Scripture is the term used to describe written documents that are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and represent His inerrant word. There are sixty-six such documents which, when bound together, make up the Bible. The Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for God’s people today, perfect in authority and utterly sufficient in content for the life and faith of God’s people. As summarized in one prominent Christian confession:

“The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added,” Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Section 6

What does it mean?

The English word “scripture” derives from the Latin “scrīptūra,” which literally just means “something written; a composition; a writing.” It comes from the same root from which we get words like script, scribe, inscription, etc. In the New Testament, when we see the word “scripture,” it is translating the Greek word γραφή (graphē), which likewise literally means “a writing, a thing written.” Yet, in context, the biblical writers are not talking about just any written document but rather to a specific body of sacred, authoritative books. When they spoke of the writings, they had a special collection of writings in mind. The English word “scripture” is a precise word for such a collection. Thus, the primary dictionary definition is:

“The sacred writings of the Old or New Testaments, or both together.”¹https://www.dictionary.com/browse/scripture (accessed 5/24/2021)

The word can also be used more broadly for the sacred texts of any religion (i.e., the Quran is the “scripture” of Islam, the Pali Canon is “scripture” of Theravada Buddhists, etc.), but in its strictest (and truest) sense, “scripture” is not merely the books that a given group of people happen to regard as sacred, but rather the books that really are sacred because God actually inspired them. In this sense, Scripture is all of and only the sixty-six books of the Christian Bible.

The nature of scripture

What sets a work of genuine scripture apart from other books is that scripture is not merely a human writing but is supernaturally brought about by God such that, though it is written by the hand of a human author, is also the very speech of God. As Paul wrote:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work,” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).inspiration

The word translated here as “inspired” literally means “God-breathed,”²This is indicated in a footnote to the NASB and is the reading of other translations like the NIV or as the ESV puts it, “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” Scripture is not merely a human record of what God said and did in the past. Rather, the words of Scripture come from the very mouth of God. Note what Jesus Himself said during a confrontation with the Sadducees:

“But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living,” (Matthew 22:31-32).

When quoting from a Scripture that was written by Moses many centuries before that time, Jesus can nevertheless say to His contemporaries that what they read there was spoken to them by God. Scripture is God’s speech, not only to those in the time it was written, but still to us now! This is what it means for a book to truly be Scripture.