Sermon Tone Analysis

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.