Trusting The Bible In Light of “Inspiration”
Jun 29
One of my great struggles is trusting the “bible” wholly. I will remove away from human error as I did before not that I don’t believe there are things that are a bit shaky but because it is a mute point that has been widely debated with no true resolution. My greatest struggle is that of “inspiration”. There are a few reason for this.
The first being that inspiration or “God Breathed” as it is written in Timothy would mean that no human error was involved. It would be as if the Holy Spirit came into the person and literally took control as the words were being written. This would be necessary to prevent any human bias in the text. So any sinful/fallen traits that contaminated the author would be removed every time he sat and wrote something of scripture. That would also mean that any cultural biases; things that are amoral neither moral nor immoral, would have to be removed also to make the text universally applicable to all people at all time until Christ returns.
The second issue would be what makes what was written scripture? Who came to that conclusion? Was it the author? I do see times where some writers say “thus says the Lord” and I am okay with that, but what about when things seem to be of the writers opinion, or a writing from the authors perspective (which would be limited of course)? What makes Philemon scripture? What makes Esther scripture? What makes Ruth scripture? Were all the Psalms and Proverbs meant to be “scripture”? How can I validate that it is God breathed versus just being something someone was writing to express themselves? What about letters that are missing? We have to believe even from the collection of letters today that we have an incomplete bible and are missing some rather important letters.
Thirdly we have the issue of canonization and what it entails. We would have to believe that the canonization process itself was also inspired by God but I hardly believe that. So not only do we have missing letters, maybe even human contaminated words from God but we have a process that was a human council. Especially if you are a cessationist because God had stop speaking that way 300 years prior to the canonization process.
So though the “bible” speaks of inspiration we almost have to develop a systematic theological treatise to come up with the concept of inspiration and that my friends is my struggle.
Alright my friend we may be on the verge of utter chaos or a deeper revelation of the attributes of God. Is it possible that we have out learned (if there is such a thing) or are we really grasping the fullness of the Gospel? Brother I am in the query with you and searching myself. I do think there is some validity to what you are saying. Here is where proposed hermeneutics make their stand. I don’t think there has been one that wrestles through all of those things without bias…
Brother Woods,
I too struggled through and continue to struggle with issues like this, yet I have found comfort in the very scriptures that I struggle with knowing that if God be the author, the truth will be revealed by His Holy Spirit in which He has entrusted me as a fellow-heir in Christ. What I have begun to understand and accept fully is that there is human error in the translation and interpretation of scripture, but not in the final inspiration. There is a reason why we must go back and study the old ways of Christians past. As today’s Christian believes the word to be stale, out-of-date, or erroneous, it goes to prove the validity of the scriptures that have been chosen. Prophesy that is foretelling is prophesy, but that which turns out to be false is not.
I think that as we hunger and thirst, truthfully and whole-heartedly, for God, we will find Him in scripture. If we do not want Him, we will not. The word has to be taken by faith. Yes, the word. What is the word, Jesus or Joshua or whatever name He had on this earth. I am sure that scripture that verifies is easy to grasp, but when there appears to be some strange contradiction, that is the sticking point. In these cases, by faith, I ask God to help me reason through what I am seeing or reading. I am 100% confident that there is no real contradiction in the books that have been chosen for canonization. There has to have been some divine inspiration in the choosing of the text we read. Man is not smart enough or clever enough to have figured this out. Men are too deceitful to themselves, too unclean, too unethical, too self-centered, and too finite to come up with such a story. We only need each other in the light of truth to be fully persuaded by what we see and read.
I don’t know if this helps, but I am with you all the way in Christ Jesus, we have our being.
Brother Woods,
I too struggled through and continue to struggle with issues like this, yet I have found comfort in the very scriptures that I struggle with knowing that if God be the author, the truth will be revealed by His Holy Spirit in which He has entrusted me as a fellow-heir in Christ. What I have begun to understand and accept fully is that there is human error in the translation and interpretation of scripture, but not in the final inspiration. There is a reason why we must go back and study the old ways of Christians past. As today’s Christian believes the word to be stale, out-of-date, or erroneous, it goes to prove the validity of the scriptures that have been chosen. Prophesy that is foretelling is prophesy, but that which turns out to be false is not.
I think that as we hunger and thirst, truthfully and whole-heartedly, for God, we will find Him in scripture. If we do not want Him, we will not. The word has to be taken by faith. Yes, the word. What is the word, Jesus or Joshua or whatever name He had on this earth. I am sure that scripture that verifies is easy to grasp, but when there appears to be some strange contradiction, that is the sticking point. In these cases, by faith, I ask God to help me reason through what I am seeing or reading. I am 100% confident that there is no real contradiction in the books that have been chosen for canonization. There has to have been some divine inspiration in the choosing of the text we read. Man is not smart enough or clever enough to have figured this out. Men are too deceitful to themselves, too unclean, too unethical, too self-centered, and too finite to come up with such a story. We only need each other in the light of truth to be fully persuaded by what we see and read.
I don’t know if this helps, but I am with you all the way in Christ Jesus, we have our being.
@ Brian and Larry,
I actually have a post coming in response.
I am not sure the “canonization” of scripture did anything special. It was just a time when scripture was collected and put into a volume. That happened during the exile for the OT. Jesus, evidently accepted the OT as scripture and even made a reference to it in its Hebrew order when he said talked about all the murders from able to Zechariah the first and last murders recorded in the OT.
So, Jesus accepting the OT works for me. The NT is a little different. The living Word is Jesus. The gospels are researched and prepared passion narratives with long introductions. Acts tells of the continuing ministry of the followers of the Way. Most of the letters fold back into Acts at a particular place and time. Hebrews and Revelation (especially the letters to the churches) have their own connections to both OT and the Apostles.
I am comfortable with scripture being a reliable document of God’s Revelation of Himself culminating in Jesus our Lord. I don’t think it has to be instantly readable or understandable to people out of context or culture. If there were a recording of Jesus speaking, I wouldn’t understand it. If it were translated I’d understand a good bit of it, but I would still miss the stuff that doesn’t fit my own understanding of the world in my time and place. That doesn’t make his words any less than they are.
God bless you Lionel. I like you a lot.
Stephen,
Man thanks for commenting and I like your logic. Let me ask, how much of the OT did Jesus accept or verfiy as scripture? Man you comment is very thought provoking.
What I was trying to type, although not very well was that the Old Testament as we have it now (not our translations obviously, but it’s content) is the same as the Old Testament that Jesus recognized as “the scriptures.” It was in a different order, but no additional books and no fewer books. Jesus said this:
Luke 11
47 “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48 “In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
49 “Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’
50 “that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,
51 “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
Abel was the first murder in Genesis and Zechariah was the last one in 2 Chronicles 24 (the last book in the Hebrew order of the Old Testament) Interestingly, chronologically the murder of Uriah by Jehoiakim was later, but this Zechariah is the last one from Genesis to 2 Chronicles (the last book in the canon).
The Hebrew Bible ends with the Book of Chronicles, which describes Israel restored to the Promised Land and the Temple restored in Jerusalem; In the Christian Old Testament the Book of Malachi is placed last, so that a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah leads into the birth of the Christ in the Gospel of Matthew. There is no difference in the content or number of the books.
If interested, “Internet Monk” had a good review on the subject that I was very glad for…as seen in “Thinking About the Canon: A Post-Evangelical’s View”( http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/thinking-about-the-canon-a-post-evangelicals-view )
Good looking out Stephen, I definitely agree that scripture verifies. Jesus confirmed the old testament and Peter confirmed many of Pauls writings. And each of the epistles confirm Christ and speak of His teachings. Anything that lines up with Christ words is good for me too. Paul was very learned in His own culture as well as Roman custom and culture. We have to be very careful making too much of “canonization”.