Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.
Welcome to Theology Thursday!
Today's question:
What do we mean when we say the Bible is "inspired"?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
Now that we’ve looked at the authority of Scripture and the canon of Scripture, let’s examine the inspiration of Scripture.
The basis of the argument for the Biblical canon’s authority for our beliefs and our lives is that the authors of its 66 books were somehow guided - or “inspired” - by the Holy Spirit, and therefore the message contained in these writings are “God-breathed and useful” (2nd Timothy 3:16).
Basically, all believers across time and place who claim faith in Jesus Christ also believe the Bible presents God’s revelation (his disclosure of something previously unknown) through human writers. But not all believers have agreed on what exactly is meant by “inspired.”
How did God cause or enable these writers to accurately present his desired communication to their audiences and us?
First, let’s establish that the Bible did not fall out of the sky. It was written by the hands of human authors such as Moses, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Matthew, Paul, Luke, and others. God could have communicated his will in any number of ways, but he chose to do so through 66 books of many different genres across 1,500 years by approximately 40 authors from three continents and in three languages.
Second, we also must acknowledge that any conversation about inspiration will necessarily include a discussion about inerrancy. Broadly speaking, to say the Bible is “inerrant” (without error) is to say that it is perfect, accurate, and trustworthy in what it communicates, because what it communicates is from God.
There are squabbles amongst scholars and Bible thinkers in the church regarding the claim of “inerrancy” (areas of contention include: presumed contradictions between the gospel writers, small distinctions and differences between copies of the earliest manuscripts, even “typos” (though there weren’t typed, of course!) on the early parchments, etc.), which is why I prefer the term “infallible.” To say the Bible is infallible is to say it communicates God’s intended revelation without fail; it infallibly communicates what God sets out to accomplish.
This brings us back to our original question: if the Bible is “God’s word,” and God used humans to communicate his plan and desires for his people, how did he work through the human writers to accomplish this?
We will start by looking at what Scripture says about itself. What does the Bible say regarding the mechanism by which the biblical authors were moved or caused to write under influence of the Holy Spirit?
Let’s look more deeply at that passage in 2nd Timothy. Here it is in full:
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2nd Timothy 3:16-17)
This phrase Paul used here in 2nd Timothy - “God-breathed” - is the Greek word “theopneustos,” and this is the only time it is used in the New Testament. While scholars argue that this term doesn’t imply a particular mode of inspiration (we’ll get to these in a moment), it does imply something more than what is commonly understood by the word “inspired” or “inspiration.” We may find a beautifully performed song to be inspiring - inspiring to us to feel something deeply or think about something differently. Or we may find spiritual inspiration when we look at a majestic sunset or a mountain range. How great is our God!
But what Paul means here by “God-breathed” is something more active and involved than mere emotional expressiveness. Somehow, these 40 or so authors of our biblical books were moved to communicate exactly what God wanted them to, while at the same time maintaining their humanness, even as they wrote.
The action of the Spirit did not override or suspend the human writers’ thought processes, or personalities, or natural emphases, or language choices. The biblical writings are so diverse and different in form and function because the biblical writers were so diverse and different in time, place, and individuality.
The Apostle Peter gives us some more insight into what’s going on here:
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2nd Peter 1:20-21)
Peter is telling us here that prophets (including the biblical writers) don’t just make stuff up. Mike Bird explains: “The prophetic word of Scripture is not based on a vague and loose interpretation of events. No prophecy, and no Scripture for that matter, originates in human imagination. Rather, the prophets [including the apostles] spoke from God as they were “carried along by the Holy Spirit." To be “carried along” does not mean a mechanical and overpowering sense, but more like being carried to the point of awareness and understanding. The prophetic word, whether spoken or written, is not a feat of human invention, but is attributed to the Spirit’s power infused into the personality of the speaker or author.”
Taking 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 2nd Peter 1:20-21 together, it seems that Scripture itself claims that the biblical writers were divinely moved and spiritually endowed to receive a word from God and write it into human words.
There are several theories that attempt to explain how the Holy Spirit could have inspired the writers of our Biblical books, what we could call modes of inspiration:
Artistic ability
This idea is similar to the definition of inspiration I mentioned above, where God “inspires” people in the way a tree or a bluebird inspires a poet.
Problem: This theory of inspiration lowers God’s involvement to the level of mere feelings or sensations of creativity that stimulate a human-driven imagination.
Divine endorsement
This idea holds that God has simply signed off on or endorsed what human writers wrote of their own volition, as if God said “I’m God and I approve this message.”
Problem: This theory of inspiration reduces God to a post-revelation position, rather than the author of history. God is an active mover in our world, not just an affirmer or condemner of human activity.
Divine dictation
This theory argues that God speaks into the mind of his writers and they repeat what he said word-for-word. Another way of thinking about this is as if the Spirit’s invisible hand is holding the hand of Paul or Obadiah or Luke and causing them to write particular words in a particular order. Occasionally, something like this did happen a few times in Scripture (e.g. when the Lord told Moses to write down the song of deliverance in Deuteronomy 31:19-22).
Problem: While there are specific instances of God instructing his prophets and apostles what to say, that does not appear to be the norm for all of Scripture. It’s hard to argue for the dictation theory when we have examples in the Bible of seemingly very human approaches to communication. For example, in 1st Corinthians, Paul forgot whom he baptized and then backtracked mid-sentence. It’s difficult to imagine that God dictated this writing style to him.
Divine enablement
This is perhaps the most popular theory among evangelical theologians, and also goes by the term “plenary verbal inspiration,” which argues that God’s Spirit works to guide the minds and personalities of human authors so that they would freely choose to write in their own words God’s intended communication.
Problem: Depending on emphasis, this can slide up next to the divine dictation theory a little too closely for comfort.
Conceptual Guidance
This theory argues that inspiration is principally God’s guiding and leading human minds at the conceptual level; that is, the Spirit leads the writers toward general notions, broad ideas, and the building blocks for words and sentences, but does not require them to be presented in a particular form or style. Bird again: “[The conceptual guidance theory of] inspiration is how God, through the Holy Spirit, stimulates human minds at the level that the brain formulates ideas into words and sentences so that authors, through their experiences, learning, emotions, and words, write a message consistent with the divine intention.”
Problem: The problem with this is…we’re not sure! As in, we’re not really sure how exactly God chose to move the biblical writers to communicate his revelation. We’re stuck with educated guesses, held with humility and graciousness for differing views, because the Bible simply does not tell us exactly how God accomplished his goal of telling the world the story of his glory and extending his invitation for our participation in it.
My personal theory is probably some combination of divine enablement and conceptual guidance (except for the clear passages of Scripture that are divinely dictated), but I fully acknowledge that there is mystery here. And that’s ok. Much about our faith is mysterious, which is to say not everything is fully knowable on this side of heaven.
I imagine us in heaven acting very much like a young child, asking in amazement at the newness and bigness of the world: “Why? Why? Why?”
I have all kinds of “why” questions for God, but I will have to be content to trust and follow what he has chosen to reveal to us, and know the rest will be answered fully and satisfactorily when Jesus returns in glory.
But full and satisfactory knowledge is only part of the point. God breathed into Scripture not just to inform us but to transform us. We’re not just supposed to learn about God, but to know him and let him change us. In fact, I think this could be some of the reason God allowed or even infused some mystery into our Bible and into our faith - knowing everything reduces our need for trust, lowers our level of humility, and enables us to think that we don’t need something bigger and more ultimate than ourselves.
We do. We desperately do.
Nailing down a specific theory of inspiration is less important than the belief and acceptance of God’s role in revelation and embracing the authority Scripture holds for our lives.
Believing in and following God means believing in and following his word to the best of our ability; his words, and his Word - Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit gave us the former, and the Holy Spirit makes possible the latter. Thank God for that.
To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
Welcome to Theology Thursday!
Today's question:
What do we mean when we say the Bible is "inspired"?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
Now that we’ve looked at the authority of Scripture and the canon of Scripture, let’s examine the inspiration of Scripture.
The basis of the argument for the Biblical canon’s authority for our beliefs and our lives is that the authors of its 66 books were somehow guided - or “inspired” - by the Holy Spirit, and therefore the message contained in these writings are “God-breathed and useful” (2nd Timothy 3:16).
Basically, all believers across time and place who claim faith in Jesus Christ also believe the Bible presents God’s revelation (his disclosure of something previously unknown) through human writers. But not all believers have agreed on what exactly is meant by “inspired.”
How did God cause or enable these writers to accurately present his desired communication to their audiences and us?
First, let’s establish that the Bible did not fall out of the sky. It was written by the hands of human authors such as Moses, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Matthew, Paul, Luke, and others. God could have communicated his will in any number of ways, but he chose to do so through 66 books of many different genres across 1,500 years by approximately 40 authors from three continents and in three languages.
Second, we also must acknowledge that any conversation about inspiration will necessarily include a discussion about inerrancy. Broadly speaking, to say the Bible is “inerrant” (without error) is to say that it is perfect, accurate, and trustworthy in what it communicates, because what it communicates is from God.
There are squabbles amongst scholars and Bible thinkers in the church regarding the claim of “inerrancy” (areas of contention include: presumed contradictions between the gospel writers, small distinctions and differences between copies of the earliest manuscripts, even “typos” (though there weren’t typed, of course!) on the early parchments, etc.), which is why I prefer the term “infallible.” To say the Bible is infallible is to say it communicates God’s intended revelation without fail; it infallibly communicates what God sets out to accomplish.
This brings us back to our original question: if the Bible is “God’s word,” and God used humans to communicate his plan and desires for his people, how did he work through the human writers to accomplish this?
We will start by looking at what Scripture says about itself. What does the Bible say regarding the mechanism by which the biblical authors were moved or caused to write under influence of the Holy Spirit?
Let’s look more deeply at that passage in 2nd Timothy. Here it is in full:
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2nd Timothy 3:16-17)
This phrase Paul used here in 2nd Timothy - “God-breathed” - is the Greek word “theopneustos,” and this is the only time it is used in the New Testament. While scholars argue that this term doesn’t imply a particular mode of inspiration (we’ll get to these in a moment), it does imply something more than what is commonly understood by the word “inspired” or “inspiration.” We may find a beautifully performed song to be inspiring - inspiring to us to feel something deeply or think about something differently. Or we may find spiritual inspiration when we look at a majestic sunset or a mountain range. How great is our God!
But what Paul means here by “God-breathed” is something more active and involved than mere emotional expressiveness. Somehow, these 40 or so authors of our biblical books were moved to communicate exactly what God wanted them to, while at the same time maintaining their humanness, even as they wrote.
The action of the Spirit did not override or suspend the human writers’ thought processes, or personalities, or natural emphases, or language choices. The biblical writings are so diverse and different in form and function because the biblical writers were so diverse and different in time, place, and individuality.
The Apostle Peter gives us some more insight into what’s going on here:
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2nd Peter 1:20-21)
Peter is telling us here that prophets (including the biblical writers) don’t just make stuff up. Mike Bird explains: “The prophetic word of Scripture is not based on a vague and loose interpretation of events. No prophecy, and no Scripture for that matter, originates in human imagination. Rather, the prophets [including the apostles] spoke from God as they were “carried along by the Holy Spirit." To be “carried along” does not mean a mechanical and overpowering sense, but more like being carried to the point of awareness and understanding. The prophetic word, whether spoken or written, is not a feat of human invention, but is attributed to the Spirit’s power infused into the personality of the speaker or author.”
Taking 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 2nd Peter 1:20-21 together, it seems that Scripture itself claims that the biblical writers were divinely moved and spiritually endowed to receive a word from God and write it into human words.
There are several theories that attempt to explain how the Holy Spirit could have inspired the writers of our Biblical books, what we could call modes of inspiration:
Artistic ability
This idea is similar to the definition of inspiration I mentioned above, where God “inspires” people in the way a tree or a bluebird inspires a poet.
Problem: This theory of inspiration lowers God’s involvement to the level of mere feelings or sensations of creativity that stimulate a human-driven imagination.
Divine endorsement
This idea holds that God has simply signed off on or endorsed what human writers wrote of their own volition, as if God said “I’m God and I approve this message.”
Problem: This theory of inspiration reduces God to a post-revelation position, rather than the author of history. God is an active mover in our world, not just an affirmer or condemner of human activity.
Divine dictation
This theory argues that God speaks into the mind of his writers and they repeat what he said word-for-word. Another way of thinking about this is as if the Spirit’s invisible hand is holding the hand of Paul or Obadiah or Luke and causing them to write particular words in a particular order. Occasionally, something like this did happen a few times in Scripture (e.g. when the Lord told Moses to write down the song of deliverance in Deuteronomy 31:19-22).
Problem: While there are specific instances of God instructing his prophets and apostles what to say, that does not appear to be the norm for all of Scripture. It’s hard to argue for the dictation theory when we have examples in the Bible of seemingly very human approaches to communication. For example, in 1st Corinthians, Paul forgot whom he baptized and then backtracked mid-sentence. It’s difficult to imagine that God dictated this writing style to him.
Divine enablement
This is perhaps the most popular theory among evangelical theologians, and also goes by the term “plenary verbal inspiration,” which argues that God’s Spirit works to guide the minds and personalities of human authors so that they would freely choose to write in their own words God’s intended communication.
Problem: Depending on emphasis, this can slide up next to the divine dictation theory a little too closely for comfort.
Conceptual Guidance
This theory argues that inspiration is principally God’s guiding and leading human minds at the conceptual level; that is, the Spirit leads the writers toward general notions, broad ideas, and the building blocks for words and sentences, but does not require them to be presented in a particular form or style. Bird again: “[The conceptual guidance theory of] inspiration is how God, through the Holy Spirit, stimulates human minds at the level that the brain formulates ideas into words and sentences so that authors, through their experiences, learning, emotions, and words, write a message consistent with the divine intention.”
Problem: The problem with this is…we’re not sure! As in, we’re not really sure how exactly God chose to move the biblical writers to communicate his revelation. We’re stuck with educated guesses, held with humility and graciousness for differing views, because the Bible simply does not tell us exactly how God accomplished his goal of telling the world the story of his glory and extending his invitation for our participation in it.
My personal theory is probably some combination of divine enablement and conceptual guidance (except for the clear passages of Scripture that are divinely dictated), but I fully acknowledge that there is mystery here. And that’s ok. Much about our faith is mysterious, which is to say not everything is fully knowable on this side of heaven.
I imagine us in heaven acting very much like a young child, asking in amazement at the newness and bigness of the world: “Why? Why? Why?”
I have all kinds of “why” questions for God, but I will have to be content to trust and follow what he has chosen to reveal to us, and know the rest will be answered fully and satisfactorily when Jesus returns in glory.
But full and satisfactory knowledge is only part of the point. God breathed into Scripture not just to inform us but to transform us. We’re not just supposed to learn about God, but to know him and let him change us. In fact, I think this could be some of the reason God allowed or even infused some mystery into our Bible and into our faith - knowing everything reduces our need for trust, lowers our level of humility, and enables us to think that we don’t need something bigger and more ultimate than ourselves.
We do. We desperately do.
Nailing down a specific theory of inspiration is less important than the belief and acceptance of God’s role in revelation and embracing the authority Scripture holds for our lives.
Believing in and following God means believing in and following his word to the best of our ability; his words, and his Word - Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit gave us the former, and the Holy Spirit makes possible the latter. Thank God for that.
To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
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