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I am finishing up a two year contract, and applying for jobs, so I would appreciate prayer. Some places I am applying are Christian institutions. I found an institution that had a doctrinal statement that says that the Bible the only infallible, authoritative word of God.Why would any Christian say that? That means either Jesus IS the Bible, or else Jesus is not infallible and authoritative.John supposed if everything Jesus did was written down, the world could not contain the books. I John says we do not know what we shall be. We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. There are things about Jesus that Jesus knows that aren't in the Bible. The sum totality of Christ is not contained in the Bible.So why do churches, organizations, etc. have doctrinal statements like this

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/false dichotomy

Jesus is infallible and authoritative. He is more than the Bible

Are you pulling our legs here? You have to understand the context of the statement in question, which appears in most every orthodox statement of faith and many historic confessions, right? No, that statement is clearly not orthodox. I grew up Pentecostal, and Pentecostal statements of faith aren't so extreme. They don't exclude the possibility that a prophecy might be authoritative, for example, as far as I know. None of the denominational statements I've read do that. And they certainly do not exclude the idea that Christ is the Word of God, or require that one believe that Jesus is the Bible. I have encountered that or similar statements before, but the wording of this one is extreme, excluding Christ from being the authoritative infallible word of God, unless one believes Christ is the Bible. There are many variations of similar statements. This one seems to me to be amateurish, ill-thought out bad doctrine. The Second London Baptist confession says,The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Similar wording, but it doesn't exclude Christ from being the Word of God or require that we believe Jesus is the Bible. I would say that might be too extreme. The Spirit guides us into all truth. But it's not as extreme as the previously quoted statement, IMO.Westminster contains some similar thoughts, but the wording is longing. It promotes cessationist error, but it isn't as extreme as this brief statement. I am not sure how 'context' makes it better. Does the wording of the statement not matter to you because of 'context'? I searched for the phrase online and found a Charismatic evangelical church that has the alpha course and a link to Anglican theology that used the sentence in their doctrinal statement. I don't think it is a sentence found in many influential doctrinal statements. It doesn't contain bits that are found in other confessions and doctrinal statements.Isn't the fact that Jesus is the Word of God more central to our faith even than our view of inspiration of scripture?I do wonder why some organizations put the Bible at the top of the list of statements of faith instead of statements about the nature of the Godhead, the role of Christ, etc., which are actually more fundamental elements of our faith that predated the completion of the canon of scripture

Are you pulling our legs here? You have to understand the context of the statement in question, which appears in most every orthodox statement of faith and many historic confessions, right? No, that statement is clearly not orthodox. I grew up Pentecostal, and Pentecostal statements of faith aren't so extreme. They don't exclude the possibility that a prophecy might be authoritative, for example, as far as I know. None of the denominational statements I've read do that. And they certainly do not exclude the idea that Christ is the Word of God, or require that one believe that Jesus is the Bible. I have encountered that or similar statements before, but the wording of this one is extreme, excluding Christ from being the authoritative infallible word of God, unless one believes Christ is the Bible. There are many variations of similar statements. This one seems to me to be amateurish, ill-thought out bad doctrine. The Second London Baptist confession says,The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Similar wording, but it doesn't exclude Christ from being the Word of God or require that we believe Jesus is the Bible. I would say that might be too extreme. The Spirit guides us into all truth. But it's not as extreme as the previously quoted statement, IMO.Westminster contains some similar thoughts, but the wording is longing. It promotes cessationist error, but it isn't as extreme as this brief statement. I am not sure how 'context' makes it better. Does the wording of the statement not matter to you because of 'context'? I searched for the phrase online and found a Charismatic evangelical church that has the alpha course and a link to Anglican theology that used the sentence in their doctrinal statement. I don't think it is a sentence found in many influential doctrinal statements. It doesn't contain bits that are found in other confessions and doctrinal statements.Isn't the fact that Jesus is the Word of God more central to our faith even than our view of inspiration of scripture?I do wonder why some organizations put the Bible at the top of the list of statements of faith instead of statements about the nature of the Godhead, the role of Christ, etc., which are actually more fundamental elements of our faith that predated the completion of the canon of scripture. I honestly don't think you searched hard enough. That statement is very much a part of the doctrinal statement of many evangelical and pentecostal organizations and denominations.

What is unorthodox about believing the Bible to be infallible in its original form and as such is authoritative?

Exactly. And as a result, these gifts have an authority that is subordinate, not equal, to the authority of written Scripture. These utterances are to be tested by Scripture. They do not and cannot have an authority equal to Scripture. In order to dispute this, one must explain why prophecies and tongues and interpretations are not to be recorded in the Bibles of those who receive them.And in regard to this comment:

I have always appreciated the AG’s statement on this: 1. THE SCRIPTURES INSPIREDThe Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.I have often thought that the CoG statement is not quite as specific as it could be:

Is the Bible in its original documents infallible? We don't know, do we? We used to say the Bible was infallible...then we found some problems, and we hedged by saying, OK, but the ORIGINAL documents are infallible. Of course, that cannot be proven or disproven, so it's not falsifiable (at least until we can do time travel and see the original docs).

I would like to refocus the discussion on the words in question, the statement that that the Bible the only infallible, authoritative word of God.Two questions: Is Jesus the word of God? Is Jesus the Bible?Does anyone else see the obvious problem with the doctrinal statement?I have not seen this statement from any Pentecostal denomination, btw. Just one church website that referred to themselves as Charismatic evangelicals and made reference to Anglican theology