The Bible is all about the Good News that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19). In many ways and differing words, the message of the apostles and prophets in the Holy Spirit-inspired chapters and verses of the Old and New Testaments is the message of how God chose to deal with the cause of the separation between Himself and humanity—our sin.
The Holy Bible tells that story and how God’s forgiving grace in Jesus Christ makes it possible for men and women to live as forgiven children of the heavenly Father. The Bible speaks of how God interacts with people, through His Word and sacraments. Through these “means of grace,” we receive the forgiveness of our sin and are filled with the sure hope of eternal life with God after our sojourn on this earth has ended.
These truths are basic to all we believe, teach, and confess in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and they come only from God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible, God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16) Word in Holy Scripture. The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament are the written Word of God and the only rule and norm of faith and of practice.