“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

Do you ever wonder where we got our Bible? Those of us who live in western countries have become accustomed to having the Bible available to us in our own language, and often we take it for granted. But God has given us His Word, and preserved it to us, in a wonderful way. As we see in our verse today, Peter reminds us that the Word of God did not come to us by the will of man, but rather that “holy men of God” spoke as they were “moved (inspired) by the Holy Ghost.”

It is generally understood that Moses was the one who wrote the first five books of the Bible, often referred to as the Pentateuch, and thus he was the first inspired writer. The Apostle John was the last writer of the Bible, for he lived longer than any of the other apostles and did not die until about 100 A.D. Moses lived about 1500 B.C., so that the Bible was written over a period of about 1600 years. We do not know exactly how many different authors were involved in writing the various books in the Bible, but there were probably at least thirty-six, and possibly as many as forty.

God has carefully preserved His Word to us, in spite of the efforts of Satan to get rid of it. There are many old manuscripts available to us, and some of these date back thousands of years. In 1947 the so-called “Dead Sea Scrolls” were discovered in the land of Israel, and these are now some of the oldest Bible manuscripts that we have.

We can be most thankful for the Bible, for it is God’s Word addressed directly to us. It tells us plainly what we are, but it also tells us who God is. It reveals to us how this world came into existence, and when it will end. The Bible does not satisfy all our curiosity, but everything we need to know in order to be saved and to lead a godly life in this world is given to us in God’s Word.