How did the Authors of Scripture Get their Material?

Introduction

Last week we talked about the doctrine of Inspiration which is the process by which the Spirit moved the men of God to write the words that God wanted written down. There is a lot we do not know about how that happens. We know that the words that were written down are in fact, God’s words not merely the words of men, but we also saw that the Holy Spirit does not do a run around the human mind and will in the process of writing scriptures. You can see the human elements of the writing of scripture in statements like:

Romans 10:1 “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” Paul is giving personal testimony about his heart’s desires. He opens up to the people about his longing for his own people and his constant prayer for them. There is clearly a human element as Paul is opening up about his feelings.

Psalm 13:1–2 “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?” David expresses the deep, deep anguish of his heart in Lament to God. If you think about the various circumstances that David had to go through you could understand him feeling forgotten by God. We know God didn’t forget him, but this is how David felt.

1 Corinthians 1:16 “And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.” Paul here admits that he is having a lapse of memory. He isn’t sure of those he baptized largely because he did it so rarely. Later he admits human frailty when he tells the Galatians: Galatians 6:11 “Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.” Literally, he was saying the letters were large showing that he had written them himself. Most believe Paul had a vision problem.

We can see these human elements on the surface, but there are others in the writtings of scripture that maybe we do not see as clearly. The personality of the writters shows up in their letters. Think about the way Moses wrote. In his books, we largely see lists, laws, genealogies. Even in the narrative books like Genesis, it is filled with lists of names. Whereas David writes in poetry expressing his emotions. Amos writes in simple agricultural terms without any polish because he had been a farmer.

I mentioned last week that different authors had different knowledge of grammar and it shows. Luke is recognized as the most proper and fluent Greek writer in the NT, followed by the author of Hebrews which is one of the reasons I think Luke wrote the book under the influence of Paul. Paul is highly competent in his grammar, but often departs from proper grammar to make a rhetorical point because he was primarily a public speaker. Mark the shortest gospel is seen as blunt. He just states things they way they are and his Jewishness shows through in his grammar choices.

The human elements that show up in scripture do not diminish the inspiration of scripture as we have argued because the Spirit used all these men with their various backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and perspectives to write. He didn’t dictate the words to them; rather he moved them to write what they wrote. Hebrews 1:1 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,” God spoke in divers manners or various ways. Tonight I want to ask the question, how did God give them the inspired material that they wrote down?

Some of it was given directly by God

This is probably what we think of when we think of inspiration. God spoke and they wrote it down; however, this is only one of the ways that God gave His words to the authors. We are probably most familiar with statements like Thus saith the Lord… which is found over 418 times through the bible. We know when those words appear what follows is going to be a direct statement from God. Maybe one of the best examples of this was when Moses appeared before Pharoah.

Exodus 5:1 “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.”

These words were often spoken through the prophets directly. But they were like a Harold announcing a message from God. Imagine back in old English times when they had a king. When the king wanted to declare a proclamation to the people, his words would be repeated loudly on the streets by a Harold. This is what the prophets were doing. These words carried the authority of the King. The prophet was merely a messenger.

Another example of the words of God coming directly to mankind are the 10 commandments. Lets look at two passages that show us how Moses received them. Exodus 31:18 “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Immediately after receiving the words written on two tables by God Himself, Moses goes down from the mountain and finds the people sinning against God. Exodus 32:15–19 “And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.”

Both Stephen and Paul echoeing Jewish tradition at the time give us a little more detail about that event. Acts 7:53 “Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.” Stephen pictures God writing the law on the tables of stone, but the angels being the intermediary delivering them into the hands of Moses. That word disposition here means direction. Paul mentions this again in Galatians 3:19 “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” There is another possible reference to this in Hebrews.

So there are definitely places where the words are direct from the mouth of God to page. In these cases, human involvement was minimal, but God still used the ordinary means of inspiration when those words were written down later.

Transition statement: If this was the main method of inspiration then the Mechanical dictation method would be correct, but it isn’t. As we will see God used other means to guide the men who wrote the scriptures.

Some was a record of historical evidence

Some of the things recorded in scripture were matters of public historical record. Appeals were made to those historical records in 1 Kings 14:19 “And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.” We know that a lot of the material in the bible is historical narrative. 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings 1-2 Chronicles. Even the gospels and Acts would fall into this category. I could see Matthew now, sitting down with paper and pen taking notes as he observes Jesus teaching on the mount. Paul in his defense argues that what he says is known by Agrippa because Acts 26:26 “For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.” This point along with the next is important because it reinforces the historical reliability of the text. Wild claims like the resurrection of Jesus Christ could have been easily falsifiable if there was no evidence to back it up.

The authors of scripture sometimes used writtings from other historical authors. The miraculous account of the Sun standing still in Joshua 10:12–13 “Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, And hasted not to go down about a whole day.” was verifiable because of a record that the author points to in the book of Jasher. Now that book may or may not be available today, but the author pointed the audience of that day to see it. Paul quotes two secular philosophers of his day Epimenedes and Aratus in Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” These quotations do not mean Epimenedes and Aratus were godly men, but the Spirit desired their words to be included in the scriptures.

Ezra 6:1–2 “Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written:” records the records of pagan kings in the scriptures. These things all serve to be historical markers. While historians have doubted the bible in the past; over and over again, the bible has proven to be correct. Time just needed to expire before it was verified.

Some was the record of eye witness testimony

The gospel writers other than Luke all claimed to have been eye witnesses to the events of Jesus life. John 19:35 “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.” John 21:24 “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.” Peter would later claim that the scriptures were not cunningly devised fables but 2 Peter 1:16 “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Paul lists the eyewitnesses of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15 because those people were still alive.

If you doubted the truth of the things Paul or John or Peter said, you could go talk to people who were alive to witness all of it. The eyewitness accounts were essential to verify first century Christianity, but they also became important to second generation Christians like Luke who did not witness these things. In both his historical accounts, Luke claims to have gotten his information from witnesses who were there. Luke 1:1–3 “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,” Acts 1:3 “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:”

Conclusion

While the human element of inspiration may seem to some to weaken inspiration, it actually enhances it. We can go back and see some of these historical pieces. The first century audience had eyewitnesses who could verify what was done and said. So while some of the information was researched that does not remove the miracle of inspiration because the Holy Spirit moved the men as they researched and then as the wrote down the exact words that God desired to be written.

The human element of the inspiration of scripture shouldn’t be overlooked. Often it is downplayed as unimportant or it is denied because people feel the inspiration of scripture is threatened by it, but the human element of scripture makes the bible so much more relatable. Each of these authors were different men. Maybe David doesn’t touch you as much because he is so emotional, but Amos, he is down to earth. A man’s man and so that draws you in. There is something each of us can latch onto, there is something each of us needs in it. In conclusion, I would like you to think about some benefits of God inspiring the way he did. After all, he could have put the authors into a trance and I would love the bible just as much; but that just isn’t how he chose to give us His words.

It explains grammatical and literary variations without causing us to freak out- Some people have struggled deeply when they see John call something the Kingdom of God while Matthew calls the same thing the Kingdom of Heaven. Any variance at all makes them feel like there are errors in the bible and they can’t trust it. But that just isn’t a proper understanding of inspiration. We should expect variations or perspective. In fact, we have four gospels for that very reason.

It actually helps us understand the bible more- We learn to pay attention not just to what is said, but how it is said. The bible is written with various genres and it is written to different audiences and each book is written for different reasons. Understanding why these differences shows up opens our understanding even more. This is why context is King. Some love to take a single verse and make it mean something that makes sense to them, but you can’t do that. You have to look at the original context which includes the author, the audience and the purpose for the writting.

Contrary to what you would assume, the human element strengthens our understanding of the authority of scripture- It teaches us that God’s sovereignty rules even over our human weaknesses. God can still draw a straight line with a crooked stick. Many have had their faith crushed when they first see the human variations, but when you understand properly how God inspired his word; you are not at risk of your faith being shaken.

For me the human variations are an amazing reminder that God can use even me, a flawed human being to do his work. Tonight, I hope that this message places your faith on stronger ground. It is never a safe place to be in when you believe something but don’t fully understand the truth of it. All it takes is some disingenous perspon to cast doubt. But I also hope to encourage you that God can take you life, no matter how flawed it is and make something amazing out of it.