The Doctrine of the Word of God (John Frame)

"My thesis is that God's word, in all its qualities and aspects, is a personal communication from him to us." So begins John Frame in his book about the doctrine of the Word of God. Further, he argues "that Scripture, together with all of God's other communications to us, should be treated as nothing less than God's personal word." And he is trying, "above all else, to be ruthlessly consistent with Scripture's own view of itself." He is "defending the Bible by the Bible." That sounds (and is) circular, but "unavoidable when one seeks to defend an ultimate standard of truth, for one's defense must itsel be accountable to that standard." He absolutely brings extrabiblical considerations to bear, but he places them under the Bible in terms of authority. We all have something we treat as the ultimate authority in our lives—be it autonomous reason, personal feeling, or something other—and for Frame, that ultimate authority is the Bible.

This work has four parts:

• Orientation
• The Personal-Word model (thesis introduced above) and the authority of Scripture
• God's Word in Modern Theology
• Modern view of revelation, including how reason, history, and human subjectivity relate to it
• The Nature of God's Word
• Defining God's Word and considering it as His controlling power, meaningful authority, and personal presence
• How the Word Comes to Us
• The bulk of the volume, looking at many topics, including God's revelation (through events, words, and people), God's Written Word (Old and New Testaments, and the views of Jesus and the Apostles towards them), the canon of Scripture, characteristics of Scripture (including inspiration, content, inerrancy, clarity, necessity, comprehensiveness, sufficiency, transmission, translations, teaching, interpretation, and more), problems, assurance, and other topics. 

The above is the first half (334 pages) of the book; Frame then includes ~300 pages of  Appendicies (A through Q!) covering related material (often, other articles he has written on this topic from different perspectives).

What a read. Amazing! I read at least 300 pages of this all told, and want to read more. It is magisterial and impressive. Frame has such a way with words: he can clearly and succinctly convey profound concepts like few others I've read. And his devotion to using Scripture was a refreshing change from some theological works that spend more time comparing and criticizing views of other theologians than looking at the Bible itself. This one is highly recommended.

Rating: A+