Sermon Tone Analysis

Inspiration: The Bible Is God-Breathed

“All Scripture,” the apostle Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy, “is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

A more accurate rendering of the phrase “inspired by God” might be “God-breathed.”

If Scripture is “God-breathed,” that means the words of Scripture came to us from the innermost essence of God himself.

Moses and the prophets knew this and declared that they were writing God’s own words.

Jesus agreed with their assessment and described the words of Scripture as words from God himself.

A. Verbal-Plenary Inspiration

For centuries, Bible-believing Christians have accepted two important truths about the inspiration of Scripture:

Verbal inspiration (Latin verbum, “word”)— God’s inspiration extends to the very words of Scripture.

Plenary inspiration (Latin plenus, “full”)— Every part of the Bible is fully inspired, not merely the parts that have to do with salvation and our spiritual lives.

Verbal-plenary inspiration does not mean that God turned writers into robots, controlled from heaven through a cosmic keyboard.

The biblical authors used their own free expressions, and God providentially guided their lives so that they would choose the words that conveyed his truth.

Notice that God did not merely inspire the authors of Scripture!

God inspired the text itself.

If Paul had thought the authors were inspired but not the text, Paul could have written something like this to Timothy:

“Everyone who wrote Scripture was inspired by God.”

But that’s not at all what Paul said or thought!

Paul said that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) because he believed that the very words of Scripture originated in God.

So what specific documents did Paul have in mind when he dictated the word “Scripture” and described these texts as “God-breathed”?

Paul’s words pointed primarily to the Old Testament.

After all, when Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, some New Testament texts weren’t even finished!

Yet, even when Paul wrote this letter, Christians were already aware that “Scripture” included not only the Old Testament but also the words of believers who had seen the risen Jesus and close associates of these eyewitnesses.

Two biblical texts make it clear that, by the mid-first century, Christians were already treating New Testament writings as Scripture:

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul identified words spoken by Jesus that became part of Luke’s Gospel as “Scripture”.

Shortly after Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, Simon Peter referred to Paul’s letters as “Scripture”.

Even while the texts in the New Testament were being penned and assembled, early Christians knew that writings linked to believers commissioned by the risen Lord Jesus carried the same authority as the Old Testament Scriptures.

Because every word of Scripture is breathed out by God, the Bible stands as the full and final authority for God’s people.

The Bible in its entirety is the Creator’s message to his creatures, the King’s edict to his citizens, and the Spirit’s tool for transforming his people.

Church traditions, creeds, and confessions of faith can be useful, but they can never claim authority equal to God’s inspired Word.

Infallibility and Inerrancy: The Bible Is Error-Free

Titus was a young pastor on an island where the inhabitants were well-known for their dishonesty.

Perhaps that’s why Paul opened his letter to Titus with the simple reminder that “God … does not lie” (Titus 1:2).

Paul said that I lie, you lie—but God never lies.

With that in mind, let’s ask ourselves a crucial question: If all Scripture is God-breathed and if God never lies, what does that tell us about the reliability of Scripture?

Throughout history, faithful Christians have agreed that, if God can’t lie, his written revelation can’t lie either.

Our trust in the truthfulness of Scripture is rooted in our belief in the trustworthy character of God.

A broad range of words and phrases have been used in different eras to describe the truthfulness of Scripture.

One of the most important of these terms is “infallibility.”

The word “infallibility” comes from a Latin word that meant “unable to deceive” or “not liable to err.”

When we say that the Bible is “infallible,” what we mean is that Scripture tells the truth and never deceives us.

Another, more recent term to describe the truthfulness of Scripture is “inerrant,” a word that simply means “not in error.”

Error-prone human beings put the Scriptures together, but God was at work among these inspired authors and editors, preventing them from introducing any errors into his written revelation.

That’s why we can trust that “when all the facts are known, the Scriptures ... properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm.”

Inerrancy does not require Scripture to be scientifically precise, and inerrancy certainly doesn’t rule out figurative language or numeric estimates in the Bible.

“Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.”

For example:

In 1 Kings 7:23, a circular pool in the temple is described as “ten cubits from rim to rim” and “thirty cubits … around.”

A circular pool ten cubits in diameter would actually be slightly larger than thirty cubits around.

Yet the biblical author didn’t make an error because mathematical precision wasn’t his purpose.

The purpose of this text was simply to describe an object that Solomon’s metalworkers made, and the author used rounded numbers in his description.

When an ancient chronicler of Israel’s history recorded the demise of 18,000 Edomites (2 Samuel 8:13), this author probably wasn’t taking a precise census of how many Edomites died; he was providing a rounded figure based on the information he possessed.

And so, if the exact death toll numbered a thousand or two higher or lower than the number recorded, that’s not an error; it’s an estimate.

When Scripture says “the sun rose,” the biblical authors were describing daybreak from an earth-dweller’s perspective (Genesis 32:31; Jonah 4:8); these authors didn’t err anymore than weather reporters today are mistaken when they refer to “sunrise” and “sunset” on the morning news.

God revealed his message through human authors who recorded truthful testimony in different genres and styles of writing.

To whatever extent precision was necessary to express God’s truth, Scripture tells the truth with precision.

A. What about the early church leaders?

Did they believe in the inerrancy of Scripture?

The earliest Christians never used the words “inerrancy” and “infallibility.”

However, from the earliest stages of Christian history, faithful church leaders treated Scripture as God’s inerrant and infallible revelation.

“You have searched the Scriptures, which are true and given by the Holy Spirit.

You know that nothing unrighteous or counterfeit is written in them.”

—Clement of Rome, first century

“All Scripture, which has been given to us by God, [is] perfectly consistent.

The parables harmonize with the passages that are plain; and statements with a clearer meaning serve to explain the parables.”—Irenaeus of Lyons, second century

“I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another.”

—Justin Martyr, second century

“The statements of Holy Scripture will never contradict the truth.”

—Tertullian of Carthage, third century

“It is the opinion of some that the Scriptures do not agree or that the God who gave them is false.

But there is no disagreement at all.

Far from it!

The Father, who is truth, cannot lie.”—Athanasius of Alexandria, fourth century

“I have learned to give respect and honor to the canonical books of Scripture.

Regarding these books alone, I most firmly believe that their authors were completely free from error.

If in these writings I am confused by anything which appears to me opposed to the truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.”—Augustine of Hippo, fifth century

Sufficiency: The Bible Is Enough

So far, we’ve learned that the Bible is God-breathed and error-free—but is the Bible enough?

We must realize that a personal conversation with Jesus face to face in physical form isn’t what we need!

we must come to the realization that what the Bible provides is enough for us to trust God.

In theological terms, what we must recognize is the sufficiency of Scripture.

Throughout history, Christians have treated Scripture as sufficient in two senses: First and foremost, Scripture provides enough knowledge for us to find God’s truth and to live in fellowship with him.

Second, Scripture has been copied with enough accuracy to preserve God’s truth.

Let’s look at these two things in a little more detail.

A. Scripture provides us with sufficient knowledge to trust God and to live in fellowship with him.

The biblical texts, as they were originally written, contain every truth that’s needed for us to be saved and to follow our Savior.

“Never in church history has God added to the teachings or commands of Scripture… Scripture is sufficient to equip us for ‘every good work’” (2 Timothy 3:15–16).

The Meaning of Inerrancy

In 1978, more than 300 Christian leaders—including John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Francis Schaeffer, J. I. Packer, and Carl F. H. Henry, and many others—gathered in Chicago.

There, they developed a statement that clarified the meaning and implications of biblical inerrancy.

Here are three key affirmations and denials from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

“We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.

We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.”

“We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

We deny that biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science.”

“We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all matters it addresses.

We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions.

Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not separated.”

The sufficiency of Scripture doesn’t mean, of course, that the Bible includes every truth we will ever need to complete every task in our lives!

Scripture doesn’t provide us with much information when it comes to installing ceramic tile or conjugating German verbs, for example, and performing brain surgery based only on information found in the Bible is likely to end badly for everyone.

And so, Scripture doesn’t reveal all things.