What should I Believe about the Bible Part II.
In last week’s blog of Theology Thursday’s we looked at a few key things about the Bible. The Bible is authoritative, clear, sufficient, and necessary. We need God’s Word, it is sufficient for us, and it is our ultimate authority. Today, we will look at the 3 I’s of Scripture: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Infallibility. These three are closely related, and important to understand even further why Scripture is sufficient, necessary, and authoritative.
The Inspiration of Scripture. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture, is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” When Paul uses the word Scripture he, he is referring tot he Old Testament. Yet there are two passages that refer to the New Testament as Scripture. in 2 Peter 3:16, Peter refers to all of Paul’s letters as Scripture. He mentioned Paul’s letters and says that untaught and unstable men distort Paul’s letters, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” This shows us that Peter himself affirmed Paul’s letters to be equally authoritative as the Old Testament scriptures. In 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul quotes the gospel of Luke and calls it scripture.
But what do we mean by inspired? Is The Bible an “inspirational” book in the sense that it may move us to tears and motivate us to do something “inspiring?” Not quite. The Greek word translated “inspired” is theopneustos, which literally means “God-Breathed. It is asserting that the written word of Scripture is literally breathed out by God, or to make it more clear, spoken by Him.
In 1 Peter 1:21, it describes this process a bit more for us. “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” When Moses, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and Peter wrote what they wrote, the Holy Spirit was working in them to write the very words of God. Because the Scripture are God’s “Breathed out” words, they are therefore authoritative as we saw last week.
The inerrancy of Scripture. Many people claim that the Bible has errors. The doctrine of inerrancy is this: “The inerrancy of Scripture mean that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything contrary to fact.” (Grudem, Systematic Theology.) The Chicago Statement of inerrancy describes it this way: “Being wholly and verbally God given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what is states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, that in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.” While many claim the Bible has errors, biblical scholars have done their due diligence to show that supposed errors are not errors at all. Individuals who claim that there are errors in the Bible, do so because they do not want to submit to the Bible as their ultimate authority. Ken Ham with Answers in Genesis as written a book called, “Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions.” Gleason Archer has written the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.” It is not in the time constraints of this blog post to address those, but I point to those two works, and there are more, to deal with those things that people may claim are errors in the Bible.
The Infallibility of Scripture. Closely tied to inerrancy is the doctrine of infallibility. What we mean by infallibility is not only does the Bible not contain any errors, it cannot err. It flows that if Scripture is God’s breathed out word, and if God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18), then the Bible cannot err, it cannot lie, and therefore the Bible is “totally true and trustworthy” as affirmed in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
Since the Bible is totally true, it is sufficient. We don’ t need anything else to clear up the Scriptures for us. Since it is totally true and trust worthy, it is necessary, as it tells is what is true, and how we can be saved from sin. Since it is totally true and trust worthy, it is indeed our ultimate authority by which every other truth claim is evaluated.
With all that we have said about God’s Word, theology isn’t just for our heads. We don’t want to just be puffed up with theological knowledge, we want our theology to lead is obedience and praise. So what ought to be our response to God’s Word.
Praise God for Preserving His Word. The Bible was written by various men many thousands of years ago, copied, copied again, translated, and yet even through all of that God has preserved his word so that we can know him, we can know the truth about our selves, and know precisely how to be saved and enter into eternity with Jesus. Praise God that he has not left us in our sin, but through his word, has revealed the light of the gospel.
Confidently Trust in God’s Word. Every word of it is true. You can anchor your soul to it.
Do the hard work of Bible Study. The Bible is not a collection of cute, pithy, fortune cookie sayings. It requires work to “rightly divide the word of truth.” It is one grand narrative telling the story of redemption in Jesus. Study it. Learn to understand how to interpret the different literary genres, discover the author’s intent to the original audience, seek to understand what was going on during that time period. Understand how what you are studying fits into the grand narrative of redemption. Learn how the passage applies to us today.
Submit to and Obey God’s Word. If there is something in the Bible that you disagree with, I can assure you, its not the Bible that’s wrong. Let God’s Word change you, don’t seek to change the Bible’s meaning. Submit to it. Even when it is uncomfortable, or you may not like what it says. Submit to it, and live in obedience to it, empowered by the Spirit of course.
Share God’s Word. Don’t just fill your own head knowledge with the Bible, share it with others. Share it with other believers in discipleship, and share it with non believers in evangelism.
