Does Scripture Have a Personality?

And when He had removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” (Acts 13:22)

Today’s big question: does Scripture have a personality?

In these devotions, we have spent much time on the fact that all Scripture is from God and is not from the interpretation or will of men. Yet it is important to understand that God did, in fact, use men as His instrument—and as such, we would expect to see a human quality to Scripture as well. This human quality, however, does not mean that the content of Scripture was guided by the will of men; the Holy Spirit gave us—through men—His authentic, inerrant and infallible Word.

Let’s think about the human instruments God used to bring us His Word. They have distinct personality and styles, and we can see this human element as a flavor in Scripture, by which God relates so perfectly to His creation. David, for example, is described as having a heart after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). We see many wonderful aspects of David’s personality coming through his writings in the psalms with great songs of praise, adoration, thankfulness, and even repentance toward God. We can see that God’s favor upon David (as expressed by David having a heart after God) did indeed have great outpourings through David’s heart, and we see David’s own emotional response being clearly shown in Scripture.

Scripture gives us no indication that God ever overwrote the personalities of the human instruments He used to record His Word. We see great diversity, for example, from the poetic outpourings of David to the theological gushing of Paul. We also see great difference in Paul’s gushing of spiritual meat compared to the detailed historical recordings of Luke. Jeremiah was a man under deep conviction, as one with the toughest of all messages for Judah, and these deep burdens for his mission are overwhelmingly clear in his writing.

When I think of Scripture, I often think of how Scripture itself reflects Christ. Jesus Christ was fully God and yet fully man Just like this amazing and supernatural reality of Christ, Scripture also reflects the truth that it is fully from God and yet fully through His human instruments. If this does not overwhelm you with gratitude that the God of this universe would do so great a thing to relate to His rebellious creation, I suggest you pinch yourself and think again.

Today’s big idea: the inerrancy of God’s Word is not impaired, but made accessible through human personality under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

What to pray: ask God to make you an open vessel so that your personality would be His tool to bring others to the truth of His Word.