The Inspiration of the Bible #1

 

There are few topics which are more appropriate than our lesson today: "The Inspiration of the Bible" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  Please listen carefully as I read these powerful words from Paul's second letter to Timothy.  "Yea, and all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.  But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them; and that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:12-17).  Although all of these verses demand careful study and examination, I shall concentrate on verses 16-17.

 

"All scripture," Paul informs us, "is given by inspiration of God.”  Paul's use of the term "scripture" comprehends all that God has given us both in the Old Testament and in the New.  The Greek graphe (scripture) is used fifty-one times in the New Testament and is always rendered either "scripture" or "scriptures.”  Please take note of these examples.  Jesus said to the Sadducees who questioned his teaching on the resurrection: "You do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God" (Mt. 22:27).  Obviously, Jesus was speaking of the Old Testament since the New had not been written.  On another occasion, Jesus commanded the Jews: "Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life; but they are they which testify of me" (John 5:39).  In this same book, John quotes Jesus as saying to his listeners and to us, "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).

 

Gospel preachers have long recognized the lasting importance of the Old Testament scriptures and often began at certain places in the Old Testament and preached about the coming Messiah--his death on the cross, his sinless life and his resurrection from the dead.  Philip, a great evangelist from Jerusalem, was divinely commissioned to preach to an officer in the Ethiopian government.  When he found the Ethiopian riding along in a chariot, he discovered that the man was reading from the prophecy of Isaiah.  When the evangelist heard him reading, he asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?”  The Ethiopian answered, "How can I except some man shall guide me?”  "The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: in his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation?  For his life was taken from the earth" (Acts 8:32-33).

 

The Ethiopian officer asked Philip the evangelist, "Of whom does the prophet speak?  Is he talking about himself, or of some other man?”  "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture--Isaiah 53:8-9--and preached unto him Jesus" (Acts 8:35-36).  Philip clearly accepted the Old Testament as scripture--as that which was written--and used the Old Testament book of Isaiah to preach to the Ethiopian about Jesus Christ.  But he did not stop with what Isaiah said about Jesus; he told him of the gospel plan of salvation which neither the preacher nor the alien sinner could have learned from the Old Testament.  "As they went on their way, the came to a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what hinders me from being baptized?”  Upon a confession of his faith in Jesus Christ, the Ethiopian was baptized into Christ for the remission of sins (Acts 8:36-37).

 

When Paul said to Timothy, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," he was not referring to the so-called "sacred writings" of the nations throughout the world.  Nor can his words be stretched to include the writings of Joseph Smith, of Ellen G. White and of Charles Taze Father, he shall testify of me: and you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning" (John 15:26-27).

 

Both Paul and Peter referred to certain writings in the New Testament as constituting scripture.  When the apostle Paul wanted to show the need for paying elders of the church who labored in word and in doctrine, he said, "For the scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.  And, The laborer is worthy of his reward" (1 Tim. 5:18).  The latter quotation--"The laborer is worthy of his reward"--is not from the Old Testament but from the New (Lk. 10:7).  The apostle Peter called Paul's writings "scripture.”  "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found on him in peace, without spot, and blameless.  And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you: as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they who are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:14-16).  There is no doubt that Peter elevates Paul's writings to the status of Old Testament scriptures.

 

"All scripture," according to Paul, "is given by inspiration of God.  In The expression I have just read to you comes from the Greek theopneustos and literally means "God-breathed.”  Where, according to Paul and other Bible writers, did we get the scriptures?  The came from the very breath of almighty God.  With such an exalted view of the Bible, how could anyone ever charge God's book with error?  If God cannot lie and the scriptures come from the mouth of God, how can the scriptures lie?  Yet, tragically, there are thousands of liberal theologians who insist that the Bible is full of contradictions, of fraud--pious fraud-­but fraud nonetheless, of historical and scientific errors and even of moral blunders.  Bishop John Shelby Spong of the American Episcopal Church says the Bible is anti-Semitic, biased against women and against homosexuals and seriously flawed--morally, spiritually and otherwise.  Frankly, I much prefer Paul's inspired evaluation of scripture over Bishop Spong's uninspired and uninspiring view of the Bible.

 

The prophet Moses never left any doubt about God's guidance of his writing and speaking, although he never used the word "inspiration" in reference to the words he delivered unto the Jewish nation.  But what other conclusion can we reach when we read his words: "And God spoke all these words saying" (Ex. 20:1)?  The book of Leviticus begins with these words: "And the Lord called unto Moses, and spoke unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying" (Lev. 1:1).  Please listen again to the words of Moses: "Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers gives you.  You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord you God which I command you" (Dt. 4:1-2).  Either Moses was speaking for God or he was one of the most arrogant men who ever lived.

 

The other great prophets of the Old Testament also claimed to speak directly for God.  Dozens of examples can be found in their writings but I shall read just a few verses from Jeremiah "Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth.  And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth....Then the Lord said unto me, You have well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it" (Jer. 1:9, 12).  "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.  Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.”   How can there be any doubt that Jeremiah and the other Old Testament prophets believed they were speaking the very words of God?

 

The New Testament writers were equally convinced they were speaking for God.  How else can you explain these words to the church at Thessalonica?  "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of-us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you who believe" (1 Thess. 2:13).  Oddly enough, Dr. Victor Paul's Furnish's book, The Moral Teaching of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon; 1979), affirms that the apostle Paul was not consciously writing scripture.  He had no idea his words would be read and studied for centuries to come.  Dr. Furnish says very succinctly, "He was not writing for us" (pp. 15-16).  How does one harmonize Dr. Furnish's groundless assertions with Paul's explicit statement that he was writing and speaking the very word of God--not the word of men--but ht word of God?  Whether or not Paul was conscious of contributing to scripture, the Holy Spirit was guiding and superintending his words which were designed for all generations until the end of the age.  Paul's words to the Corinthians can hardly be misunderstood.  "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given unto us of God.  Which things we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparting spiritual things with spiritual words" (1 Cor. 2:12-13).  Paul's words--and Peter's and Matthew's and John's-­are the very words which the Holy Spirit wanted them to use.  That is the kind of inspiration and the only kind of inspiration Paul was discussing in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.  If the words of scripture are not dependable, we can have no guarantee that God has spoken and is speaking to us.  We can have no sure word from the Lord.

 

Because all scripture is inspired of God, it is also profitable "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness.  In The word "reproof" involves convicting one of some evil in his life.  Paul used the verb form of the word when he wrote to Timothy about preaching.  "Reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine" (2 Tim. 4:2).  Convicting of sin may not be the most pleasant and popular phase of a preacher's work, but it is an essential element in it.  Those of us who teach and preach are not convicting people from our own hearts, but from the word of God.  The inspired word is God's means of convicting sinners and turning them to Jesus Christ for salvation.

 

God's word is also profitable for "correction.”   This word literally means "restoration to an upright or right state" (Vine, p. 233).  When human beings get bent out of shape, figuratively speaking, because of sin in their lives, God's word provides the means of returning those persons to an upright or right state.  The word is used only here in the New Testament, but a similar word appears in Titus 1:5: "For this cause I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed you.”   The expression, "set in order," means to set straight.  God's word is designed to set men's lives straight with God almighty.

 

The Bible, according to Paul r is useful for "instruction.”  The Greek for "instruction" is-paideian and is the word translated "nurture" (Eph. 6:4), "teaching" (Tit. 2:12) and "chasten" (Heb. 12:5).  A better modern translation would be "discipline.”   "Discipline" means to whole training of a person.  It involves encouragement, exhortation, urging, correcting and punishing.  In other words, whatever a person needs to grown into spiritual maturity is bound up in the word "discipline.”   The apostle Peter does not use the word "discipline," but we know what message he intended to convey in these words: "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power has given unto us all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who has called us to glory and virtue" (2 Pet. 1:2-3).  There is nothing human beings need to know to become and to remain faithful children of God which the inspired word of God fails to provide.  That truth ought to be tremendously comforting to thoughtful men and women.

 

God's word is profitable for "doctrine.”  I have saved this concept until the end of our lesson because so many in the modern religious world downgrades or ridicules doctrine.  Tragically, in most cases, they do not know what doctrine is or they simply have no respect for what God has provided for his people.  The word "doctrine" (didaskalia) means teaching.  When people criticize those of us who preach doctrinal sermons, they are showing their ignorance of or their disrespect for the word of God.  The word "doctrine" is used twenty-one times in the New Testament and is also rendered "teaching" and "learning.”  when a person says he does not care for doctrinal sermons, he is admitting to caring little for the teaching of God's word.  I have time to read only these words from Paul's first letter to the young preacher Timothy.  "If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto you have been ordained....Till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this, you shall both save yourself and them that hear you" (1 Tim. 4:6, 13, 16).

 

I for one am grateful to God that he has given us his inspired word.  May we all read it and study it with a view to rendering obedience to it.

 

 

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334

 

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