01/10/2025
Before sin entered this world, Adam and Eve enjoyed open fellowship with their Maker. But since our first parents separated themselves from God by disobedience, the human race has been cut off from this great privilege. The plan of redemption, however, opened a way for those living on the earth still to have a connection with heaven. God has communicated with human beings by His Spirit by giving divine light to the world through revelations to His chosen servants. “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
During the first twenty-five hundred years of human history, there was no written message from God. Those whom God had instructed communicated their knowledge to others, and it was handed down from father to son over many generations. The recording of such things in writing began in the time of Moses. Inspired revelations were then put together in an Inspired Book. This work continued during the long period of sixteen hundred years—from Moses, the historian of creation and the law, to John, the recorder of the grandest truths of the gospel.
The Bible points to God as its author, yet it was written by human hands, and in the varied style of its different books it reflects the characteristics of the individual writers. The truths revealed are all “given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16), yet they are expressed in human words. By His Holy Spirit the Infinite One has brought light into the minds and hearts of His servants. He has given dreams and visions, symbols and illustrations; and those to whom He revealed these truths have themselves put the thought into human language.
Written in different ages, by men who differed widely in social status and occupation and in their mental and spiritual abilities, the books of the Bible present a wide contrast in style as well as a diversity in the kinds of subjects they treat. The various writers use different forms of expression....
