2 Timothy 3:16, 17: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; 17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
Scripture, as the prime directive of Christianity, is often overtly if not subliminally viewed with skepticism. This skepticism takes many forms – from the factual to observational. Our question has to do with inspiration; specifically, how did we get the Word of God? Who decided what we consider the Canon of Scripture to be? How reliable is it? To determine the Biblical answers, we look to:
- Historical Context: The Book of 2 Timothy was written by Paul in approximately A.D. 67, shortly before he was put to death. Imprisoned in Rome yet again, the apostle Paul felt lonely and abandoned. Paul recognized that his earthly life was likely coming to an end soon. The Book of 2 Timothy is essentially Paul’s “last words.” Paul looked past his own circumstances to express concern for the churches and specifically for Timothy. Paul wanted to use his last words to encourage Timothy, and all other believers, to persevere in faith (2 Timothy 3:14), trust in the Word (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 4:2). Paul encourages Timothy to remain passionate for Christ and to remain firm in sound doctrine (2 Timothy 1:1-2, 13-14). Paul reminds Timothy to avoid ungodly beliefs and practices and to flee from anything unrighteous (2 Timothy 2:14-26). In the end times there will be both intense persecution and apostasy from the Christian faith (2 Timothy 3:1-17). Paul closes with an intense plea for believers to stand firm in the faith and to finish the race strong (2 Timothy 4:1-8).
- Grammatical Usage: V 16: “inspiration” or “Theopneustos” in the Greek means, “God breathed”; “profitable” is “Ophelimos” meaning, “to increase in the sense of having an advantage”; “doctrine” is “Didaskalia” meaning, “teaching or instruction”; “reproof” or “Elegchos” meaning “a proof or proving (not a correction)”; “correction” is “Epanorthosis” meaning, “setting upright…specifically a reference to improvement of life and character”; “instruction” is ‘Paideia” meaning, “training not in the sense of imparting knowledge but chastening (see the lesson on Chastisement – Hebrews 12:6) or disciplining”; “righteousness” or “Dikaiosune” meaning, “integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking feeling, and acting according to God”; V. 17: “perfect” or “Artios” meaning, “fitted, complete (not morally perfect)”; “furnished” or “Exartizo” meaning, “to complete for a special purpose”; “good” or “Agathos” meaning, “honorable as in pleasing to God”; “works” or “Ergon” meaning, “every activity undertaken for Christ’s sake.”
- Literal Application: All Scripture is breathed of God, giving the advantage to our understanding because of His supernatural revelation, proving Him true in all His assertions therefore improving ourselves personally and our lives corporately, training us through merciful chastisement in integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness and correct thinking that the disciple is prepared to complete the calling of God with honor in every activity undertaken for the sake of Jesus Christ.
- Contextual Interpretation: Inspiration is one of the most important doctrines in Christianity for
the sole reason that we hold the Bible to be inspired by God, and as such is
our infallible rule for faith and practice. If that rule of faith and practice
is not “God-breathed” but is simply the work of the human imagination, then
there is no compelling reason to follow its doctrines and righteous guidelines.
The reason we hold the Bible to be our rule for faith and practice can be summed up in one biblical passage: 2 Timothy 3:16-17. We notice two things regarding Scripture from this verse: 1) It is “inspired by God” and 2) It is “profitable” for Christian living. We can come up with definitions for the various things Scripture is profitable for (reproof, correction, etc.). What really needs to be defined is what is meant by “inspired by God?”
There are four ways to look at inspiration:
1. The neo-orthodox view of inspiration. The neo-orthodox view of inspiration is based
on their view of the transcendence of God. Neo-orthodoxy taught that God is so
completely different from us (i.e., utterly transcendent) that the only way we
could ever know Him is through His revelation to us. This view of the
transcendence of God is so restrictive that it denies any concept of natural
theology (i.e., that God can be known through His creation). Furthermore, it
denies that the Bible is the Word of God. Rather, the Bible is a witness, or
mediator, to the Word of God, which is God Himself. The words in the Bible
aren’t God’s words, but God can use them to speak to individuals. Other than
that, the words in the Bible are fallible words written by fallible men. The neo-orthodox view of inspiration is no
view of inspiration at all. If the Bible is the fallible product of fallible
men, then it really has no value at all, at least not any more than any other
book written by men. God could very well “speak” to us through works
of fiction as He could through the Bible.
2. The dictation method of inspiration. The dictation method of inspiration sees God
as the author of Scripture and the individual human agents as secretaries
taking dictation. God spoke and man wrote it down. This view has some merit as
we know there are portions of Scripture in which God essentially says,
“Write this down” (e.g., Jeremiah 30:2), but not all Scripture was
created that way. The Pentateuch is essentially a pre-history and chronicle of
the Jewish people prior to settling in the Promised Land. While Moses is
believed to be the primary author, much of it is the editorial work of Moses
and later redactors who finalized the finished product. Luke states in the
preamble to his Gospel that he performed detailed research into the events of
the life of Jesus before writing his work (Luke 1:1-4). Many of the prophetic
books read like journals of the prophets’ lives. The bottom line is that the
dictation method only explains certain portions of Scripture, but not all of it
or even most of it.
3. The view of limited inspiration. Limited inspiration is sort of the opposite view of dictation. Whereas dictation sees Scripture as primarily the work of God with the human agent reduced to being a secretary, limited inspiration sees Scripture as primarily the work of man with “limited” inspiration from God. God guides the human authors, but allows them the freedom to express themselves in their works. This view asserts that while there may be factual and historical errors in the Bible, the Holy Spirit guided the authors so that no doctrinal errors resulted from their works. The problem with this view is how one can trust the Bible in doctrinal concerns when it is prone to error in its historical accounts? The reliability of the Bible is called into doubt in this view, and if we can’t trust a literary work to get mundane details right, how can we trust it for weightier issues? This view also seems to ignore the fact that while the Bible is a story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation, it is a story told against the backdrop of human history, the doctrine being interwoven within the history. One can’t just arbitrarily say that this account is factually inaccurate yet state it contains a kernel of doctrinal truth.
4. The view of plenary verbal
inspiration. The final view, and the
view of orthodox Christianity, is the view of plenary, verbal inspiration. The
word plenary means “complete or full,” and verbal means
“the very words of Scripture.” So plenary, verbal inspiration means
that every single word in the Bible is the very word of God. The passage quoted
above (2 Timothy 3:16-17) uses a unique Greek word, theopneustos, which
literally means “God-breathed.” Scripture is literally “breathed
out” of the mouth of God. Furthermore, in another biblical passage, we see
that “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God
as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
This passage gives us a clue as to how God inspired the human authors. We see
that men spoke (or wrote) “as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit.” The verb “carried along” is used to speak of a sail
being filled by a wind and carrying a boat along the water, which is fitting
since the Greek word for “spirit” is also used for “wind.”
When the human authors were putting pen to paper, the Holy Spirit “carried
them along” so that what they wrote were the “breathed-out” words of
God. This means that while the actual writings retain the personality of the
individual authors (and that is obvious if you read the works of Paul compared
to James or John or Peter), they contain the actual words of God.
It should be noted that there are some things that inspiration is not:
1. Inspiration is not robotic dictation (not to be confused with the dictation
method mentioned above). The personality of the human authors is present in
each of the writings;
2. The fact that individual personalities are present in the writings does not
mean that God’s “control” over them was not perfect. The Holy Spirit
superintended the process so that the words written were the exact words God
wanted, despite the fallibility of the human authors;
3. Inspiration is limited to the original writings (autographs) not the process
of transmission. We know there are minute transmission errors in the copies of
manuscripts, but these errors are more grammatical than substantive;
4. The inspiration of Scripture is to the verbal level, meaning that it’s not
just the ideas or thoughts that are inspired, but the very words. Moreover, we
don’t speak of inspiration of Scripture as we would the inspiration of a great
work of literature or a work of music;
5. Finally, inspiration is limited to the specific works of the authors that
are included in the biblical canon. Paul wasn’t inspired, but Romans was.
Furthermore, not all letters of Paul were inspired, but only the ones the Holy
Spirit chose to preserve (e.g., see the Corinthian letters in which reference
is made to two additional letters to this church of which we have no existing
copies).
Biblical inspiration, in a nutshell, is the orthodox view of the church which
says that the Bible is the plenary, verbally inspired word of God.
- Scriptural Comparison: Below are some evidences that the Bible is inspired (God-breathed) by God, as declared in 2 Timothy 3:16:
1) Fulfilled prophecy. God spoke to men telling them of things He would bring
about in the future. Some of them have already occurred. Others have not. For
example, there were more than 300 prophecies concerning Jesus Christ’s first
coming 2,000 years ago. There is no doubt that these are prophecies from God
because of manuscripts and scrolls dated before the birth of Christ. These were
not written after the fact. They were written beforehand. Scientific dating
proves this.
2) The unity of Scripture. The Bible was written by approximately 40 human
authors over a period of approximately 1,600 years. These men were quite
diverse. Moses, a political leader; Joshua, a military leader; David, a
shepherd; Solomon, a king; Amos, a herdsman and fruit picker; Daniel, a prime minister;
Matthew, a tax collector; Luke, a medical doctor; Paul, a rabbi; and Peter, a
fisherman; among others. The Bible was also written under a variety of
circumstances. It was written on 3 different continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet, the great themes of Scripture are maintained
in all the writings. The Bible does not contradict itself. There is no way,
apart from God the Holy Spirit supervising the writing of the Bible, that this
could have been accomplished.
Contrast this with the Islamic Koran. It was compiled by one individual, Zaid
bin Thabit, under the guidance of Mohammed’s father-in-law, Abu-Bekr. Then in
A.D. 650, a group of Arab scholars produced a unified version and destroyed all
variant copies to preserve the unity of the Koran. The Bible was unified from
the time of its writing. The Koran had to be unified through the editing of
men.
3) The Bible presents its heroes truthfully with all of their faults and
weaknesses. It does not glorify men as other religions do about their heroes. When
you read the Bible, you realize that the people it describes have problems and
do wrong just as we do. What made them great was that they trusted in God. One
example is David. David is described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel
13:14). Yet, David committed adultery (2 Samuel 11:1-5) and murder (2 Samuel
11:14-26). This could have been left out of Scripture to hide these details of
David’s life. But God included these things.
4) Archaeological findings support the history recorded in Scripture. Though
many unbelieving people throughout history have tried to find archaeological
evidence to disprove what is recorded in the Bible, they have failed. It is
easy to say that Scripture is untrue. Proving it to be untrue is a different
story. It has not been done. In fact, in the past the Bible contradicted the
current “scientific” theories, only to be proven later to be in fact true. A
good example is Isaiah 40:22, which declared that God “sits on the circle of
the earth” long before scientists claimed the earth was flat.
The
Bible’s claims of being from God should not be understood as arguing in a
circle or by circular reasoning. The testimony of reliable witnesses –
particularly of Jesus, but also of others such as Moses, Joshua, David, Daniel,
and Nehemiah in the Old Testament, and John and Paul in the New Testament –
affirm the authority and verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Consider
the following passages: Exodus 14:1; 20:1; Leviticus 4:1; Numbers 4:1;
Deuteronomy 4:2; 32:48; Isaiah 1:10, 24; Jeremiah 1:11; Jeremiah 11:1–3;
Ezekiel 1:3; 1 Corinthians 14:37; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:16–21; 1 John
4:6.
Also of interest are the writings of Josephus, an historian who recorded much
of the history of Israel
during the first century. In this he records some events which coincide with
Scripture.
Considering the evidence given, we have no choice but to accept the Bible as being from God (2 Timothy 3:16). Conclusion: Of course, when we speak of “inspiration,” we are referring only to the process by which the original documents were composed. After that, the doctrine of the preservation of the Bible takes over. If God went to such great lengths to give us His Word, surely He would also take steps to preserve that Word unchanged. Through careful study of Scripture and the Spirit’s guidance, we can understand, interpret and apply Scripture. Due to faithful, dedicated translators, translations today are superb and trustworthy. The fact that we cannot ascribe inerrancy to a translation prompts close study, preventing blind devotion towards any particular version.