Scripture is the “word of God”. This is the title Christians most commonly give to the Bible, and the expression is rich in meaning. It is also the title given to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son.
The word of God is Scripture. The Word of God is Jesus. This close association between God’s written word and his eternal Word is intentional and has been the custom of the Church since the first generation. This does not mean that the Scriptures are divine in the same way that Jesus is divine. They are, rather, divinely inspired and, as such, are unique in world literature, just as the Incarnation of the eternal Word is unique in human history.
We cannot, therefore, conceive of one without the other: the Bible without Jesus, or Jesus without the Bible. Each is the interpretive key to the other. And because Christ is the subject of all the Scriptures, St. Jerome insists, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”.
When we approach the Bible, then, we approach Jesus, the Word of God; and in order to encounter Jesus, we approach him in a prayerful study of the inspired word of God, the Sacred Scriptures.