What Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians believe about the Bible

People ask what a church believes about the Bible for many reasons. Some grew up being told that every verse must be read as literal history and wonder whether there is another faithful way to read it. Others have been told that mainline Christians do not take Scripture seriously. The official teaching of the mainline churches tells a different story. The United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Episcopal Church all receive the Bible as the inspired Word of God and the primary authority for Christian faith and life.

These churches also teach that God’s Spirit spoke through human authors, and the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist statements point to Jesus Christ as the living Word to whom Scripture bears witness. Several of them say outright that the Bible should be read with attention to its history and its literary forms.

What do Methodists believe about the Bible?

The United Methodist Church, the largest Methodist church in the United States, keeps the Articles of Religion that John Wesley adapted from the Church of England. Article V begins, “The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation,” so nothing that cannot be read in Scripture or proved by it may be required as an article of faith.

The church’s Book of Discipline teaches that “Scripture is the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine,” and it describes the Bible as the words of human beings inspired by the Holy Spirit. When United Methodists interpret a passage, “we take into account what we have been able to learn about the original context and intention of that text,” and “we are aided by scholarly inquiry and personal insight, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” They read Scripture “within the believing community,” together with tradition, reason, and experience, which with Scripture make up the four sources often called the Wesleyan quadrilateral.

What do Lutherans believe about the Bible?

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest Lutheran church in the United States, speaks of the Word of God in three senses in its constitution. Jesus Christ is “the Word of God incarnate.” The proclamation of God’s message as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God. And “the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God,” inspired by God’s Spirit speaking through their authors.

The ELCA accepts the Scriptures “as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.” In 2007 its Churchwide Assembly voted 1,000 to 19 to launch “Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible,” a churchwide effort to draw members into reading and studying Scripture, which Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson called “the first language of faith.” See is the Bible true?

What do Presbyterians believe about the Bible?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the largest Presbyterian church in the United States, asks every minister, elder, and deacon at ordination: “Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?”

Its Book of Confessions holds older and newer voices together. The Westminster Confession of 1647 speaks of “the infallible truth and divine authority” of Scripture and says that our assurance of it comes “from the inward work of the Holy Spirit.” The Confession of 1967 calls Jesus Christ “the one sufficient revelation of God” and describes the Scriptures as “the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written.” The church therefore “has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding.” For what that study has found, see who wrote the Bible?

What do Episcopalians believe about the Bible?

The Episcopal Church, the member of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the United States and several other countries, asks every bishop, priest, and deacon at ordination to declare a belief that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are “the Word of God” and “contain all things necessary to salvation.” Its prayer book catechism teaches that Christians call the Scriptures the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and still speaks through the Bible, and that the Holy Spirit guides the church in interpreting them.

The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, first adopted by the Episcopal House of Bishops in 1886 and in revised form by the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 1888, names the Scriptures as “the rule and ultimate standard of faith.” Anglicans have long read the Bible together with the church’s tradition and with reason.

What do the United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and American Baptists believe?

The United Church of Christ’s constitution, adopted at its founding in 1957, says that the church “looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world.”

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has no creed as a test of membership. “We are called to study and read scripture for ourselves,” it says, and “we critically and thoughtfully study scripture,” taking into account “the history and background” in which it was written.

American Baptist Churches USA affirms that “the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God that serves as the final written authority for living out the Christian faith,” and calls Scripture “the authoritative and trustworthy guide for knowing and serving the God who is revealed as Creator, Savior and Advocate.”

What Scripture and tradition do these churches draw on?

The classic verse on the Bible’s authority comes from the letters to Timothy:

Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16–17

The verse says what Scripture is for: teaching and training, so that God’s people are equipped for good work. The churches also follow the New Testament in reading the whole Bible in the light of Christ. John’s Gospel calls Jesus himself the Word: “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). On the road to Emmaus, the risen Jesus “explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

Augustine taught in On Christian Doctrine that anyone who thinks they understand Scripture, but whose reading does not build up the twofold love of God and neighbor, has not yet understood it. Many evangelical Christians hold that the Bible is without error in everything it says, including matters of history and science, and they hold that view out of reverence for God’s truthfulness. The mainline statements place their emphasis on the Bible’s witness to Christ and on what it teaches for salvation. See should we read the Bible literally?

How can you read the Bible today?

Paul wrote that the Scriptures “were written for our learning, that through perseverance and through encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). The church has turned his words into a prayer. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer gives this collect for the Second Sunday in Advent:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer (1662), Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent