What is the believer’s view of the Holy Bible?

The believer loves the Holy Bible, which is given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit; being aware that it is the voice of his beloved God, which offers him divine truth and eternal life. Thus, he embarks upon a hidden and fulfilling dialogue with God, his heart never ceasing to commune with Him. This in no way contradicts our belief that the Lord who created the mind sanctifies the mind and exalts it. So, the believer experiences divine truth, exults in it, and contemplates it, for it is the word of life.

The Church therefore feels a responsibility to preserve what God has declared to those whom He chose to write, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, and it is not authorized to contradict it in any way. Nor does the Church or any of her members have the right to alter the texts of the Holy Bible. Any Church decree is legitimate if it is based on the Holy Bible.

St. Basil the Great says, “What is the mark of a Christian? Faith working through love [Gal. 5:6]. What is the mark of faith? Unwavering of the truth of the God-breathed words , unshaken by any [futile] reasoning introduced either by physical necessity or fraudulently in the form of piety. What is the mark of a believer? With such conviction, to be of the disposition that what is said [in the Holy Bible] is authoritative and to undertake not to disregard or add anything. For if ‘all that is not from faith is sin’ (Rom. 14:23), as the Apostle says, and ‘faith is from hearing, and hearing is through God’s word’ (Rom. 10:17), then everything outside the God-breathed Scripture [that is, everything that contradicts it], being not from faith, is sin.”⁹⁵

And on the role of the Holy Bible in our lives, St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of it as a source of education and training in a person’s life, whether a pastor or a member of the congregation, saying, “For truly holy are those letters that sanctify and deify … No one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is His only work—the salvation of man. Therefore He Himself, urging them on to salvation, cries, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matt. 4:17) … Faith will lead you in; experience will teach you; Scripture will train you.”⁹⁶

94 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 32.3 (NPNF I/14:113), amended.

95 St. Basil of Caesarea, On Christian Ethics , trans. Jacob N. van Sickle (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014), 80:22: p. 323.

96 St. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 9 (ANF 2:196).

St. Basil the Great says, “The study of the inspired books is the chief way we know what is required of us. In them, we find instruction about behavior, as well as the life of blessed people recorded in writing, that we may inhale the images of their devout lives and be guided by their good deeds.”⁹⁷

And St. John Chrysostom says, “by means of small sentences, [the Bible] implants divine wisdom in all who give heed, and one sentence often times affords to those who receive it a sufficient source of provision for the whole journey of life.”⁹⁸

St. John Chrysostom speaks to us of the power of the word of God in the life of the faithful, saying:

“For this is the exhortation of the Scripture given, that the man of God may be rendered perfect by it; without this therefore he cannot be perfect. You have the Scriptures, he says, in place of me [i.e., the Apostle Paul]. If you would learn anything, you may learn it from them. And if he wrote thus to Timothy, who was filled with the Spirit, how much more to us!”⁹⁹

“Thus He meant to set forth the most decisive sign of its greatness [of the gospel]. ‘Even so then shall it be with respect to the gospel too,’ He says. Yes, for His disciples were weakest of all, and least of all; but nevertheless, because of the great power that was in them, the gospel has been unfolded in every part of the world.”¹⁰⁰

“Why then, tell me, was the greater part of the seed lost? Not through the sower, but through the ground that received it; that is, the soul that did not hearken.”¹⁰¹

“Yes, for a word from the divine Scriptures, made to sound in the ear, doth more than fire soften the hardened soul, and renders it fit for all good things.”¹⁰²

“Knowledge of the Scriptures protects the mind, purifies the conscience, weakens dominant lusts, deepens virtue, makes one’s thinking sublime, prevents us from drowning in unexpected hardships, raises us up over the devil, moves the heavens, liberates the soul from the bonds of the body, and grants him wings to fly.”¹⁰³

“Whether, he says, one be saved or be lost, the Gospel continues to have its proper virtue: and as the light, although it blinds the weak, is still light, though causing blindness; and as honey, though it be bitter to those who are diseased, is in its nature sweet; so also is the Gospel of sweet savor, even though some should be lost who believe it not.”¹⁰⁴

97 Mike Aquilina, The Way of the Fathers (Our Sunday Visitor, 2000): Article 31.

98 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues 1.3 (NPNF I/9:332).

99 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy 9 (NPNF I/13:510).

100 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 46.2 (NPNF I/10:282), amended.

101 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 44.4 (NPNF I/10:274), amended.

102 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 2.10 (NPNF I/10:13).

103 St. John Chrysostom, Eleven Homilies that Have Not Hitherto Been Published etc . 5.1 (PG 63:485).

104 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Second Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 5.2 (NPNF I/12:302) amended.

“So that should anyone be lost, the fault is from himself: for both ointment is said to suffocate swine, and light (as I before observed,) to blind the weak. And such is the nature of good things; they not only correct what is akin to them, but also destroy the opposite: and in this way is their power most displayed.”¹⁰⁵