Shepherds College: Systematic Theology 2025-2026 Session 5

Part 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God Chapter 2: The Authority and Inerrancy of the Bible Chapter 3: Clarity, Necessity, and Sufficiency of the Scriptures What is the Word of God?  Word of God as the person of Christ  Revelation 19:13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.  John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— What is the Word of God?  God’s Speech: Decrees  Genesis 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  Genesis 1:24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.  Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, What is the Word of God?  God’s Speech: Personal Address  Genesis 2:16–17 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  Genesis 3:16–19 16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Exodus 20:1–3 1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.  Matthew 3:17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” What is the Word of God?  God’s Speech through Human Agency:  1 Kings 20:36  2 Chronicles 20:20  Deuteronomy 18:18–20  2 Chronicles 25:15–16  Jeremiah 1:9  Isaiah 30:12–14  Jeremiah 1:7  Jeremiah 6:10–12  Exodus 4:12  Jeremiah 36:29–31  Numbers 22:38  Ezekiel 13:1–7  1 Samuel 15:3  Deuteronomy 18:20–22  1 Samuel 15:18  1 Samuel 15:23 What is the Word of God?  God’s Word Written: the Bible  Jeremiah 30:2  Exodus 31:18  Jeremiah 36:2–4  Exodus 32:16  Jeremiah 36:27–31  Exodus 34:1  Jeremiah 51:60  Exodus 34:28  John 14:26  Deuteronomy 31:9–13  John 16:12–13  Deuteronomy 31:24–26  1 Corinthians 14:37  Joshua 24:26  2 Peter 3:2  Isaiah 30:8  Jeremiah 36:29–31  Deuteronomy 31:12–13 Some Questions  Do you think you would pay more attention if God spoke to you from heaven or through the voice of a living prophet than if he spoke to you from the written words of Scripture? Would you believe or obey such words more readily than you do Scripture? Do you think your present level of response to the written words of Scripture is an appropriate one? What positive steps can you take to make your attitude toward Scripture more like the kind of attitude God wants you to have?  When you think about the many ways in which God speaks and the frequency with which God communicates with his creatures through these means, what conclusions might you draw concerning the nature of God and the things that bring delight to him?  Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 51. Canonicity  Canon is concerned with what belongs in the Bible and what does not.  It is essential to the believer (Deuteronomy 32:47).  We are not to add to nor subtract from Scripture.  Knowing the exact canon of Scripture is essential.  Canon refers to both OT and NT Terminology on Canonicity Apocrypha –Elwell, note OT and NT Apostle –glossary Canon –Elwell: Bible, Canon of Covenant –Elwell God-breathed –glossary History of redemption –See Hebrews 1:1, 2 Self-attesting –glossary Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 69. Inerrancy “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” 1. The Bible Can Be Inerrant and Still Speak in the Ordinary Language of Everyday Speech. 2. The Bible Can Be Inerrant and Still Include Loose or Free Quotations. 3. It Is Consistent With Inerrancy to Have Unusual or Uncommon Grammatical Constructions in the Bible. Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 92. Challenges to Inerrancy From Grudem:  1. The Bible Is Only Authoritative for “Faith and Practice.”  2. The Term Inerrancy Is a Poor Term.  3. We Have No Inerrant Manuscripts; Therefore, Talk About an Inerrant Bible Is Misleading.  4. The Biblical Writers “Accommodated” Their Messages in Minor Details to the False Ideas Current in Their Day, and Affirmed or Taught Those Ideas in an Incidental Way.  5. Inerrancy Overemphasizes the Divine Aspect of Scripture and Neglects the Human Aspect.  6. There Are Some Clear Errors in the Bible. Problems with Denying Inerrancy 1. If We Deny Inerrancy, a Serious Moral Problem Confronts Us: May We Imitate God and Intentionally Lie in Small Matters Also? 2. If Inerrancy Is Denied, We Begin to Wonder If We Can Really Trust God in Anything He Says. 3. If We Deny Inerrancy, We Essentially Make Our Own Human Minds a Higher Standard of Truth Than God’s Word Itself. 4. If We Deny Inerrancy, Then We Must Also Say That the Bible Is Wrong Not Only in Minor Details but in Some of Its Doctrines as Well. Four Categories  Authority  Clarity  Necessity  Sufficiency Question Sets: Canon 1. Why is it important to your Christian life to know which writings are God’s words and which are not? How would your relationship with God be different if you had to look for his words that were scattered among all the writings of Christians throughout church history? How would your Christian life be different if God’s words were contained not only in the Bible but also in the official declarations of the church throughout history? 2. Have you had doubts or questions about the canonicity of any of the books of the Bible? What caused those questions? What should one do to resolve them? 3. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and members of other cults have claimed present-day revelations from God that they count equal to the Bible in authority. What reasons can you give to indicate the falsity of those claims? In practice, do these people treat the Bible as an authority equal to these other “revelations”? 4. If you have never read any parts of the Old Testament Apocrypha, perhaps you would want to read some sections. Do you feel you can trust these writings in the same way you trust Scripture? Compare the effect these writings have on you with the effect Scripture has on you. You might want to make a similar comparison with some writings from a collection of books called the New Testament Apocrypha,35 or perhaps with the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an. Is the spiritual effect of these writings on your life positive or negative? How does it compare with the spiritual effect the Bible has on your life? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 68–69. Question Set: Authority and Inerrancy 1. If you want to persuade someone that the Bible is God’s Word, what do you want that person to read more than any other piece of literature? 2. Who would try to make people want to disbelieve something in Scripture? To disobey something in Scripture? Is there anything in the Bible that you do not want to believe? To obey? If your answers to either of the preceding two questions were positive, what is the best way to approach and to deal with the desires you have in this area? 3. Do you know of any proven fact in all of history that has shown something in the Bible to be false? Can the same be said about other religious writings such as the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an? If you have read in other books such as these, can you describe the spiritual effect they had on you? Compare that with the spiritual effect that reading the Bible has on you. Can you say that when you read the Bible you hear the voice of your Creator speaking to you in a way that is true of no other book? p 86 4. Do you ever find yourself believing something not because you have external evidence for it but simply because it is written in Scripture? Is that proper faith, according to Hebrews 11:1? If you do believe things simply because Scripture says them, what do you think Christ will say to you about this habit when you stand before his judgment seat? Do you think that trusting and obeying everything that Scripture affirms will ever lead you into sin or away from God’s blessing in your life? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 85–86. Question Set: Inerrancy 1. Why do you think the debate about inerrancy has become such a large issue in this century? Why do people on both sides of the question think it to be important? 2. If you thought there were some small errors affirmed by Scripture, how do you think that would affect the way you read Scripture? Would it affect your concern for truthfulness in everyday conversation? 3. Do you know of any Scripture texts that seem to contain errors? What are they? Have you tried to resolve the difficulties in those texts? If you have not found a solution to some text, what further steps might you try? 4. As Christians go through life learning to know their Bibles better and growing in Christian maturity, do they tend to trust the Bible more or less? In heaven, do you think you will believe the Bible is inerrant? If so, will you believe it more firmly or less firmly than you do now? 5. If you are convinced that the Bible teaches the doctrine of inerrancy, how do you feel about it? Are you glad that such a teaching is there, or do you feel it to be something of a burden which you would rather not have to defend? 6. Does belief in inerrancy guarantee sound doctrine and a sound Christian life? How can Jehovah’s Witnesses say that the Bible is inerrant while they themselves have so many false teachings? 7. If you agree with inerrancy, do you think belief in inerrancy should be a requirement for church membership? For teaching a Sunday school class? For holding a church office such as elder or deacon? For being ordained as a pastor? For teaching at a theological seminary? Why or why not? 8. When there is a doctrinal controversy in the church, what are the personal dangers facing those whose position is more consistent with Scripture? In particular, how could pride in correct doctrine become a problem? What is the solution? Do you think inerrancy is an important issue for the future of the church? Why or why not? How do you think it will be resolved? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 101. Question Set: the Clarity of Scripture 1. If the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture is true, why does there seem to be so much disagreement among Christians about the teaching of the Bible? Observing the diversity of interpretations of Scripture, some conclude, “People can make the Bible say anything they want.” How do you think Jesus would respond to this statement? 2. What would happen to the church if most believers gave up reading the Bible for themselves and only listened to Bible teachers or read books about the Bible? If you thought that only expert scholars could understand the Bible rightly, what would happen to your personal reading of Scripture? Has this already happened to some extent in your life or in the lives of those you know? 3. Do you think that there are right and wrong interpretations of most or all passages of Scripture? If you thought the Bible was generally unclear, how would your answer change? Will a conviction about the clarity of Scripture affect the care you use when studying a text of Scripture? Will it affect the way you approach Scripture when trying to gain a biblical answer to some difficult doctrinal or moral problem? 4. If even seminary professors disagree about some Bible teaching, can other Christians ever hope to come to a correct decision on that teaching? (Give reasons for your answer.) Do you think ordinary people among the Jews at the time of Jesus had a hard time deciding whether to believe Jesus or the scholarly experts who disagreed with him? Did Jesus expect them to be able to decide? 5. How can a pastor preach biblically based sermons each Sunday without giving the impression that only people with seminary training (like himself) are able to interpret Scripture rightly? Do you think it should ever be necessary, in a doctrinal or ethical controversy, for a Bible scholar to speak in a church and base his main arguments on special meanings of Greek or Hebrew words that the church members themselves are unable to evaluate or take issue with personally? Is there an appropriate way for a scholar to use such technical knowledge in popular writing or speaking? 6. Church leaders at the time of Martin Luther said they wanted to keep the Bible in Latin to prevent the common people from reading it and then misinterpreting it. Evaluate this argument. Why do you think Martin Luther was so anxious to translate the Bible into German? Why do you think church leaders in previous centuries have persecuted and even killed men—like William Tyndale in England—who were translating the Bible into the language of the people? Why is the task of Bible translation into other languages so important a part of the work of missions? 7. Does the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture mean that the New Testament can be fully understood by people who do not have access to an Old Testament? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 111–112. Question Set: The Necessity of Scripture 1. When you are witnessing to an unbeliever, what is the one thing above all others that you should want him or her to read? Do you know of anyone who ever became a Christian without either reading the Bible or hearing someone tell him or her what the Bible said? What then is the primary task of an evangelistic missionary? How should the necessity of Scripture affect our missionary orientation? 2. Do you nourish your soul on the spiritual food of the Word as carefully and diligently as you nourish your body on physical food? What makes us so spiritually insensitive that we feel physical hunger much more acutely than spiritual hunger? What is the remedy? 3. When we are actively seeking to know God’s will, where should we spend most of our time and effort? In practice, where do you spend most of your time and effort when seeking to find God’s will? Do God’s principles in Scripture and the apparent guidance we receive from feelings, conscience, advice, circumstances, human reasoning, or society ever seem to conflict? How should we seek to resolve the conflict? 4. Is it a hopeless task to work for civil legislation based on standards that accord with God’s moral principles in Scripture? Why is there good reason to hope that we will finally be able to persuade a great majority of our society to adopt laws consistent with scriptural norms? What would hinder this effort? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: InterVarsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 124. Question Set: Sufficiency 1. In the process of growing in the Christian life and deepening your relationship with God, approximately how much emphasis have you placed on reading the Bible itself and how much on reading other Christian books? In seeking to know God’s will for your daily life, what is the relative emphasis you have put on reading Scripture itself and on reading other Christian books? Do you think the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture will cause you to place more emphasis on reading Scripture itself? 2. What are some of the doctrinal or moral questions you are wondering about? Has this chapter increased your confidence in the ability of Scripture to provide a clear answer for some of those questions? 3. Have you ever wished that the Bible would say more than it does about a certain subject? Or less? What do you think motivated that wish? After reading this chapter, how would you approach someone who expressed such a wish today? How is God’s wisdom shown in the fact that he chose not to make the Bible a great deal longer or a great deal shorter than it actually is? 4. If the Bible contains everything we need God to tell us for obeying him perfectly, what is the role of the following in helping us to find God’s will for ourselves: advice from others; sermons or Bible classes; our consciences; our feelings; the leading of the Holy Spirit as we sense him prompting our inward desires and subjective impressions; changes in circumstances; the gift of prophecy (if you think it can function today)? 5. In the light of this chapter, how would you find God’s “perfect” will for your life? Is it possible that there would be more than one “perfect” choice in many decisions we make? (Consider Ps. 1:3 and 1 Cor. 7:39 in seeking an answer.) 6. Have there been times when you have understood the principles of Scripture well enough with regard to a specific situation but have not known the facts of the situation well enough to know how to apply those scriptural principles correctly? In seeking to know God’s will, can there be any other things we need to know except (a) the teaching of Scripture and (b) the facts of the situation in question, together with (c) skill in applying (a) to (b) correctly? What then is the role of prayer in seeking guidance? What should we pray for? Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 135. Pitfalls Problems faced today reading the Bible and interpreting it Be aware  The problem of the miraculous in Scripture  The problem of the adequacy of human language  The problem of postmodernity  The problem of interpretation  The neglect of the Old Testament