Inspiration of the Bible Don Murphy 7

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Inspiration of the Bible
Don Murphy
7/29/84

"Stand by the truths you have learned and are assured of. Remember from whom you learned them; remember that from early childhood you have been familiar with the sacred writings which have power to make you wise and lead you to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, or for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind.” II Tim 3:14-17

Let us begin our study by having a common definition of the words involved so that we can communicate properly. 'Graphe' is the Greek word usually translated as 'scripture'. It is the word from which we get our English word 'graphics' and it means 'written or pictorial representation'. The English word 'scripture' comes from the Latin word 'scribere' from which we also get the words 'scribe' (one who writes) and 'script' (handwriting). However, modern usage of the word 'scripture' means more than just writing; many people now take it to mean 'sacred writings'.

To obtain a clear understanding of the position of scripture in our lives we need to understand the relation of scripture to the lives of the people in the New Testament. In the time of Jesus, as today, there were at least two different views of scripture. The Pharisees tended to elevate scripture to a lofty position (in their attempts to erect a dam of law and tradition against the Hellenistic influences that were so strong in their day). They considered scripture to be holy but in actual practice they found many ways to avoid carrying out its demands. Jesus, on the other hand, considered scripture in a different light. He said it 'cannot be rejected' but he opposed it (chanced it) in His own decisions in such matters as marriage, retribution, hatred, the law of the Sabbath, the law of purification and other questions.

Jesus said of the Pharisees, "You study the scriptures diligently, supposing that in having them you have eternal life; yet, although their testimony points to me, you refuse to come to me for that life.” Consequently, the Pharisees condemned Jesus for his viewpoint and Jesus condemned the Pharisees for theirs.

We need to see this conflict of views clearly for we are disciples of Jesus and not of the Pharisees. It would be time well spent for us to examine carefully the concept of scripture held by the writers of the New Testament. For the early Christians, scripture was no longer just what was written, nor was it just tradition; it was the dynamic and divinely determined declaration of God which speaks of His whole rule and therefore of His destroying and new creating, which reaches it climax in the revelation of Christ and the revelation of the Spirit by the risen Lord. Because scripture serves and attests Christ, it can contain the most diverse elements, including some which disturb the old concept of authority or contradict the new. If the historical rule of God in creation and redemption is His foreshadowing and fulfillment, His prophesying and realization, then basically the full revelation in Christ and the Spirit is more than what is written. The latter had its true force only in this event and not in codification.

We also need to remember that the scripture of the early church was not the Bible as we know it today. Their Bible was the Greek Septuagint (containing what we today call the Apocrypha) which was put together several hundred years before the time of Christ. The Massoretic text, which is the basis for most modern translations of the Old Testament, was put together several hundred years after Christ.

When we examine the subject of the inspiration of Bible, we must consider what the Bible contains. It contains, in the gospels and in the book of Acts, a record of some of the events in the lives of Jesus and his apostles and a record of some of their spoken words. The New Testament also contains some of the letters written by some of the apostles to various peoples and churches. So it contains a collection of writings of some first century Christians. It does not contain all the words spoken by Jesus nor all the letters written by the apostle Paul. Many doctrines are mentioned only briefly in the New Testament and some are not mentioned at all. That is one reason for so many different 'Christian' denominations today. They are all claiming to follow the same Bible but they arrive at different beliefs.

Consideration of the inspiration of the Bible can not be complete without studying the teaching gifts of the Holy Spirit as listed by Paul in I Cor 12:4-11. For the Holy Spirit is to be the teacher of the disciples of Christ (John 14:26, I John 2:20, 27). The Spirit of God speaks through apostles and prophets, therefore, we must carefully examine what these apostles and prophets have written down. Paul tells us that we are to exercise our judgment upon what is spoken by prophets (I Cor 14: 29). He states, for example, in I Cor 7:10 that the ruling he is giving forbidding remarriage is straight from the Lord. Then he states that the following advice (on heathen spouses) is his own and not from the Lord. And on the question of celibacy, Paul states that he has no word from the Lord on it but he gives his ‘judgment as one who is fit to be trusted' (I Cor 7:25).

From these words of Paul, 'who is fit to be trusted', we can see that we are to 'test all things', remembering the words of Jesus about false prophets leading people astray.

Therefore, we also have to put the Bible to that same test. As the author of II Tim 3:16 indicates, not all scripture is inspired by God; for he states "Every inspired scripture has it use ...” (as the Greek text indicates) and not "All scripture has its use …".

A brief study of the history of the Bible shows us how the canon of the Bible has changed over the years (the last change occurred in 1534 when Martin Luther rejected the Old Testament Apocrypha as sacred Scripture, even though he said that it could be read with profit).

We also need to remember, as semanticists caution us, that words are not the non-verbal phenomena that they represent. They tell us that we live in two worlds, a world of words and a world of non-words, and these two should not be confused. If you did confuse the two, you might, for example, try eating the word steak when you get hungry or wearing the word coat when cold. In the same way, the Bible contains words that convey meanings to us but the Bible itself, of course, is not God.

The last consideration is what to do when we have decided that the Bible (or a Bible passage) is the 'word of God'. We, of course, must obey it and not fall into the trap of the Pharisees who developed such elaborate schemes to avoid obedience to God's commands. There are over 42 commandments given by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew with the last one being: “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28: 20).

Don Murphy
Disciple of Jesus