“The Bible’s message is the power of God to salvation, but that message comes to us in a particular form . . . . When we detach the message from the medium, we muzzle the message itself. The message can still get through; the Spirit blows where he listeth. But the message does not get through in its full transfiguring power” (Peter Leithart, Deep Exegesis, 34).

Scripture once transformed the world precisely because Bible students clung to the letter. Once the letter is reduced to a malleable vehicle, Scripture loses its potency. It no longer shapes our imaginations, our poetry, or our politics, because it is not allowed to say anything we do not already know. We have lost the Bible because we are no longer theologians of the letter (Peter Leithart, Deep Exegesis, 6).

“Only after we have studied and practiced are we ready to teach” (Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, 11).

“By the end of the Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy), the Bible has already described or alluded to all five of the major covenants that guide Scripture’s plot structure . . . The rest of the Old Testament then builds on this portrait in detail” (Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, 6).

“Putting the Bible under a microscope (careful study) should always result in finding ourselves under its microscope, as Scripture changes us more into Christ’s likeness” (Jason S. DeRouchie, How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament, 5).

“Which is more important: an airplane’s left wing or right wing? That’s a bad question. and so is this one: Which is more valuable: ten minutes of prayer or ten hours of study? Answer: Ten hours of study on your knees” (Andrew David Naselli, How to Understand and Apply the New Testament, 11).

The Bible has a twofold history, internal and external. The internal history deals with the character of its narrative and its teaching, as a revelation of God and of God’s will: the external history tells how and when the several books were written, and how they have been preserved to us. . . . The present volume deals solely with the latter part of the Bible’s external history, the transmission of the sacred text. It is a subject upon which very much has been written, and each section of it has engaged the attention and occupied the lives of many scholars. My object has been to condense within the limits of a moderate volume the principal results at which these specialists have arrived, so as to furnish the reader who is not himself a specialist in textual criticism with a concise history of the Bible text, and to enable him to form an intelligent opinion on the textual questions which continually present themselves to the Bible student (Frederic G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts: Being a History of the Text and Its Translation, iii-iv).

[The history of the English Bible] is twofold. There is the external history of the different versions, as to when and by whom and under what circumstances they were made; and there is the internal history which deals with their relation to other texts, with their filiation one on another, and with the principles by which they have been successively modified. The external history is a stirring record of faithful and victorious courage: the internal history is not less remarkable from the enduring witness which it bears to that noble catholicity which is the glory of the English Church (B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible, 7-8).

There is a famous saying, which dates from the times of persecution, that ‘the blood of Martyrs is the seed of the Church.’ It may be added in the like spirit that the voice of Holy Scripture is the spring and measure of individual faith. Both statements require to be modified in their application; but it remains generally true that the society which is founded by human devotion and labour, is quickened in its several members by the influence of the Word. So it is that the history of the vernacular Scriptures is in a great measure the history of personal faith. A people which is without a Bible in its mother tongue, or is restrained from using it, or willfully neglects it, is also imperfect, or degenerate, or lifeless in its apprehension of Christian Truth, and proportionately bereft of the strength which flows from a living Creed (B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible, 3).

[T]hey which God hath made governors in the world ought to rule if they be Christian. They ought to remember that they are heads and arms, to defend the body to minister peace health and wealth and even to save the body, and that they have received their offices of God to minister and to do service unto their brethren. King, subject, master, servant, are names in the world: but not in Christ. In Christ we are all one and even brethren. No man is his own but we are all Christ’s servants bought with Christ’s blood. Therefore ought no man to seek himself or his own profit: but Christ and his will. In Christ no man ruleth as a king his subjects, or a master his servants: but serveth as one hand doth to another and as the hands do unto the feet and the feet to the hands, as thou seest (1 Corinthians 13). We also serve not as servants unto masters: but as they which are bought with Christ’s blood serve Christ himself. We be here all servants unto Christ. For whatsoever we do unto another in Christ’s name that do we unto Christ, and the reward of that shall we receive of Christ. The king counteth his commons of Christ himself and therefore doeth them service willingly seeking no more of them than is sufficient to maintain peace and unity and to defend the realm. And they obey again willingly and lovingly as unto Christ. And of Christ every man seeketh his reward (William Tyndale, The obedience of a Christian Man, 183).