Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Inspiration – Further Examined

By Dean Kelly

We are dependent on the inspiration of the Bible to even know about the cross of Jesus. Inspiration gives us the record of the events and is the only source of absolute and accurate knowledge of those events. So, understanding the concept of inspiration is so very significant.

There are a few major views of what inspiration (God-breathed) truly is.

One is the view that the Bible is inspired like Shakespeare’s plays are inspired. This leaves out the divine agency of God. This concept certainly does not fit the scriptures.

Over and over the emphasis is the word of God was given to these inspired men. Peter says, in 2 Peter 1, “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation, For 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 1:20-21 ESV).

Prophecy here means more than foretelling the future. It is the presenting of the word of God. Inspiration involves much more than just the Shakespeare-like “inspiration.”

Another is the view that Bible inspiration is only thought inspiration. This leaves room for the writer to not only word the message in his own way, but to also insert his own feelings.

Some claim Paul inserted his own thoughts. One writer recently wrote that “Paul recanted” something he had written earlier. This idea comes from the concept of thought inspiration. Listen to what Paul says, “Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13 NASB).

Paul says that inspiration involves even words that are approved by God, not the wisdom of the writer.

We can see that these two ideas of inspiration do not fit the truth of biblical inspiration as presented in the scriptures. Next week we will examine two more views concerning inspiration in light of what the scriptures teach. Only when we understand the nature of inspiration and scripture can we truly come to the cross that is revealed in those scriptures.

Dean Kelly is minister at Highland Home Church of Christ.