WHAT a powerful expression by the apostle Paul on the excelling value of the Bible! He was, of course, referring specifically to that part of the Bible available to him at the time​—the writings that people sometimes refer to as the Old Testament. But in principle his words apply with equal force to all of the Bible’s 66 books, including those written by Jesus’ faithful disciples in the first century C.E.

Do you esteem the Bible as highly as Paul did? Do you think that the writers of the Bible really were inspired by God? First-century Christians did. That belief never wavered during the ensuing centuries. Fourteenth-century English cleric John Wycliffe, for example, viewed the Bible as “the infallible rule of truth.” The New Bible Dictionary, commenting on Paul’s words quoted above, states that divine “inspiration, therefore, guarantees the truth of all that the Bible asserts.”

WHAT exactly did the apostle Paul mean when he said that the Bible is “inspired of God”? (2 Timothy 3:16) Paul, writing in the Greek language, used a word that literally means “God-breathed.” By that, Paul meant that God by means of his holy spirit guided the Bible writers to write only what He wanted them to write.