<\/p>\n
We know the Bible as the Word of God. That means God is the source of Scripture, revealing truths we are incapable of knowing without divine help.<\/p>\n
The Bible is\u00a0special revelation<\/em>\u00a0in that it is a record of God\u2019s work before time, in time, and beyond time, with a particular emphasis on creation, sin, redemption, and restoration. As such, Scripture complements God\u2019s\u00a0general revelation<\/em>, which all people witness in creation and conscience (Rom. 1:18-32; 2:14-16).<\/p>\n In the Bible, God is revealed as one being in three persons \u2013 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While these divine persons carry out distinct roles in creation and salvation, they are unified in purpose.<\/p>\n The holy, loving, self-giving persons of the Godhead set the standard for how human beings created in God\u2019s image should relate to God and to one another. At the same time, without Scripture, we would not be able to comprehend God as a Trinity.<\/p>\n Our ability to observe the natural world points us to a divine Designer. Yet, nature itself cannot adequately explain how Yahweh is one being in three persons. And mankind\u2019s universal conscience compels us to conclude that there is a divine moral Law Giver. Even so, conscience can\u2019t tell us the reason behind or the remedy for our violations of standards that have been written on our hearts.<\/p>\n It takes special revelation from this divine Designer and divine moral Law Giver. That\u2019s where the Bible steps into the picture.<\/p>\n The 40 men who penned the Scriptures insisted that their messages came from God. They claimed to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Peter 1:20-21). \u201cThus saith the Lord,\u201d \u201cGod said,\u201d \u201cthe Word of the Lord came to me,\u201d and similar phrases are found hundreds of times in the Bible.<\/p>\n The apostle Paul declares, \u201cAll Scripture is inspired by God\u201d (2 Tim. 3:16). Even before the New Testament canon is completed, Peter refers to the writings of Paul as \u201cScriptures\u201d (2 Peter 3:16). And ancient non-Christian writings attest to the truthfulness of the eyewitness accounts of Jesus of Nazareth.<\/p>\n It should come as no surprise that the triune Godhead also produced the Bible. Christians understand the Holy Spirit to be the divine agent of God\u2019s written revelation. Yet the Spirit moved in concert with the Father and the Son.<\/p>\n Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, \u201cAll Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.\u201d<\/p>\n The phrase \u201cinspired by God\u201d translates the Greek word\u00a0theopneustos.\u00a0<\/em>It means \u201cGod-breathed.\u201d God did not breathe\u00a0into<\/em>\u00a0the Scriptures, thus inspiring them; He breathed\u00a0out<\/em>\u00a0His Word. The Bible\u2019s originator is God.<\/p>\n Theologian Charles Ryrie defines inspiration as \u201cGod\u2019s superintendence of the human authors of Scripture so that using their own individual personalities, they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man in the words of the original autographs.\u201d<\/p>\n By superintendence, we do not mean God dictated His Word to human stenographers, as Muhammad claimed of the Qur\u2019an (via the angel Gabriel). Rather, God breathed out His Word, enabling the human authors to use their own writing styles, backgrounds, experiences, and ideas to put in written form the very thoughts of God, thus ensuring their accuracy.<\/p>\n We should be clear that inspiration applies to the\u00a0autographs<\/em>\u00a0of Scripture \u2013 that is, the original documents \u2013 not to subsequent manuscript copies, which contain some scribal errors, or to Bible translations, which vary in accuracy and readability.<\/p>\n God is so identified with His Word that when Scripture speaks, God speaks. For example, Paul writes, \u201cFor the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth\u201d (Rom. 9:17; cf. Exod. 9:16). Further, Scripture is called \u201cthe very words of God\u201d (Rom. 3:2) and can neither be altered nor broken (Matt. 5:17-18; John 10:35; Rev. 22:18-19).<\/p>\n Note several important components that contribute to the inspiration of Scripture:<\/p>\n (1) The Holy Spirit\u2019s superintendence of the human authors guarantees an\u00a0inerrant\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0infallible\u00a0<\/em>original text. Inerrancy means freedom from errors or untruths. Infallibility means the original manuscripts are incapable of error because God is wholly dependable.<\/p>\n (2) Inspiration extends not just to spiritual ideas or theological concepts, but also to the very words of the writers. This is known as\u00a0verbal inspiration<\/em>.<\/p>\n (3) Inspiration pertains to\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0Scripture. All parts of the Bible are equally authoritative. This is called\u00a0plenary inspiration<\/em>.<\/p>\n But\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0did God inspire His Word? The apostle Peter offers a hint when he writes, \u201cNo prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet\u2019s own\u00a0interpretation<\/em>, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were\u00a0carried along<\/em>\u00a0by the Holy Spirit\u201d (2 Pet. 1:20-21).<\/p>\n The Greek word rendered \u201cinterpretation\u201d conveys the idea of unleashing something. Therefore, no human being may take credit for untethering divine revelation; God is the one who makes the meaning of the text accessible to human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We know the Bible as the Word of God. That means God is the source of Scripture, revealing truths we are incapable of knowing without divine help. The Bible is\u00a0special revelation\u00a0in that it is a record of God\u2019s work before time, in time, and beyond time, with a particular emphasis on creation, sin, redemption, … Continue reading “33.e. A posting from Once Delivered”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139748"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139751,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139748\/revisions\/139751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Scripture is God-breathed<\/h3>\n