John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

 The Scripture does not simply claim that God breathed on men and these inspired men wrote out the Bible. But God's claim is much stronger and more definite than that. What God says is that He breathed out the Scripture. God used men to write it down, of course, but the Scripture itself came directly from God. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 10]

People go wrong in their fellowships before they go wrong in their doctrine. - John R. Rice

Prophets who wrote the Old Testament did not themselves make the decision that they would write the books they wrote. They did not decide what to write. The Word of God did not come "by the will of man." Instead, "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

The men used of God to write the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, wrote "as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." God then, working through human agents, wrote the Bible. It is God's Word, not man's. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 11]

If the Bible be not the very Word of God, it is a book of the most extravagant lies ever written. Either the Bible is what it claims to be - the very Word of God - or it is not myth, not legend, not fairy tale, not inaccurate history, but bold, deliberate, willful falsehood with false morals, a false Christ, a false religion. The Bible must be accepted as what it claims to be - the very Word of God - or it must be rejected as forgery and falsehood. Thank God, devout Christians who have tried it know that the Bible is what it claims to be - the very Word of God. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 12]

We have said that the Bible expressly claims to be the Word of God. That is true. It does make that claim definitely and repeatedly. But even more impressive, perhaps, is the fact the Bible from one end to the other ACTS like the Word of God. It claims for itself the authority, the qualities, the perfections which could only be true of the very Word of God, supernatural and perfect. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 12]

The Bible speaks on matters which only God could know. For example, the first chapter of Genesis tells of the creation of the world, the land, the sea and the skies, the heavenly bodies, plants, animals, and man. No one else could have been there to see it all. So the Bible speaks on the assumption that it is from God who did these things and who alone would know how to describe them.

Throughout the Bible we find the same assumption, a freedom to speak about things where only God could possibly know the exact truth. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 13]

The Bible expressly says, not once but hundreds of times, that the man writing is writing the very words of God. In any other book in the world except the Bible, such talk would be counted purest nonsense. But it is not nonsense in the Bible. The Bible ACTS like the Word of God, which it is. - John R. Rice [A Coffer of Jewels About the Bible, pg. 14]