ Bush and Tom J. NettlesA history of how Baptists have understood Scripture, from seventeenth-century England forward. Nettles is Reformed in his view of salvation, and we differ on that.
- Christ and the BibleAmazon John WenhamA careful study of how Jesus Himself treated the Scriptures. Wenham was an Anglican.
- Baptist Confessions of FaithAmazon William L. LumpkinThe standard collection of Baptist confessions, including the First London, Second London, and New Hampshire confessions.
- Scripture Alone: Exploring the Bible's Accuracy, Authority, and AuthenticityAmazon James R. WhiteA readable defense of the Bible's sole final authority, by a Reformed Baptist. We differ on election and other points.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Makes a Baptist?
A Baptist is a Christian who holds the Bible as the only final authority for faith and practice, and who gathers with other saved and baptized believers in a self-governing local church under Christ.
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