Yes. Absolutely. The Bible is the inspired Word of God, and we’ve believed that from the beginning.
But here’s where things get interesting for folks coming from Protestant backgrounds. We don’t believe the Bible stands alone, floating in space, waiting for each person to pick it up and figure it out for themselves. The Scriptures came from the Church, were recognized by the Church, and are read and understood within the Church. You can’t separate the Bible from the community that wrote it, collected it, and has been reading it in worship for two thousand years.
Think of it this way. The New Testament didn’t fall from heaven leather-bound with Jesus’s words in red. The Church existed before the New Testament was written. The apostles preached, baptized, and celebrated the Eucharist for years before anyone put pen to papyrus. When the Gospels and Epistles were finally written down, they were written by members of the Church, for the Church, and eventually recognized as Scripture by the Church’s bishops meeting in council. The Church gave us the Bible. So when we read it, we read it with the Church’s mind, not just our own.
This isn’t about distrusting Scripture. It’s about recognizing what Scripture actually is. The Holy Spirit inspired human authors to write. Not like divine dictation where God used people as tape recorders, but real inspiration where God worked through the personalities, experiences, and even the limitations of the writers. Kind of like the Incarnation itself, fully divine, fully human, one reality. The Bible is God’s Word expressed through human words.
We call this relationship between Scripture and Tradition a symbiotic one. They’re not two different sources competing for authority. Tradition is the living context in which Scripture makes sense. It’s the interpretive framework the apostles handed down. When St. Paul told the Thessalonians to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter,” he wasn’t setting up a Bible-versus-Tradition contest. He was describing one apostolic faith transmitted in multiple ways.
This matters practically. Walk into St. Michael on a Sunday morning and you’ll hear Scripture everywhere. The Divine Liturgy is soaked in it. We read from the Epistles and Gospels every service. We chant the Psalms. The prayers are woven through with biblical language. But we’re not just reading the Bible, we’re encountering Christ in the midst of His Body, the Church, where the Word has always been proclaimed.
For someone raised on “the Bible alone,” this can feel unsettling at first. I get it. In Southeast Texas, most of us grew up thinking faithful Christianity meant you and your Bible and the Holy Spirit, and that’s all you needed. The idea that you need the Church too can sound like we’re adding something, diluting Scripture’s authority.
But we’re not adding. We’re recognizing what was always there. The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was reading Isaiah, and when Philip asked if he understood, the eunuch replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” He needed the Church’s interpretation. That’s not a bug in the system. That’s the system.
St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, said the apostles “handed the gospel down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.” Ground and pillar. Essential. Authoritative. But handed down within a community that knew how to read them rightly.
So yes, we believe the Bible is the Word of God. We read it, study it, memorize it, pray it. Orthodox priests are teachers of the Word. But we receive it the way it was given, within the Church, interpreted by the Church, lived out in the Church’s worship and life. Come to a service and you’ll see what I mean. The Scriptures aren’t just quoted. They’re breathed.
