Have you ever heard someone say the Bible contains the Word of God, but isn’t actually the Word of God itself? This subtle shift in thinking has HUGE consequences!
This post addresses the dangerous idea that the Bible is not the literal Word of God, but merely contains it, or becomes it when read. If the Bible isn’t truly God’s word, can we really trust it? What happens if we start picking and choosing what we believe?
In my latest video, I dive deep into this question, exploring what the Bible says about itself and why it’s crucial to have a firm foundation in the truth of God’s Word.
Video Summary generated with Artificial Intelligence.
Does the Bible say it is the Word of God? Yes! Let’s look at some key verses.
“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”
This verse is powerful. It shows that the people in Thessalonica didn’t just hear words; they received the message as the actual Word of God. They understood that it wasn’t just human opinion.
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”
Did you catch that? All Scripture is God-breathed! This means God Himself inspired it. It’s not just a collection of stories or wise sayings. It has divine origin and authority.
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
This verse emphasizes the purity and completeness of God’s Word. It warns us not to add to or subtract from it. It’s perfect as it is.
These verses clearly teach that the Bible is the Word of God. But what about those who say it only “contains” the Word, or that it “becomes” the Word when we read it? Let’s take a look at those ideas.
Many people suggest that the Bible only contains the Word of God, or that it becomes the Word of God when we read it. But these ideas have major problems.
If the Bible only contains the Word of God, who decides which parts are true? If the Bible merely contains the Word of God, then we get to pick and choose what we believe. That puts us in charge, not God.
I recall a story of when the Presbyterian and Methodist churches uniting in Australia, they formed what was called the “Uniting Church.” The basis of the union stated that the Bible “contains the Word of God.” This seemingly small shift had big consequences.
This change led to theological liberalism. The church began to accept things that go against the Bible. What were some of the negative consequences?
- Acceptance of evolution
- Belief in millions of years
- Acceptance of LGBT issues
- Acceptance of abortion
This is a slippery slope. Once you move away from the Bible as the ultimate authority, it’s easy to compromise on other important issues.
What if the Bible only becomes the Word of God when we read it? That means its truth is based on our interpretation. How can we know what to believe if the Bible’s authority is based on our individual reading of it? This view puts human reason above God’s revelation. We end up determining truth for ourselves.
A compromised view of the Bible often starts with a rejection of a literal Genesis account. Why is Genesis so important?
Genesis 1-11 is the foundation for all doctrine, including gender and marriage. If we don’t take Genesis literally, we undermine the rest of the Bible.
Once you reject a literal Genesis, you’re on a “slippery slope” of unbelief. You’ll start accommodating cultural trends instead of judging them by Scripture. You might even change Scripture to fit with the culture. That’s what happens when we don’t stand on the foundation that the Bible is the Word of God.
If the Bible is truly the Word of God, it must be foundational to our thinking. It should shape how we view the world, how we make decisions, and how we live our lives.
A true biblical worldview is built on the foundation of God’s Word. It’s about seeing the world through God’s eyes, not our own.
To understand what a biblical worldview is, check out other resources that will help you understand more.
The Bible is the inherent, infallible Word of God. Reject the dangerous lie that the Bible is merely a collection of human ideas. Stand firm on the truth!
Don’t let anyone tell you that the Bible is just a book of suggestions or that it’s open to interpretation. It’s the living, breathing Word of God.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
