“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” – The Book of Common Prayer, p. 236, (Collect for Proper 29 composed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer)
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength. These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down, and when you are getting up… – Deuteronomy 6:5-7
“I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your Word.” – Psalm 119:15-16
“I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your Word. I do not turn away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” – Psalm 119:101-3
“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” – Psalm 119:105
“….my heart stands in awe of your words. I rejoice at your Word like one who finds a great spoil.” – Psalm 119: 161-162
“How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them – they are more than the sand….” – Psalm 139:17-18
Point your kids in the right direction – when they’re old they won’t be lost. – Proverbs 22:6
“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of God will stand forever.” – Isaiah 40:8
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:8-11
“He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.” – Ezekiel 3:1-3
“But Jesus said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it.’” – Luke 8:21
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” – Luke 24:13
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” – Luke 24:32
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came in being.” – John 1:1-3
“The word is near to you, on your lips and in your heart.” – Romans 10:8
“So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” – Romans 10:17
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” - Romans 12:2
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” – II Timothy 3:16-17
“Indeed, the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12
“So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, eat it; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.’ So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.” – Revelation 10:9-10
Quotations by Theologians and Spiritual Writers
"The Bible is to us what the star was to the wise men; but if we spend all our time in gazing upon it, observing its motions, and admiring its splendor, without being led to Christ by it, the use of it will be lost on us. - Thomas Adams
“Reading the Bible without meditating upon it is like trying to eat without swallowing.” – Anonymous
"Take away, O Lord, the veil of my heart while I read the Scriptures." - Lancelot Andrewes
"The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home." – Augustine of Hippo
"Let us therefore yield ourselves and bow to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which can neither err nor deceive." – Augustine of Hippo
Often, through the grace of the almighty Lord, certain passages in the sacred text are better understood when the divine Word is read privately. The soul, conscious of its faults and recognizing the truth of what it has heard, is struck by the dart of grief and pierced by the sword of compunction, so that it wishes to do nothing but weep and wash away its stains with floods of tears.” – St. Augustine of Hippo
"The reason people are down on the Bible is that they are not up on the Bible." – William Ward Ayer
"Apply yourself wholly to the Scriptures, and apply the Scriptures wholly to yourself." – Johann A. Bengel
"The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England." – Sir William Blackstone
"The deceit, the lie of the devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God's Word. Thus he dangles before man's fantasy a kingdom of faith, of power, and of peace, into which only he can enter who consents to the temptations; and conceals from men that he, as the devil, is the most unfortunate and unhappy of beings, since he is finally and eternally rejected by God." – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Remember that it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian." – Thomas Brooks
"Read the Bible as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before you ready-made. Face the book with a new attitude as something new." – Martin Buber
"God's book of "grace" is just like his book of nature; it is his thoughts written out. This great book, the Bible, this most precious volume is the heart of God made legible; it is the gold of God's love, beaten out into gold leaf, so that therewith our thoughts might be plated, and we also might have golden, good, and holy thoughts concerning him."
"Pray and read, read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men." – John Bunyan
"I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about such things, and inquire from the Holy Scriptures all these things." – John Chrysostom
"I have found in the Bible words for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterance for my hidden griefs and pleadings for my shame and feebleness." – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Who speaks for God? He does quite nicely for Himself. Through His holy and infallible Word - and the quiet obedience of His servants." – Charles Colson
“It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.” – The Rev. William Sloane Coffin
"This book out-lives, out-loves, out-fits, out-lasts, out-reaches, out-runs, and out-ranks all books. This book is faith producing. It is hope awakening. It is death destroying, and those who embrace it find forgiveness of sin.” – Arcturus Z. Conrad
"The Bible is a window in this prison of hope, through which we look into eternity.” – Timothy Dwight
“God’s Word is an inexhaustible spring of life – Ephrem of Edessa (306-373 A.D.)
"Listen less to your own thoughts and more to God's thoughts." – François Fénelon
"The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.” – Flavel
"The Bible as a book stands alone. There never was, nor ever will be, another like it. As there is but one sun to enlighten the world naturally, so there is but one Book to enlighten the world spiritually. May that Book become to each of us the man of our counsel, the guide of our journey, and our support and comfort in life and in death?" – A. Galloway
"Having knowledge of the Bible is essential to a rich and meaningful life." – Billy Graham
"If our children have the background of a godly, happy home and this unshakable faith that the Bible is indeed the Word of God, they will have a foundation that the forces of hell cannot shake." – Ruth Graham
"Christ teaches by the Spirit of wisdom in the heart, opening the understanding to the Spirit of revelation in the word." - Matthew Henry
"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." - Patrick Henry
“Once we truly grasp the message of the New Testament, it is impossible to read the Old Testament again without seeing Christ on every page, in every story, foreshadowed or anticipated in every event and narrative. The Bible must be read as a whole, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation, letting promise and fulfillment guide our expectations for what we will find there.” – Michael Horton
“Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Jesus.” – St. Jerome
“I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [Scriptures], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else.” – St. Jerome
"The Bible is the most thought suggesting book in the world. No other deals with such grand themes." – Herrick Johnson
"If God is a reality, and the soul is a reality, and you are an immortal being, what are you doing with your Bible shut?" – Herrick Johnson
"The Bible is the light of my understanding, the joy of my heart, the fullness of my hope, the clarified of my affections, the mirror of my thoughts, the consoler of my sorrows, the guide of my soul through this gloomy labyrinth of time, the telescope went from heaven to reveal to the eye of man the amazing glories of the far distant world." - Sir William Jones
"The Bible is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.” - Immanuel Kant
“When you read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, ‘It is talking to me and about me.’” – Soren Kierkegaard
“Scripture is the manger in which the Christ lies.’ As a mother goes to a cradle to find her baby so the Christian goes to the Bible to find Jesus. Don’t let us inspect the cradle and forget to worship the baby.” – Martin Luther
"The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that." - James McCosh
“I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it…. What is the food of the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and….not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.” – George Müller
"Some read the Bible to learn and some read the Bible to hear from heaven." - Andrew Murray
"I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment." – John Newton
"From all human oracles, however self-confident, we turn at last to the inspired Word, where instead of ambiguous and untrustworthy utterances, we find teachings distinct and definite, authoritative and infallible." - A.T. Pierson
"The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions. It remains the most published and most read book in the world of literature." - Bernard Ramm
"The Christian who is careless in Bible reading will be careless in Christian living." - Max Reich
"The Holy Scriptures are that divine instrument by which we are taught what to believe, concerning God, ourselves, and all things, and how to please God unto eternal life." - John Robinson
"The Bible is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching." - John Ruskin
"Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible, nor can be proved by the Bible." - J.C. Ryle
"The theories of men changed from day to day. Much that is taught new will tomorrow be in the discard, but the word of the Lord will endure forever." - Joseph Fielding Smith
"The more you read your Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it." – C.H. Spurgeon
"It is wonderful the effect of a single verse of Scripture when the Spirit of God applies it to the soul. What power would come upon the soul if we would grasp a single line of Scripture and suck the honey out of it till our soul is filled with sweetness?" – C.H. Spurgeon
"We need to repent of the haughty way in which we sometimes stand in judgment upon Scripture and must learn to sit humbly under its judgment instead." – John Stott
"I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word." – Tertullian
"Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood." – R.A. Torrey
"God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Holy Trinity is called "The Word." The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind." – A.W. Tozer
“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select just a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than the whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” – A.W. Tozer
"All Sacred Scriptures is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ." - Hugh of St. Victor
"I have read through the entire Bible many times. I now make it my practice to go through it once a year. It is the book of all others for lawyers as well as ministers; and I pity the person that cannot find in it a rich supply of thought, and of rules for his or her conduct. It fits a person for life - it prepares them for death."
"The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equity with his fellow-man." - Daniel Webster
"I want to know one thing, the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book! Oh, give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be: "A man of one book." – John Wesley
"I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above." - George Whitefield
"No spiritual discipline is more important than the intake of God's word.” - Donald S. Whitney
"Some people read their Bibles in Hebrew, some in Greek; I like to read mine in the Holy Ghost." - Smith Wigglesworth
United States Presidents and the Bible
John Adams, our second President of the United States, used to read the entire Bible each year from cover to cover. He studied the Scriptures every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.
“I have myself for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit and temper of mind which I now recommend to you; that is, with the intention and desire that it contribute to my advancement in wisdom and virtue … My custom is, to read four or five chapters every morning, immediately after rising form my bed. It employs about an hour of my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day.” – President John Adams in a letter to his son
Jimmy Carter, our thirty-ninth President, reads the Bible daily and has taught a Sunday school class for over three decades.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, our thirty-fourth President, and his family used the Bible each day during family devotions with each family member taking his or her turn in reading a passage.
"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet - anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives." - Ulysses S. Grant
"The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.” - Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson, our seventh President, referred to the Bible as “the rock on which our Republic rests.” He read three to five chapters of the Bible each day.
"The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. I speak as a man of the world.” - Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln, our sixteenth President, called the Bible “the best gift God has ever given to man…But for it we could not know right from wrong.” The quote I most like by Lincoln is, “I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book that you can by reason and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man. It is the best book which God has given to man.”
"All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated through this book; but for the book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable to man are contained in it." - Abraham Lincoln
Ronald Regan, the fortieth President, wrote, “Inside the Bible’s pages lie all the answers to all the problems man has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible…It is my firm belief that the enduring values presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation. The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, and refresh our souls.”
Woodrow Wilson, our twenty-eighth President, once noted, “The Bible is the Word of life. I beg that you will read it and find this out for yourself. When you have read the Bible you will know it is the Word of God, because you will have found in it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty. A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world who has deprived himself of the Bible.”
In his wonderful book The Contemplative Pastor Eugene Petersen poses the question, “How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion?” Today, clergy are pulled in countless directions, communicated with constantly in more ways than ever and lead extremely complex and demanding lives.
The Church Fathers and the Bible
Sometimes people get the idea that sola Scriptura (the belief that the Scripture is the ultimate authority for the Christian), was a 16th-century invention. While it was definitely articulated a great deal through the controversies during the Reformation, its basic principles can be found deep in church history. Take a look at some of these early church fathers who seemed to believe in the primacy of Scripture:
Hippolytus (170-235)
“Some others are secretly introducing another doctrine, who have become disciples of one Noetus, who was a native of Smyrna, and lived not very long ago. This person was greatly puffed up and inflated with pride, being inspired by the conceit of a strange spirit. He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father Himself was born, and suffered, and died….But the case stands not thus; for the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner….the Scriptures themselves confute their senselessness, and attest the truth…The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them. Yet, though Noetus does not understand the truth, the Scriptures are not at once to be repudiated….The proper way, therefore, to deal with the question is first of all to refute the interpretation put upon these passages [of scripture] by these men, and then to explain their real meaning….For whenever they wish to attempt anything underhand, they mutilate the Scriptures. But let him quote the passage as a whole, and he will discover the reason kept in view in writing it….if they choose to maintain that their dogma is ratified by this passage [of scripture], as if He owned Himself to be the Father, let them know that it is decidedly against them, and that they are confuted by this very word….Many other passages [of scripture], or rather all of them, attest the truth. A man, therefore, even though he will it not, is compelled to acknowledge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man, to whom also the Father made all things subject, Himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit; and that these, therefore, are three. But if he desires to learn how it is shown still that there is one God, let him know that His power is one….What, then, will this Noetus, who knows nothing of the truth, dare to say to these things? And now, as Noetus has been confuted, let us turn to the exhibition of the truth itself, that we may establish the truth, against which all these mighty heresies have arisen without being able to state anything to the purpose. There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practise piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us took; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them.” (Against the Heresy of One Noetus, 1-4, 7-9)
Irenaeus (175)
“They [heretics] gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures…We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith….It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and to demonstrate the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these heretics rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to ‘the perfect’ apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon to the Church, but if they should fall away, the direst calamity….proofs of the things which are contained in the Scriptures cannot be shown except from the Scriptures themselves.” (Against Heresies, 1:8:1, 3:1:1, 3:3:1, 3:12:9)
Ambrose (330-397)
“For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?” (On the Duties of the Clergy, 1:23:102)
“The Arians, then, say that Christ is unlike the Father; we deny it. Nay, indeed, we shrink in dread from the word. Nevertheless I would not that your sacred Majesty should trust to argument and our disputation. Let us enquire of the Scriptures, of apostles, of prophets, of Christ. In a word, let us enquire of the Father…So, indeed, following the guidance of the Scriptures, our fathers [at the Council of Nicaea] declared, holding, moreover, that impious doctrines should be included in the record of their decrees, in order that the unbelief of Arius should discover itself, and not, as it were, mask itself with dye or face-paint.” (Exposition of the Christian Faith, 1:6:43, 1:18:119)
Clement of Alexandria (150-215)
“But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth, till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves.” – Clement of Alexandria (The Stromata, 7:16)
Augustine (354–430)
“In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind….In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself.” – Augustine (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 11:5)
“Every sickness of the soul hath in Scripture its proper remedy.” (Expositions on the Psalms, 37:2)
Cyprian (248)
“Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: ‘The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.’ Also the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized, and taught to observe all things which He commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed.” (Letter 73:2)
Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386)
“For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” (Catechetical Lectures, 4:17)
“This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture-proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures.” (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford: Parker, 1845, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 4.17).
Dionysius of Alexandria (265)
“Nor did we evade objections, but we endeavored as far as possible to hold to and confirm the things which lay before us, and if the reason given satisfied us, we were not ashamed to change our opinions and agree with others; but on the contrary, conscientiously and sincerely, and with hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures.” (cited in Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, 7:24)
Gregory of Nyssa (335-394)
“we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings…And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a mere demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were agreed that there is something more trustworthy than any of these artificial conclusions, namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture point to: and so I deem that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to what has been said, whether this inspired teaching harmonizes with it all. And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set?” - (On the Soul and the Resurrection)
Basil the Great (379)
Enjoying as you do the consolation of the Holy Scriptures, you stand in need neither of my assistance nor of that of anybody else to help you comprehend your duty. You have the all-sufficient counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you to what is right (Letter CCLXXXIII, ANCF, p. 312).
Hilary of Poitiers (300-368)
“Their treason involves us in the difficult and dangerous position of having to make a definite pronouncement, beyond the statements of Scripture, upon this grave and abstruse matter….We must proclaim, exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and so debar the heretics from robbing these Names of their connotation of Divine character, and compel them by means of these very Names to confine their use of terms to their proper meaning….I would not have you flatter the Son with praises of your own invention; it is well with you if you be satisfied with the written word.” (On the Trinity, 2:5, 3:23)
Jerome (347-420)
“When, then, anything in my little work seems to you harsh, have regard not to my words, but to the Scripture, whence they are taken.” (Letter, 48:20)
“I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [Scriptures], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else.” (Letter, 53:10)
Jerome (347-420)
“When Paula comes to be a little older and to increase like her Spouse in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man, let her go with her parents to the temple of her true Father but let her not come out of the temple with them. Let them seek her upon the world’s highway amid the crowds and the throng of their kinsfolk, and let them find her nowhere but in the shrine of the scriptures” (Letter, 107:7)
Justin Martyr (100-165)
“And now, if I say this to you, although I have repeated it many times, I know that it is not absurd so to do. For it is a ridiculous thing to see the sun, and the moon, and the other stars, continually keeping the same course, and bringing round the different seasons; and to see the computer who may be asked how many are twice two, because he has frequently said that they are four, not ceasing to say again that they are four; and equally so other things, which are confidently admitted, to be continually mentioned and admitted in like manner; yet that he who founds his discourse on the prophetic Scriptures should leave them and abstain from constantly referring to the same Scriptures, because it is thought he can bring forth something better than Scripture. The passage, then, by which I proved that God reveals that there are both angels and hosts in heaven is this: ‘Praise the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels: praise Him, all His hosts.’” (Dialogue with Trypho, 85)
Theodoret (393-457)
“I shall yield to scripture alone.” (Dialogues, 1)
Here is a good quote from J. N. D. Kelly:
The clearest token of the prestige enjoyed by (Scripture) is the fact that almost the entire theological effort of the Fathers, whether their aims were polemical or constructive, was expended upon what amounted to the exposition of the Bible. Further, it was everywhere taken for granted that, for any doctrine to win acceptance, it had first to establish its Scriptural basis (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, pp. 42, 46).