“You shouldn’t believe me,” Jesus said, “If I just make claims about myself.”

Now that sounds odd. Doesn’t the Gospel of John claim that Jesus is the “Word” spoken at creation? The “Word become flesh?”

How can Jesus not be credible?

But it turns out that Jesus always has others backing him up, always making his claims real to our hearts and minds.

There’s the Holy Spirit, who is always speaking, supernaturally, on Jesus’ behalf.

There were prophets, like John the Baptist.

And then there’s scripture.

Jesus makes the most amazing claims about scripture: Every word in the Bible points to him. He is the one who inspired the human authors through the millennia. That’s why he said, “Not one word, not one letter, not the least stroke of a pen,” would ever disappear from scripture.

But we often don’t read it that way. We pick out the verses we like and quote them, preach on them. We pick out verses which support our positions and use them against people we disagree with.

Before we do that, we should listen to what the Spirit is saying to our hearts.

Jesus is Lord, even of scripture.