Is Scripture Many Human Letters, or One Divine Word to One Family Yet to be Revealed?

We live in a moment when seminar rooms and social feeds tell us that Scripture is a patchwork of ancient voices, each bound to its city, dialect, and decade. In that telling, “Paul to the Corinthians” is private mail, “Luke” is a careful editor, and theology is a craft of reconstructing cultures so we can recover meanings long buried. But what if that confidence in human method is the very thing blinding us to what Scripture actually is and how it speaks today? What if the Bible is not a library of competing pens, but the living speech of the one Author who used many instruments to address one people born of the Cross, a people who did not exist as a spiritual family before Christ and will be revealed in glory with Him? If the Holy Spirit “breathed out” all Scripture, then whose words are we hearing when we read? Are they Paul’s, John’s, or God’s own address to His Church (2 Timothy 3:16–17)? And if God is truly the Author, why would we divide His Word by geography and turn letters into territorial boundaries inside Christ’s body?

The starting point is inspiration. Scripture testifies that its origin is divine. “All Scripture is inspired by God,” and “no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Timothy 3:16–17; 2 Peter 1:20–21). If the Spirit is the Author, the apostles and prophets are instruments in the Author’s hand, as a pen is in a writer’s fingers. That is why the most dangerous move is to carve the canon into “Paul’s words” and “God’s words,” as if some lines are more human than divine. Fragmenting Scripture in that way undermines its foundation, because it denies the one Author who speaks through every line. The Church has long recognized that when we treat the Bible as merely human literature, we do not honor context. We deny God’s authorship and invite confusion in doctrine and life. Our recent presentation states this plainly and well: viewing Scripture as “merely human writings” leads to a loss of authority and coherence, because we have already lost sight of who is speaking.

This is why a posture of humility before the Spirit is essential. The same Spirit who authored the Word must illumine it. The “natural person” does not accept the things of the Spirit, “since they are spiritually discerned,” but believers “receive the Spirit who is from God” so that we might understand what God has freely and graciously given (1 Corinthians 2:12–14). Jesus promised that the Spirit of truth would guide us into all truth (John 16:13), and He Himself “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45; see also Psalm 119:18). Illumination is God’s gracious act, and without the Spirit, interpretation collapses into human traditions and philosophies that ultimately contradict apostolic teaching.

Here is the heart of the matter. Theology itself begins as heresy (theos logos = science about God), for who can study God and pretend to have mastered Him? God reveals Himself to us; without His revelation, we may never know Him. Exegesis and Hermeneutics are theological disciplines that attempt to unpack Scripture's original meaning and its application today, yet Scripture itself never ages. The historical-critical method is one approach to this heretical work, yet it fundamentally misunderstands its subject. The people being investigated are not yet known by the world until they are revealed with Christ. They don't inherit cultures from Rome, Corinth, or Ephesus—they have a unique Culture given to them by The Holy Spirit who does everything in them. How would you properly study them? Where, then, does historical‑critical study fit? The people concerned by Scripture are united in the same Spirit across generations, yet historical-criticism studies only one generation. Isn't that folly? To achieve its mission of misleading people, theology begins with assumptions that the Bible is primarily a human document to be dissected by secular tools. That assumption is not neutral. It leads to the blasphemous claim that scholars can separate “Paul’s words” from “God’s words,” which in practice produces a cafeteria Christianity where we pick texts that fit modern tastes and discard the rest. This is a spiritual danger because it rejects the supernatural nature of Scripture and reduces God’s eternal truth to time-bound texts. The result is moral relativism, doctrinal confusion, and a divided Church.

If the choice is between human pride and divine revelation, Scripture warns us which road ends in darkness. Paul [and you know it not Paul speaking] tells us to beware of deceptive philosophies that take us captive through human tradition (Colossians 2:8). God has made the wisdom of the world foolish, for the world did not come to know God through its wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:20–21). James exposes wisdom that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:15). Romans rebukes those who claim to be wise yet become fools (Romans 1:22). Elevating method over the Spirit is not merely unwise. It is spiritually perilous. The meaning that matters most for believers is not reconstructed behind the text, but the canonical voice that confronts us in the text.

What, then, of the letters “to” Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and Galatia? Are the “letters to the Romans” or “to the Corinthians” merely local messages for long‑gone audiences? The New Testament identifies one Church, one family, one Word. Guided by the Spirit, Paul orders the churches to circulate their letters: "Read the letter from Laodicea" and share yours with them (Colossians 4:16). He often frames counsel as "as in all the churches of the saints" (1 Corinthians 14:33–36). From the beginning, Christian communities recognized these writings as God's Word for the whole family of God. Canon is not a cage placed over the Bible. It is the Spirit's way of gathering and guarding God's speech for all the saints. In fact, through Christ, God created a new humanity, not a patchwork of local tribes. “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We are “fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,” being built into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:19–22). Heavenly citizenship, not geography, is now the defining identity of those addressed by God’s Word. Those in Ephesus were not merely “Ephesians.” They were citizens of heaven, united with believers everywhere. To treat Scripture as if God wrote different gospels for different postcodes is to deny the Spirit’s creation of one family.

This means there is, in the deepest sense, no "letter to the Romans" that is limited to Romans, nor any "letter to the Corinthians" fenced off from Kigali or Seoul. There is God's one Word to Christ's one body, a people born by the Cross and sealed by the Spirit. If the Church is one new humanity in Christ, it follows that the Word addresses one family. Paul declares we are "no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God's household" (Ephesians 2:19–22). He insists that our deepest identity is "in Christ," not in ethnicity or station (Galatians 3:28). When we insist on distinguishing the Church in Rome from the Church in Corinth as if they were different species, we do not honor context. We divide what the Spirit has made one. Why would a Rwandan or Singaporean believer stand back from Romans until a new "local" letter appears? The canon itself refuses that logic. Division is the adversary's work; unity in the truth is the Spirit's fruit (John 17:20–23). So ask yourself. When you open Romans, do you hear distant advice for strangers, or your Father's voice training your household? When you read 1 Corinthians, do you see a foreign culture, or your own family being sanctified by the same Spirit who indwells you?

A "Spirit-led hermeneutic" does not despise grammar or history. It refuses to enthrone them. We must fully reject the heretical historical-critical method which fragments God's unified voice into mere human documents. Instead, we pray first*, "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things in your law"* (Psalm 119:18). We trust the Spirit to guide us into all truth (John 16:13). We let Scripture interpret Scripture because one Author speaks with one voice. We believe in the Unseen. It is not anti-intellectual. It is anti-autonomy. It puts every tool in its proper place, serving the Author who alone gives understanding. The choice is not between Spirit and sense, but between Spirit‑led sense and autonomous suspicion.

Consider the alternative. If you will not practice the Word because you believe it was not addressed to you, what does that reveal about your heart? Is the problem that Scripture lacks clarity, or that you have not received the Spirit who marks Christ’s people and unites them to His Church? Why prefer the applause of scholars to the anointing that teaches believers “about all things” (1 John 2:27)? Why chase the wisdom that God calls foolish when the living Word stands ready to “teach, rebuke, correct, and train” you for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17; Hebrews 4:12)? The consequences of rejecting the Holy Spirit's guidance in understanding Scripture are severe: divine authority is undermined, faith fragments, spiritual blindness spreads, and the Church is torn apart by methods that slice the canon into regional fiefdoms.

To be clear, the danger of rejecting the Holy Spirit is not scholarship itself. The danger is boasting in intellectual tools as if the Spirit were unnecessary. Many who are zealous for historical method drift into that posture without noticing. As Isaiah 35:8 declares, "A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for the one who walks that way." James 3:15 warns of wisdom that is "earthly, unspiritual, demonic," while Paul reminds us that "God has made the wisdom of the world foolish" (1 Corinthians 1:20-21) and rebukes those who "claiming to be wise, became fools" (Romans 1:22). Understanding Scripture doesn't require a theological degree but the wisdom of God, which is Christ himself (1 Corinthians 1:24). The antidote is not anti‑intellectualism. It is repentance.

So what does repentance look like in practice? First, confess with joy that Scripture does not merely contain God’s Word. It is God’s Word in its entirety. Second, reject the habit of sitting in judgment over the text. Receive it on your knees as the family charter of heaven. Third, embrace your new identity. You belong to a people who did not exist before the Cross. You are not “Roman” or “Corinthian” first. You are in Christ, and the Word that created you now governs you. These are not slogans. They are the way of holiness. “Contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all,” and ask the Lord to renew His Church by restoring confidence in His voice (Jude 1:3). Stand firm, equip others, and pray for revival under the living Word.

Let me end with gentle questions meant to search our hearts. When you approach the Bible this week, will you come as a judge or as a child? Will you allow methods to divide what the Spirit has united, or will you seek the mind of Christ with His people across the world? Will you cling to labels the Cross has abolished, or will you live as a citizen of heaven whose King still speaks? If the Author is God, whose will must finally yield?

Remember, beloved, that Christ could return at any moment. "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel's voice, and with the trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Let us awaken from spiritual slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. In these last days, deception abounds just as Scripture foretold. "Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Let us not be numbered among those who, having rejected truth, face eternal separation from God. Instead, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, hold fast to His Word, and live each day in joyful anticipation of His return.

Recommended Readings

• The Noise of the Age and the Narrow Way of the Watcher

• The Great Reversal: When the Church Becomes the Shepherd of Christ

• When the Earth Breaks and the Watchmen Sleep: A Prophetic Cry to the Wise Virgins

• The Gospel of SELF and the Death of the Cross: A Final Trumpet to a Modernized Church

• Is Damascus’ Fiery Night of 16 July 2025 the Opening Scene of Isaiah 17’s “Ruined Heap”?

• When Babel Becomes Beautiful: The Parable of Cultural Blend and the Death of Distinction

• The Silence of the Saints: Why the Church No Longer Speaks Against the Powers of the Age

Further Resources

• Explore Online Ministry Opportunities at Open Christian Ministries (USA)

• Explore Christian Business Services at the Center for Faith and Work (Rwanda)

• Pursue an Affordable Online Christian Degree at Open Christian University (USA)

• Stay updated and connect with our community by subscribing to our email list Here

• Kindly Share Your Question for Consideration in Future Articles. Click Here to Submit

• Ask a Question or Utilize Our Trained AI Bot to Craft Your Evangelical Article - Begin Here

• Access Educational Videos in Kinyarwanda at Center for Faith and Work or in English at Open Christian Ministries.