The Church and the Word

The dependence of the church on the Word is not a doctrine
readily acceptable to all. In former days of Roman
Catholic polemic, for example, its champions would insist
that 'the church wrote the Bible' and therefore has
authority over it. Still today one sometimes hears this
rather simplistic argument. Now it is true, of course,
that both Testaments were written within the context of the
believing community, and that the substance of the New
Testament in God's providence ... was to some extent
determined by the needs of the local Christian
congregations. In consequence, the Bible can neither be
detached from the milieu in which it originated, nor be
understood in isolation from it. Nevertheless, as
Protestants have always emphasized, it is misleading to the
point of inaccuracy to say that 'the church wrote the
Bible'; the truth is almost the opposite, namely that
'God's Word created the church'. For the people of God may
be said to have come into existence when his Word came to
Abraham, calling him and making a covenant with him.
Similarly, it was through the apostolic preaching of God's
Word in the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day of
Pentecost that the people of God became the Spirit-filled
body of Christ.
--john Stott