The Purpose of Scripture - 03/31/2024

James, in continuing his discussion about the wisdom that is from above, states in a negative way the purpose of Scripture (James 4:5, 6). He asks the question, “Do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose?” The answer is “No, there is a purpose for Scripture.”

We might think there is no purpose for Scripture because we do not see Scripture’s value for our life. We see no relevance between Scripture and our life. We might think, “Why should I concern myself with an antiquated writing?”

However, there is great value to reading, meditating upon, studying, and applying to our lives the word of God. It gives us insight as to how to live in this world and truly be happy. Consider the many proverbs written by Solomon. Consider the Psalms that teach us how to be thankful for things in this world and how to express those thoughts of gratitude to God.

When we read all the Old Testament stories of how God dealt with people, we must be impressed with two things. One is the length of time God works with a group of people to get them to change their lifestyle so it is in conformity with His way of living and His standards. The second thing is how devastating the destruction is when God punishes people for not repenting of their evil ways.

We often miss the love of God that is expressed in these Old Testament stories. God desires to impress upon us His patience with people, but also the certainty of His word when He speaks of the punishment to come to a nation or group of people. He wants us to have the hope of eternal life along with the focus to not crave the evil things in this world.

To prove his point, James possibly combines several Old Testament passages to stress how “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” To the proud, those in opposition to God, He will “go to battle” against them, He will resist them. To the humble, those who submit to God, He will do good things aimed at helping these individuals in life.

Scripture is full of examples of God dealing with those who both resist and submit to Him. Scripture is not useless, nor has no purpose, and certainly is not something that is full of vanity. On the contrary, Scripture has the purpose of informing us of the nature of God, giving us reasons to submit to Him and the reward for our obedience to and trust in His word. The purpose of Scripture is to help us to be living God’s way. - cgm

Scriptural quotations from the NASB1995.