What do we mean when we say the Bible is inspired?

Introduction to the Series

Typically, in this season between Easter and Pentecost, we have one of two types of sermon series. Either we spend 6 weeks reflecting on the meaning and impact of the resurrection on our lives today. I am not sure we can ever spend enough time thinking about both the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and our hope of the resurrection to come when God will make all things new and the whole earth will be made whole again. This vision of the creation restored and us living in it as the fully redeemed and sanctified people of God is worth thinking about every day.

So we either focus on the resurrection, or we think about how we can now live as people of faith in our world. Often these series have focused on questions about finding meaning and purpose in our lives.

This year, I want to do something a little different by thinking about questions we often avoid in church. Many years, I will meet with the youth groups and answer their questions. These questions often have recurring themes like how to make sense of the story of creation and what they are learning about evolution in their biology classes or what about angels or do I believe in aliens and so on. They range from the silly to the deeply profound.

So, for the next 6 weeks, we are going to be tackling some questions Christians often or simply don’t think about very much, like: what about all the Christian leaders with moral failings? And, Can I still be a Christian if I doubt? And, If I’m a spiritual person, why should I care about church and spiritual practices?

This week, we are going to tackle a less obvious question that lies behind many questions about the reliability of scripture. What do we mean when we say the Bible is inspired by God?

Before we dive into some scripture this morning, let us pray.

Lord God, let the words of your servant’s mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and Redeemer. Through Christ. Amen.

Text

2 Timothy 3:10–17 NIV

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

L: This is the word of our Lord!

P: Thanks be to God!

Where Did It Come From

Before we can even begin to think about what we mean by the Bible being inspired, we first need to think about where the Bible came from. It did not fall from the sky in English. So, how did books get chosen to be in the Bible and who wrote them?

You will sometimes hear conspiracy theorists argue the books of the Bible were chosen by the Emperor of Rome to justify and solidify his power, which is really odd given that one of the books paints Rome as the enemy of God. We can probably dismiss the conspiracy out of hand.

The true story is actually pretty mundane and fascinating. So, when the church begins they have to decide what writings will be considered sacred. The Old Testament was agreed upon almost immediately, though even among Jews the Old Testament hadn’t really been canonized (made part of their Bible) until right around the first century. But, it was the Bible Jesus read and the Jews knew.

But then, they were all trying to figure out how to explain what changed through Jesus death and resurrection and then also how they should live given the resurrection of Jesus. People started to write letters to encourage the churches scattered throughout the empire. And, a few people began writing down the story of Jesus’ life. They took the stories the church had been telling from the disciples and put them down on paper. And then all these letters and gospel accounts started getting passed around from church to church. Some were read only a few times and then set aside, others were read and the early church thought they failed to capture the truth of Jesus as the disciples told the story and they were soon set aside, but others were read over and over in all sorts of places. These became the New Testament we have today.

By the end of the second century all of the gospels, Paul’s letters, and 1 Peter and 1 John, and Hebrews were universally considered inspired by God. By the 4th century, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation has been included. The church held some councils to discuss and debate which books to include, but mostly they were agreeing with the practice among the churches.

The basic criteria for a book to be included were that it had to be written by someone who met Jesus face-to-face or someone who was taught by a person who knew Jesus face-to-face and the book had to be widely accepted by the churches.

The earliest record of the Canon of the New Testament is the Muratorian fragment which appears to be a translation of a Bible from Greek to Latin that may date back to about 170 CE. But by the early 300s the Canon was mostly set.

When we say the Bible is inspired, put of what we are saying is that we believe the Holy Spirit was at work in the process of the church choosing these books instead of some other books.

Options

But mostly when people say they believe the bIble is inspired, they are not talking about choosing the books of the Bible, but the books already in the Bible. There are three main ways Christians have thought about this type of inspiration.

Divine Dictation

Some people have argued the Bible was divinely dictated to the authors. It is as if God spoke the words directly to them and they wrote them down or God took control of their hands and made them write exactly the words God intended.

And to be honest, sometimes that is what is happening in the Bible. Isaiah and Jeremiah are both told to write down what they are told by God in at least a portion of their books. The writer of Revelation is told what to say to the 7 churches who receive letters from Jesus. Sometimes God is dictating to the authors.

But not most of the time. If God was dictating or giving each thought to Paul, why does Paul say he did not baptize anyone in the beginning of 1st Corinthians and then immediately correct himself when he remembers he did baptize someone? And why does the vocabulary God uses change from author to author if God is dictating. Paul for example uses, for lack of a better word, Street Greek, while other authors use more formal Greek. And, why does the book of Revelation simply have terrible Greek grammar? Did God suddenly forget how the Greek language works?

When we think of inspiration, we are not meaning that God somehow dictated the Bible to its authors.

Plenary Verbal Inspiration

Other people have argued for what is called Verbal Plenary Inspiration. This means that God guides the minds of human authors to write down the ideas, but their personality still shine through. God still determines the ideas and word order and sentence structure.

When people use this language they are usually arguing that the Bible is without error in its original manuscripts, but the copies and translations may have errors.

But, if God is still telling people the ideas and sentence structure to use it is not very different than dictation and if only the original manuscripts are inspired, then our translated Bibles are not inspired. They are not the word of God or God breathed.

This is the Islamic view of the Koran, but it has not been the view of Christians and the Bible throughout most of church history.

Inspiring Ideas

On the other extreme are those who believe the Bible is simply the reflection of God’s people on who God is. They may be wrong. They may reveal their sinful biases and limited knowledge. But it is not specifically God’s word we are reading, but rather inspiring ideas about God form other people who have tried to understand and live with this infinite and ultimately unknowable God.

They might imagine someone sitting on the beach, enjoying the breeze, and thinking, “This peace is wonderful, clearly God must bless the peacemakers. Let me add that to my stories about Jesus.”

If that is the case, then you may as well read some great poetry or deep philosophy. Then the Bible is simply an old book of stories and good moral advice, but nothing more. Certainly, inspiration must mean more than inspiring ideas about God.

Inspiration as Conceptual Guidance

In between those two extremes is the idea that scripture is God breathed because God gave the ideas and concepts to the authors, and then they wrote them in their own words, This is why Luke gets some geography wrong, Genesis puts camels in Canaan about 400 years too early. The writers are limited by their own knowledge, but are guided in communicating the truth we need to understand who God is, how the world has been broken, the reconciliation available in Jesus, and how we can now live in ways that point to the ultimate restoration of all things when Jesus returns.

If this is the case, and obviously I think it is, then we can trust our English translations because they all communicate these concepts and ideas faithfully. So you can read your Bible and know that you really are reading the word of God as you do so.

Practically

That’s kind of an academic answer to what we mean when we say scripture is God-breathed or inspired by God. But I think the more important question is what does it mean for us that scripture is God breathed.

One of my favorite images in scripture comes from the very beginning of Genesis when God forms Adam out of the dust of the ground and then breathes his very breath into Adam to make him alive. God’s breath makes us alive. This same image comes up in the powerful vision of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones where the Spirit breathes on the bones and they become living beings again. God’s breath makes things live.

So, not only does the inspiration of scripture mean it is a genuine message from God, but also that the scriptures are alive in some sense. When we read them, we encounter the living Spirit at work and active through those words. They are not magic words, but the primary tool God uses to reveal himself to us in the moment.

A few months ago, my boys and I were watching some Bible Project videos all about how to read the Bible well. They walked through different literary styles like poetry, history, and apocalyptic. But one of the videos has really stayed with me because it hit a key theme i think we can often miss.

We mostly read today for information or entertainment. Newspapers and social media posts are not mean to be read over and over. We read them for a moment and soon forget what we even read. We read a fiction book for fun on vacation, but we don’t look to find meaning for life in it.

But the Bible is different, it is a type of meditation literature. The whole point of scripture is to think about what you read all day long and then read a little more and think about that all day. To look for connections between different passages.

The Bible is often ambiguous, carrying more than one potential meaning. Take for example one famous parable of Jesus. In Matthew 13, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man finds the treasurer, he sells everything in order to buy the field and get the treasure. You could read this parable in at least one of two ways. Maybe we are the treasurer and Jesus is willing to give up everything to claim us as his own. Or, maybe the kingdom of heaven is the treasure and Jesus is saying we should be willing to give up everything to follow him and get that treasure. Both are legitimate readings of the story.

We need to develop a habit of meditation, or chewing on the word of God, thinking about it throughout the day to let is peak to us in all the ways God wants to speak. When we do this often enough, scripture begins to come alive to our daily lives.

That’s why when you read scripture one day, you may hear one thing from God. But if you read the same passage a few days or months later, you may hear an entirely different message from God.

For example, one day you may read Psalm 46:10 which says:

Psalm 46:10 NIV

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

When you read it one day you may be struck by the command to be still. Maybe you have been running at a frantic pace or your anxiety is causing you to spastically move from one activity to another, but never actually accomplishing anything. And you may hear God tell you to simply be still and stop for a few minutes. You do that and your mind slows down and you can start tackling whatever is in front of you.

Another day, you may be wanting to control a situation and are frustrated by your lack of control and you read the same passage and you hear God reminding you that he is God, which means you are not, and in response you choose to let go of your desire for control and trust God.

Another time, you may read this same passage after reading about some global event and the longing for God to be exalted in all nations may lead you to pray or worship God in some way.

When we read scripture attentive to God and his Spirit, when we think about it all day long, for years and years, it comes alive with the very presence of God in our lives. And when that happens, it becomes useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

Along with prayer, it is the most powerful practice we can have to both encounter God and be transformed by God.

What might you do today to experience this living message from God.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.