Inspiration

Inspiration

Introduction

Good morning!

Christmas was just a few weeks ago, and of course, many of us have extended family who come into town and spend time with us. My family spent time with my side and Heather’s side - my wife’s side - and I don’t know if this is the experience of everyone, but we have found that both of our parents have managed to save a remarkable amount of stuff from our childhood, which they love to return to us, slowly, at holidays. Report cards from 3rd grade, drawings, newspaper clippings, past books.

This year, Heather’s mom returned what is a true treasure - that has absolutely fascinated our family. It’s Heather’s old, beat up copy of those Magic Eye things - know what I’m talking about? Here, I have it with me. They’re these random, kinda strange pictures that don’t necessarily look like anything, but if you look at them in just the right way - if you put the pieces together suddenly there are these remarkable 3D images that pop out of the page. It’s just crazy!

And so there have been a few nights since then where Heather and Eden and Leila and I have been piled in the reading room, staring at these images and waiting for them to pop.

I remember having a Magic Eye moment with the Bible, something like 18 years ago, sitting in the gym here at Woodlands and listening to Pastor Brian preach a sermon on the book of Hebrews. And Pastor Brian was explaining this guy Melchizadek, and he was tracing his history through Genesis and Exodus with the priesthood, and through Psalms and into Hebrews, and there was just this moment for me where the Bible became more than this 2D book of stories and maybe for the first time I saw it pop out of the page and take on depth and meaning and beauty that just blew me away.

Ever since then, as I have read and studied the Bible, I’ve been continuing to search for that pop - those moments and times where I don’t just see what happening on the page, but where I see what God is doing through what’s happening on the page - how God is using the Bible to transform the world.

We are beginning a series here for the next four weeks called iBook - the book being the Bible and the “i” being four foundational truths about what we believe the Bible says about itself and what we believe the Bible is - and they all happen to start with the letter “I” - thus, iBook.

This morning, we’re going to look at the doctrine - the teaching - the church belief - of Inspiration.

But I’m not always sure we understand what we mean when we say the Bible is authoritative. This is a text written by more than forty authors over what’s probably 1,500 years - the most recent part of it was written 2,000 years ago about a culture that’s largely gone on a continent on the other side of a the world. It was written by fishermen and lawyers and shepherds and kings old men and religious leaders from a different era - what in the world do we mean when we say the Bible is authoritative? Who wrote the Bible? Why should we trust the Bible? And what does any of it mean for our life?

This morning, we’re going to look at the doctrine - the teaching - the church belief - of Inspiration.

Now, there’s a ton of different doctrines that we could spend time talking about, and in many sense they’re all important. But if you want to get a snapshot view of a person’s beliefs and faith - ask them about their view on the Bible. Ask them about their view of inspiration. As we dig into this this morning, I think that we’re going to see there are few more foundational truths in Christianity. What you believe about inspiration will change what you believe about the Bible and about God and salvation and faithfulness and how to love your spouse and how to be an employee and about how to love the world around you. This doctrine of inspiration is part of the foundation of what it means to be a Christian.

Now, we could talk for awhile about theology and the importance of different doctrines, and in many sense they’re all important. But if you want to get a snapshot view of a person’s beliefs and faith - ask them about their view on the Bible. Ask them about their view of inspiration. As we dig into this this morning, I think that we’re going to see there are few more foundational truths in Christianity. What you believe about inspiration will change what you believe about the Bible and about God and salvation and faithfulness and how to love your spouse and how to be an employee and about how to love the world around you. This doctrine of inspiration is part of the foundation of what it means to be a Christian.

So we’re going to look at what the doctrine is - get a sense of the need and a definition - and then we’ll talk about the implication of inspiration - what it means, and then finally the action of the doctrine - what it does. That’s where this gets exciting, not just in an intellectual way, but in a worshipful way.

What It Is

So first, what is it? Well, when we talk about inspiration today we’re talking about that lightbulb moment - something that’s strikingly brilliant or insightful. It’s something we get. I’ll come home from a day at the office and tell me wife, “You know, that comment you made last night really inspired me to make these changes,” or I’ll mention to a co-worker, “Those comments you made in your meeting were really inspired - those were wise.”

Two Authors

But when we talk about the doctrine of inspiration, we’re not talking about a lightbulb moment, but rather the divine interplay in the writing of the Bible between the human author and God himself. We’re talking about the miraculous process that gave us the Bible.

We’re going to start

And so I had a professor who used this definition - I think it spells out the doctrine well - and this on the back of your bulletins:

“Inspiration is the concurrent work of a holy God and a fallen human whereby the Holy Spirit so moved the human author that God got exactly what He wanted (His perfect word) without compromising or destroying the personality of the human author.”

We’re going to come back to the word “Concurrent,” because it implies a level of mystery, but where we need to start to really understand this foundational belief is that when we talk about the author of the Bible, we’re really talking about two authors. There’s a divine author - God - which Scripture clearly names as having written Scripture, and there’s the human author - Paul, or Peter, or David, or Moses, which Scripture sometimes names, but often also identifies in their writing style or language or themes.

Understanding inspiration starts by understanding that there are two authors. There’s a divine author - God - which Scripture clearly names as having written Scripture, and there’s the human author - Paul, or Peter, or David, or Moses, which Scripture sometimes names, but often also identifies in their writing style or language or themes.

The Divine Author

Two Authors

The Divine Author

The Divine Author

So let’s look at those two authors, and we’ll start with the Divine author. Scripture clearly claims to be written by God. A couple of important passages help establish that - and speak to the interplay of the divine and human author. The first and foundational passage is the only one in Scripture that includes this word, “Inspiration.”

It’s . Paul is talking to Timothy and he’s encouraging him to remain strong in the faith, and he says you need to remember that… (verse 15). And of course Paul’s talking about the Old Testament at this point. And then he explains:

It’s this phrased, “Breathed out by God,” that we get the word inspiration, and really it should be “expiration” - to breath out. All Scripture - all that we have as Scripture - is breathed out by God. Now what the heck does that mean?

Peter clarifies this a little, in . “But men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

We actually have an example of that in - as God calls Jeremiah to be his prophet. Look at what happens. And so God says I am going to put my words into your mouth - I’m going to cause you to say the words that I want you to say to my people! They’re the words you will say - for me.

So first, we see that the Bible definitely claims to be written by God. It’s God’s Word for God’s people for all time, because the Bible claims to be written by God.

And, I know some people are going to argue with me, and say, “Dave, this is ridiculous - how can you claim that the Bible is written by God just because the Bible claims to be written by God!” Because the idea is that self claims don’t hold weight!

But I think that argument kinda falls apart when you really think about - because self claims hold plenty of weight if they’re true. If I write a letter and sign it, “From Dave Bondeson,” that letter is claiming to have been written by me, and it has been, so it is! The burden of proof isn’t on proving that it was, but that it wasn’t. I don’t think there’s any problem accepting the Bible’s claim to be written by God - and I think the burden of proof would be on those who say it isn’t, and quite honestly, I think the billions of Christians throughout the millennium who have experienced the life-changing power of Scripture would agree with its divine nature.

But if that wasn’t amazing enough, just to take this concept one step further, we affirm not just that the Bible contains exactly what God wanted - but that it contains everything that God wanted. That is - even though we have 66 different books, different types, different authors and genres and eras and personalities and occasions - that we believe, because of the divine author - that the Bible is complete. It contains, as Peter says in - “everything necessary for godliness.”

But, there’s a second layer, too, because we can see in Scripture that there was a distinct human author as well. Many of the Psalms are attributed, they say, “Of David,” or “Of the Sons of Korah.” They were written by these individuals. We can see the human author in writing styles, between Paul and John and Peter in the New Testament. Themes or phrases that we find in the book of John are repeated in I John and II John but don’t up in Paul’s writing, but we trace themes through Paul’s letters - through Romans and I Corinthians and Ephesians and Timothy - but those don’t show up in Peter’s letters.

So first we see that there’s a divine author to the text.

But to take it one step further, we also affirm that the Bible is exactly what God wanted - that it’s not just that the authors didn’t write anything God didn’t want, but that they did write everything God did want. That is - that even though we have 66 different books, different types, different authors and genres and eras and personalities and occasions - that we believe, because of the divine author - that the Bible is complete. It contains, as Peter says in - “everything necessary for godliness.”

The Human Author

But We can see writing styles, between Paul and John and Peter. Themes or phrases that we find in the book of John are repeated in I John and II John but don’t up in Paul’s writing, but we trace themes through Paul’s letters - through Romans and I Corinthians and Ephesians and Timothy - but those don’t show up in Peter’s letters.

But, there’s a second layer, too, because we can see in Scripture that there was a distinct human author as well. Many of the Psalms are attributed, they say, “Of David,” or “Of the Sons of Korah.” They were written by these individuals. We can see the human author in writing styles, between Paul and John and Peter in the New Testament. Themes or phrases that we find in the book of John are repeated in I John and II John but don’t up in Paul’s writing, but we trace themes through Paul’s letters - through Romans and I Corinthians and Ephesians and Timothy - but those don’t show up in Peter’s letters.

What’s more, we see the background of an author- the history of the author - the identity of the author of Biblical book affecting how they write - Luke, for instance, was a doctor and historian and so his gospel and the book of Acts are detailed and historical and sequential - he even says, in that he set out to write an “accurate accounting of what happened.” But Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, to convinced them that Jesus is the Messiah, and so because of his background and purpose of writing - to an extent, his agenda in writing a gospel story of Jesus, the book of Matthew looks and feels a certain way.

If you get into the weeds, the original language, we can even see that the way the books were written bears all the marks of human authors. I mentioned before, but there’s a four verse introduction, and Greek scholars will say this is written in form of high Greek - it’s an official, scholarly introduction to maybe a historical book as Luke addressed his educated friend “Theophilus.” But when Luke starts into the story in verse 5, he switches to a more colloquial language - a more readable or common version of Greek. It’s clear that the human author is thinking carefully about his human audience and how they’ll read the text. The Bible was clearly written by human authors.

So you put all this together - somehow the Holy Spirit is involved, and we’re supposed to develop some sort of trust in the Bible because God wrote it, but it’s clear that human authors also or instead or something they wrote this book. How do we bridge this gap?

Through the doctrine of inspiration.

And so I had a professor who used this definition - I think it spells out the doctrine well - and this on the back of your bulletins:

The concurrent work of a holy God and a fallen human whereby the Holy Spirit so moved the human author that God got exactly what He wanted (His perfect word) without compromising or destroying the personality of the human author.

“Inspiration is the concurrent work of a holy God and a fallen human whereby the Holy Spirit so moved the human author that God got exactly what He wanted (His perfect word) without compromising or destroying the personality of the human author.”

That’s what we’re talking about when we talk of Inspiration - it’s this meeting point between human and divine author in the writing of Scripture.

What It Means

Two authors, human and divine

What It Means

So if that’s what it is - what does it mean? What are the implications of this definition? Well, ultimately, it means that there was “A miraculous partnership” - that’s the phrase I’m going to use - a miraculous partnership between God and humanity in the writing of His Word.

A Miraculous Partnership

If we affirm two authors of Scripture - a sinful, human author and a holy, divine author then we have to acknowledge there’s sort of a miraculous mystery in how those two authors worked together - this is what’s captured in that first phrase in our definition: a “concurrent work.” What does that mean that these two authors worked together at the same time?

Let’s talk about what that doesn’t .

Well, let’s talk about what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that God just directly handed us the Bible. And it also doesn’t mean that the writing of the Bible was dictated. Except for a few instances, like the 10 Commandments, God didn’t say, “Write this,” rather he worked in mysterious conjunction with the human author.

But to take that one step further, outside of a few instances - like Jeremiah perhaps - it also doesn’t mean that the human authors were necessarily even aware that they were under the inspiration of the Spirit when they wrote their books.

For example, I give you Paul writing his letter to Timothy, and in , asks Timothy to bring his coat back that he forgot at Troas - I almost wonder if after the fact, after the letter became recognized as inspired, if he didn’t have just a tinge of embarrassment, “Man, if I knew I was writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, I would not have written that line… I usually keep better track of my clothes… now all of history is going to think that I can’t do laundry.”

No, but moreso, I think this concept that the authors wrote without necessarily knowing they were under the Spirits inspiration is so important to how we approach Scripture. Let me show you why by looking at one of my absolutely favorite Psalms.

Whenever, in my walk with God, I’ve found myself to be in a season of desert - where I just can’t sense God or don’t feel passion for God, I go to and plead the words of the Psalm along with King David. And this is why the doctrine of inspiration is so important - if I were to believe that God just dictated those words - or gave those words to David… or even worse, I think, if I believed that David work up one day and God said, “David, people need a desperate prayer for my presence, so come up with one,” - if David was just trying to fill in a gap in something that was missing in Scripture when he wrote those words, then ultimately they’d be pretty cheap.

out prayers that became Psalms, he wasn’t trying to fill a content gap in Scripture - he was purely and genuinely expressing his need or love of God.

So when David wrote , he wasn’t saying, “People need a desperate prayer for God’s presence, so I’m going to give it to them,” - he’s not trying to fill in a gap. Instead, he was saying, genuinely and passionatly, “God, my soul thirsts for you, and my body longs for you in this dry and weary land where there is no water.” Even though God is involved in the inspiration, it’s an entirely genuine prayer.

But that’s not how it happened. Sure, David was inspired - the Holy Spirit was breathing out His perfect Word, but it was King David, unaware of the inspiration, saying, genuinely and passionately, “God, my soul thirsts for you, and my body longs for you in this dry and weary land where there is no water.” And so instead of a forced placeholder passage, we have the testimony of a faithful man of God who felt desperate for God’s presence - who felt dry himself, but with the added affirmation of God saying, “This is an appropriate way for your heart to long for me.”

This doctrine adds such richness to Scripture!

So, we can say the Bible wasn’t handed to us by God, and it wasn’t dictated, and the writers likely didn’t even know what was happening. And so fundamentally we’re affirming a level of mystery to the process of the creation of Scripture. There’s a fuzziness when we try to bridge this gap in our definition between, “the personality of the human author” and “exactly what God wanted” - it happened at the same time - in conjunction with one another- that’s concurrent - but how did it happen, what did it look like? We don’t really know. There’s a beautiful mystery there.

So, we can say the Bible wasn’t handed to us by God, and it wasn’t dictated, and the writers likely didn’t even know what was happening. And so fundamentally, we’re affirming a level of mystery to the process of the creation of Scripture. There’s a fuzziness when we try to bridge this gap in our definition between, “the personality of the human author” and “exactly what God wanted” - it happened at the same time - in conjunction with one another- that’s concurrent - but how did it happen, what did it look like? We don’t really know. There’s a beautiful mystery there.

And, fundamentally, it means that we also affirm a level of mystery to the process of the creation of Scripture. There’s a fuzziness when we bridge this gap between, “personality of the human author” and “exactly what God wanted.”

Two authors, human and divine

The inspiration of the Bible is this meeting point of partnership between people and God. Humanity and God. I think that there’s a beautiful interplay and relationship between the mystery of the word - the Bible - as an interaction between human action and divine action in inspiration - there’s this relationship with the Word - Jesus - the Logos of - as also this interaction between fully human and fully God - this mystery. Really, the inspiration of Scripture carries the same miraculous fuzziness as the Trinity - three persons eternally co-existant as one God, and Jesus himself, fully God and fully man.

Two authors, human and divine

Somewhere, in the character and sovereignty of God, He decided in a moment to bring individual humans into his plans and purposes to save the world.

And here’s where it gets a little crazy: we can see from Scripture that there are times where the biblical author’s personality, and “exactly what God wants” also don’t overlap. Peter’s a great example - I mean, think of the garden of Gethsemane, when he draws his sword and then Jesus, “Whoah, chill out - this is not what I want to have happen.” Peter’s obviously not under the inspiration of the Spirit there.

And in the exact same way, we can see from Scripture that there are times where the biblical author’s personality, and “exactly what God wants” also don’t overlap. Peter’s a great example - I mean, think of the garden of Gethsemane, when he draws his sword and then Jesus, “Whoah, chill out - this is not what I want to have happen.” Peter’s obviously not under the inspiration of the Spirit there.

Or even more profoundly, , when Peter is following Jesus, and he says there’s no way that Jesus will die, and Jesus attributes what Peter’s saying directly to Satan? Jesus looks at Peter and says, “Get behind me Satan?” That’s Peter’s attitude and personality being “not what God wants.” But later, we affirm that Peter would go on to write, in his own style and personality, exactly what God wanted.

What changes? We don’t really know. It wasn’t Peter’s faithfulness - there were less faithful prophets - Jonah - who wrote under God’s inspiration. It wasn’t Peter’s study. It wasn’t Peter’s age. It was simply a decision of the Holy Spirit.

The inspiration of the Bible is this meeting point of partnership between people and God, overseen by the sovereignty of God. I think that there’s a beautiful interplay and relationship between the mystery of the word - the Bible - as an interaction between human action and divine action in inspiration - there’s this relationship with the Word - Jesus - the Logos of - as also this interaction between fully human and fully God - this mystery. Really, the inspiration of Scripture carries the same miraculous fuzziness as the Trinity - three persons eternally co-existant as one God, and Jesus himself, fully God and fully man.

Somewhere, in the character and sovereignty of God, He decided in a moment to bring individual humans into his plans and purposes to save the world.

Somehow - in God’s power - He used fallen, human agents to accomplish his perfect eternal plan.

Somehow - in God’s power - He used fallen, human agents to accomplish his perfect eternal plan.

And so we affirm this mystery.

And so we affirm this mystery.

Meaning Lies In Authorial Intent

Meaning Lies In Authorial Intent

Because we believe the Bible was written by human authors to specific people in specific occasions, because of that, the doctrine of inspiration teaches us that in order to understand what a passage means, we need to understand what the human author intended it to mean. That is, inspiration teaches us that the divine purpose of the text is tied up with the human author’s meaning for the text. The text can’t mean something to us that it didn’t mean to the author. We don’t just get to create meaning.

This is why we don’t look at , when Paul asks for his coat, and feel that we all the Christian responsibility to pilgrimage to Troas and try to get a cloak from a dude named Carpas. That wasn’t Paul’s intention - he didn’t mean everyone had to go, he was asking Timothy to go.

There’s authorial intent that informs the meaning.

This is why, when we read in , Paul commands slaves to obey their earthly masters, our views on inspiration and authorial intent mean that we don’t see it as right to own slaves. We don’t see that as something the Bible is agreeing with or excusing - instead, we see Paul writing in a context of slavery, and we understand Paul wasn’t writing a polemic against slavery, but rather explaining how to live godly lives in the midst of broken societal situations.

This is why, when we read in , in relation eating food sacrificed to idols - even though that hasn’t once come up for any of us as an issue in Stevens Point - even then, we can read in verse 20, “it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats,” we can hear Paul’s intention in that passage. We can hear him say, “Don’t use your rights in a way that would cause other’s to stumble. Don’t exercise your freedom at the expense of someone else - whatever that right is. Food sacrificed to idols, or TV shows you might like to watch, or things you might like to drink.”

What It Does

Luther: “held that they were not dictated by the Holy Spirit, but that His illumination produced in the minds of their writers the knowledge of salvation, so that divine truth had been expressed in human form, and the knowledge of God had become a personal possession of man. The actual writing was a human not a supernatural act”

“

What it isn’t.

Dictation from God (some is - 10 Commandments, etc)

“

But, I know some people are going to argue with me, and say, “Dave, this is ridiculous - how can you claim that the Bible is inspired because the Bible claims to be inspired! Self claim holds no weight!” I understand the tension. But it’s a ridiculous problem.

Human author:

Human author:

Authorial intent

Divine author:

Learn how God works.

God works through us

Point to symmetry with Word - logos? Jesus.

What It Does

Let’s wrap up. Inspiration describes the interaction of God and the human author in the writing of Scripture - we’ve seen what it is and we’ve played around with what it means. But ultimately, what does it do? What’s the point? I see three takeaways for us to wrestle it.

Praise God

We Can Trust the Bible

The first, and I’m only to touch on it lightly because we’ll spend the next two weeks on it, but the first is that because the Bible is inspired, we can trust the Bible. Because we know God was intimately involved in the writing of Scripture, we can have absolute trust in the text of Scripture - that this is what God wants us to have. We can be confident in the Bible.

And so when we open it and when we read it and when we study it and when we seek to understand it - ultimately, when we realize what it says for us, we can eagerly submit ourselves to us, because we know it’s God’s word for us. We’re not afraid because it was written by human authors, that we can’t trust it - we understand that it was written by God, and so we do trust it.

God Wants Us to Know Him

Secondly, though, building off of the concept of a divine author, can we just take a step back and think about this with me - what does this book represent? The fact that we have it - the fact that 2,000 years after Jesus ascended to heaven this book is being translated into more languages and going to more countries, and selling more copies and being read more than ever before - the fact that this book is continuing to transform lives around the world proves that God just desperately wants you to know Him.

This book proves that God has an agenda for the world - and that that agenda is that you would know him.

The second takeaway is that God wants us - God wants you - to know Him, and his power and and his love and his purpose and his plans for you.

This book, which is all about who God is, is constantly going out in power. And the only incentive God had to inspire its writing was that so you could meet Him. Was so that you could find a mustard seed sized understanding of his love and passion and purpose for your life, and so that as you continued to read and learn and hear about our incredible God, and so that slight understanding could grow and expand and explode into soul-satisfying joy.

The very fact this book exists is proof that God wants a relationship with you.

I hear people say, “Dave, I understand that you think God is real and that you think God wants to know you, but I just don’t feel that.” Here’s the truth, brothers and sisters, in this moment you don’t need to feel that God wants a relationship with you - you can know that God wants a relationship with you.

Just like, in moments of despair, you don’t need to feel like God loves you because you can know that God loves - because God proved his love for you in that while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you - in the same way, you don’t need to feel like God wants a relationship with you, you can know that God wants a relationship with you, because He’s given you this book.

And so what are you waiting for? If you haven’t yet taken a step into a relationship with God, the invitation is right here. God says, “Yes, your sin prevents you from having a relationship with me. But I have proved just how much I love you in that I sent my Son to die for you, the absorb the cost of your sins, and then I’ve defeated the power by raising my Son back to life. That forgiveness and that freedom is yours if you say yes.”

What’s keeping you from saying yes?

God Wants To Use Us

He has given us everything necessary for

The third takeaway, the third result of the inspiration of Scripture, though, I think is just the coolest. Building off of the concept of the human author, isn’t it amazing that God worked with fallen, sinful people to accomplish His perfect purpose and to grow His church - to share His love with the whole world for all of time in the writing of Scripture? Isn’t that amazing?

Respond to God

That God would partner with humanity in that way. And the writers of Scripture - we talked about this when we were talking about the “concurrent work” of God. What qualified them for Scripture writing? Was it their age? Their knowledge? A lack of past sins or personal maturity? Their knowledge of the Bible?

None of that. At all.

Two AuthorsUndersatnding inspiration starts by understanding that there are two authors. There’s a divine author - God - which Scripture clearly names as having written Scripture, and there’s the human author - Paul, or Peter, or David, or Moses, which Scripture sometimes names, but often also identifies in their writing style or language or themes.

They were just people who were willing to be used by God, and in their moments of quiet faithfulness, the Holy Spirit used them to change the world.

This is what God is in the business of doing. This is why we follow him. This is why we wake up in the morning and roll out of bed and say, “God I don’t know what today will hold, but allow me to be faithful, and use me for your glory.”

Well it st

And as you and I quietly pursue the God who pursues us, we trust that He will use us for His glory in ways that will change the world.

Let’s pray.