How the Bible’s Humanity Helps Bring Its Message Near

Imagine a parent trying to explain something important to a five-year-old child. The parent could use technical vocabulary, complicated explanations, and ideas far beyond the child’s ability to understand. But that would not be very helpful. A loving parent is more personal. They choose familiar words and examples the child understands. They may tell a story, point to something the child can see, or explain the same idea in more than one way. The parent does not become less intelligent by doing this. The message does not become less true. The parent is making the truth understandable. That gives us a helpful way to think about the Bible.

In the previous Theological Thursday post, we considered how Christians can describe the Bible as both God’s Word and human words. Christians believe God communicated through real human authors without erasing their personalities, experiences, vocabularies, or writing styles. But that raises another question:

Why would God choose to communicate this way?

If the Creator wanted humanity to know Him, why use ordinary human language at all? Perhaps the Bible’s humanity is not simply a problem Christians have to explain. Perhaps it is part of how the Creator brings His message close enough for us to understand. Human beings communicate through words. We think in language and ask questions with words. We tell stories, describe experiences, give instructions, express love, confess wrongdoing, and explain what we believe through language. 

A Message From God Would Have to Reach Us

If the Creator wanted to communicate with us, His message would somehow have to enter that world. His message would have to enter the world of human language. It would come through words people already knew, sentences they could follow, and images drawn from life around them. Sometimes the message might come through a story. At other times, through a question, a command, a comparison, or a vivid description. A writer might speak of a shepherd and sheep, a father and child, a seed planted in the ground, or a journey along a road. The language would be genuinely human because human beings are the ones being addressed. It could simply be that the Creator had chosen to speak in a way His creatures could understand. 

Imagine the parent speaking to the child. The parent may use the child’s vocabulary, but the message still comes from the parent. The words are understandable because they have been brought into the child’s world. In the same way, Christians believe God did not require human beings to learn a heavenly language before they could hear from Him. He communicated through human languages people already spoke. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Its writers used the vocabulary, expressions, and forms of communication available to them. If God wanted people to understand His message, that should not surprise us.

God Communicated Through Real Human Experience

The Bible does not speak about life from a distance. Its writers know what it is like to speak from genuine human experiences, and from excitement or fear. They know what it is to be afraid when danger feels close, to grieve what cannot be recovered, to carry guilt, to feel betrayed, and to sit with questions they cannot answer. They also know joy, hope, love, relief, and the wonder of seeing God provide. Their words come from people who failed, trusted, doubted, worshiped, and kept going. They know what it is like to pray and wonder whether God is listening. 

That lived experience shows up in the specific situations each biblical writer brings to the page. David writes from experiences of danger, worship, sin, repentance, and relief. The prophets speak during national crises, injustice, war, and spiritual rebellion. Paul writes to churches dealing with conflict, pride, false teaching, suffering, relationships, and questions about how believers should live. The Gospel writers describe people meeting Jesus in ordinary human situations. Some are sick, grieving, ashamed, and curious. Others are angry, skeptical, frightened, or desperate.

The Bible’s writers do not speak from an imaginary world. They speak from the world we recognize. That human experience helps the message reach us. A person grieving today can read a psalm written from grief centuries ago and recognize the emotion. Someone struggling with guilt can understand David’s cry for mercy. A church facing division can read Paul addressing division in another church. A person afraid of death can read about people who wrestled with the same fear. The circumstances are different, but the human experience remains familiar. God could have given humanity only abstract statements. Instead, Christians believe He allowed His message to come through people who lived, suffered, hoped, failed, questioned, and worshiped.

Different Kinds of Writing Reach Us Differently

The Bible is also not one long theological textbook. It contains stories, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, history, letters, laws, songs, visions, and biographies. Why so much variety? Because human beings do not learn in only one way. A definition can tell us what courage means. A story can show us courage. A command can tell us that pride is wrong. A story can show us what pride does to a person. A statement can tell us that grief is painful. A psalm can give grieving people words to pray when they cannot find their own. 

Different forms of writing reach different parts of us. Proverbs gives short wisdom that can be remembered and applied. The Psalms give language to worship, fear, anger, repentance, and hope. The historical books show choices and consequences unfolding in real communities. The prophets confront injustice and call people back to God.  The Gospels allow readers to watch Jesus speak, respond, teach, confront, forgive, and suffer. The letters show early Christians trying to understand what following Jesus looked like in everyday life.

These forms are different because they are doing different kinds of work. The variety does not necessarily weaken the message. It can make the message easier to understand from multiple directions.

The Message Enters Real History

The Bible also places its message within particular times and places. It names people, cities, kings, nations, wars, journeys, governments, families, and churches. That can make the Bible feel less universal at first. Why would a message for humanity spend so much time talking about Israel, Jerusalem, Rome, Corinth, or people who lived thousands of years ago? A message rooted in real history gives us something to examine. The Bible does not simply say, “Long ago, somewhere, spiritual things happened.” It places its claims within the lives of people and communities. That connects with something we have already discovered in this Theological Thursday journey. If a message truly came from the Creator, we should expect it to be open to examination rather than protected from questions.

The Bible enters history where its claims can be investigated. And although its events take place in particular places, the questions it addresses move far beyond them. Why are we here? Why do human beings have dignity, yet hurt one another so deeply? What should we do with guilt? Why is there suffering? Can people be forgiven? Has the Creator come near? Those were human questions then, and they are human questions now. 

The message begins in particular places, but it addresses realities shared by people everywhere.

God’s Message Unfolds as He Comes Near

The Bible also does not explain everything on its first page. Its message unfolds. That should not seem strange. Most meaningful communication works that way. A teacher does not explain an entire subject in the first lesson. Parents teach children more as they grow. Relationships deepen as people learn more about one another.

The Bible develops its message across history rather than giving everything at once. It begins with creation and humanity’s rebellion, then follows God’s promises as they take shape through covenants, laws, prophets, warnings, and repeated calls to return to Him. Along the way, hope keeps growing. The story keeps pointing forward until it reaches Jesus, where Christians believe God’s plan to come near becomes clearest.

We will explore that developing story more closely in a future post. For now, the important point is that God’s communication in the Bible is presented as something that enters human history and unfolds within it. The Creator does not remain distant and simply send information.  Throughout the biblical story, God is pictured as moving toward people. He calls them, speaks into their circumstances, corrects them when they wander, makes promises they could not create for themselves, forgives those who return to Him, and rescues people who cannot rescue themselves. Christianity then makes an even greater claim.

The Gospel of John says:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
John 1:14, NIV

Christianity claims that God did not only communicate through human language. He ultimately came near through a human life. Jesus entered a particular culture. He spoke a human language, ate meals, traveled roads, formed friendships, experienced exhaustion, faced rejection, suffered, and died. That does not prove Christianity is true, but it does show that the Bible’s use of human words fits the larger Christian claim. The Christian story is not about a Creator determined to remain distant. It is about a Creator coming near enough to be known.

Perhaps the Humanity Is Part of the Point

Sometimes people look at the Bible’s humanity and see only a weakness. Why does it contain different styles? Why does it come from particular cultures? Why did God use people with personalities, emotions, memories, and experiences? Why not give humanity one perfect document written in a single voice and detached from every culture? Those are fair questions. But perhaps we should also ask what would be lost. We would lose the prayers of frightened people. We would lose the prayers of frightened people, the songs that rise from worship, the warnings spoken by prophets, the struggles of churches trying to live faithfully, and the stories of people who failed and were restored. We would lose the wisdom shaped through years of experience, the letters written to believers facing real problems, and the eyewitness testimony surrounding Jesus. The Bible would feel less human, but it might also become harder for human beings to enter its world and recognize their own lives within it.

If God wanted people to know Him, communicating through human words and experiences makes sense. The Creator would not have to become less than He is. He would simply bring His message close enough for us to hear.

A Fair Conclusion

The Bible’s humanity does not prove that God inspired it. Human language, stories, emotions, and historical settings are not evidence by themselves that a message came from the Creator. But neither do those qualities automatically count against divine revelation. If God wanted human beings to know Him, we should reasonably expect that message to come through the kinds of communication we already understand: words shaped into stories, questions, poetry, and accounts rooted in real history. It would come through the experiences of actual people living actual lives, because those are the lives the message is meant to reach.

Perhaps the better question is not:

Why would God use something as human as words?

Perhaps it is:

If God wanted us to know Him, why wouldn’t He speak in ways we could understand?

Free Resource: Explore Why God Would Use Human Words

If this post raised questions you want to think through more carefully, I created a free companion resource called Why Would God Use Human Words? A Guided Reflection Worksheet for Seekers and Believers.

The worksheet will help you explore:

• why understandable human language makes sense if God wants to be known
• how real human experiences can help a message reach people across generations
• why the Bible uses stories, poetry, wisdom, history, and letters
• how placing biblical claims within real history makes them open to examination
• how the Bible’s humanity fits the Christian claim that God comes near

You will also have space to identify what seems reasonable, name the questions you still have, and decide what you want to explore next.

You do not have to begin by assuming the Bible is inspired. The goal is to consider whether its humanity necessarily counts against that claim, or whether it may actually help us understand how the Creator could communicate with human beings.

Enter your email below to receive the free guided reflection worksheet.

Where We Go Next

The Bible contains many kinds of writing because it also contains many writers. Those writers lived in different periods of history. They came from different backgrounds. They wrote for different audiences and addressed different circumstances. And still, Christians claim those writings contribute to one connected story.

That raises our next question:

How Can So Many Writers Tell One Connected Story?

Exploring the Bible’s Unity Without Ignoring Its Diversity

Next week, we will examine whether the Bible’s many voices truly fit together and why its diversity makes its larger unity worth investigating.