This small book, The Bible as a Guide to Life, explores the origin of the Bible, its limitations in being both a divinely inspired and a humanly created document, and being a valuable guide to spiritual life showing us how to reach our highest potential.

Christians believe that the Holy Scriptures, or the Bible, are the inspired Word of God in written form. The writings can be viewed as divine communication or God’s self-disclosure to humanity. The Scriptures identify God as the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and are an invitation to a close relationship with this transcendent Being. They include information unattainable through science or reason, addressing life’s ultimate questions such as the purpose of life and the hereafter.

The Bible is not literally the Word of God – its contents weren’t just dictated by God for individuals to write down word for word. Nevertheless, the book expresses, sometimes in metaphor, what God said, did, continues to do, and will yet do in the future.

The ultimate divine revelation was in the coming to earth of Jesus Christ who brought the message of God’s Divine Love as the way to salvation and at-onement with the Father. In teaching this vital truth, he also exemplified it by his life.

The Bible was written over a period spanning about fifteen hundred years by humans from different walks of life, different time periods, different locations, and in three different languages. It has since been translated into hundreds of modern languages. The writers wrote in their own style, influenced by their background, education, culture, and political situation of the time.

Furthermore, today’s Bible is the product of a complex process of document selection, copying, editing, compilation, and translation – all human activities subject to error. As a result, there are intertwining strands of teachings and even contradictions. Because of these factors and the complexity of the canonization process which occurred about three centuries after Jesus’ death, the Bible is a set of writings with great diversity. Yet, it is a book that has inspired millions, pointed them to their Creator, and set them on the way to salvation. Without the guidance and inspiration of the Spirit of God within the vast and varied range of human endeavours, such result would be highly unlikely to be achieved by humans alone.

The book is available as a free PDF download from here.  It is presently not available as paperback or Kindle.