The Bible, God's Inspired Word - part one
INTRODUCTION:
1. This series of lessons concerns how to study the Bible. Each lesson will deal with the following:
Lessons One & Two: The Bible, God's Inspired Word.
Lesson Three: Can We Understand The Bible?
Lesson Four: The Importance of Our Attitude In Bible Study.
Lessons Five & Six: Two Methods Of Bible study.
2. Our first lessons begins a consideration of the Bible's inspiration. This must be established in our minds before there will be a desire for proper study, along with the prompting of patient and thorough investigation, necessary in gaining its understanding.
I. THE BIBLE IS THE REVELATION OF GOD - 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20-21
A. "reveal" (Grk. apokalupto) - to uncover, unveil (Vine's Expository Dict. of N.T. Words)
1. Something presented to the mind of man: God's character (Matt. 11:27; 1 John 4:8); God's will for man's conduct (1 Thess. 4:1-8); God's will concerning man's salvation (Eph. 3:5-10)
B. Man's limitations constitute the primary covering/veil - Isa. 55:8-9; 1 Cor. 2:9-11
1. God has no limitations:
a. Omiscient (all-knowing) - Heb. 4:13
b. Omnipotent (all-powerful) - Mark 10:27; Jere. 32:17
c. Omnipresent (all-present) - Psalm 139:7-10
2. Man is limited within the bounds of space, time & knowledge - James 4:14
C. Necessity of a revelation from God
1. Cannot know God through nature.
a. We can see in creation evidence to the wisdom & power of God as the Designer and Creator - Psalm 119:1-4; Rom. 1:20
b. However, man can never come to KNOW God and His will for their salvation - compare Rom. 1:16-17 with Rom. 1:20
2. Cannot know God by human intuition - Jere. 10:23; Prov. 16:25
a. There is no "inner light" to instruct and guide us.
3. Cannot know God by human wisdom - 1 Cor. 1:21; 3:19; Jere. 8:9
a. With the accomplishments of the Roman Empire and Grecian philosphers, moral and spiritual degradation ran rampant - cf. Rom. 1:18-32; Acts 17
b. "We will wait for one, either God or a God-inspired man to teach us our religious duties and to take away the darkness from our eyes" (Plato)
II. WHAT IS "INSPIRATION"?
A. Inspiration is not:
1. Natural genius of man - i.e., "the inspired works of Shakespeare", etc.
2. Some kind of partial and prejudiced inspiration - i.e. morals versus miracles.
3. In sense but not in sentence. If the Bible is not inspired by words, what else could be inspired? Ink? Paper?
B. The Bible is "verbally inspired".
1. Defined: "the original documents of the Bible were written by men who, though permitted the exercise of their own personalities and literary talents, yet wrote under the control and guidance of the Spirit of God, the result being in every word of the original documents a perfect and errorless recording of the exact message which God desired to give to man." (Frank E. Gaebelein, The Meaning Of Inspiration, pg. 9)
2. 2 Timothy 3:16 - all scripture is "God-breathed"
a. "scripture" (Grk. graphe) - denoted what is written.
b. Words comprise that which is written.
c. Conclusion: the very words are God-breathed.
3. Examples:
a. David: "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was upon my tongue" - 2 Sam. 23:2
b. Jeremiah: "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth" - Jere. 1:9
c Psalm 119: the scriptures are exalted as the word of God some 175 times in this psalm alone.
d. Jesus: "one jot or one tittle" (Matt. 5:17-18). A jot was the smallest letter and the tittle was a tiny projection on certain Hebrew letters. Also, in Matt. 22:32, He based an argument on the present tense of a verb ("I am"), instead of the past tense ("I was").
e. Christ's promise to His apostles: "But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what you shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak" - Matt. 10:19
f. Paul: "Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God ... which things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words" - 1 Cor. 2:11-13. This is the most comprehensive verse in scripture on verbal inspiration.
III. QUESTIONS THAT MAY ARISE.
A. "Has the transmission of the Bible text through the centuries corrupted the pure text given in the first century?" We answer, "NO!"
1. Professor Robert Dick Wilson, acquainted with forty five languages, states: "We are scientifically certain that we have substantially the same text that was in the possession of Christ and the apostles." (A Scientific Investigation Of The Old Testament, pg. 8).
2. Scholars now have in possession some 5,378 Greek manuscripts (part or whole) of the New Testament, some dating to the early part of the second century A.D. It is estimated the textual variations make up about 1/1000th part of the entire text (C.R. Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament, pg. 528).
B. "Does translation affect inspiration? Since the scriptures were originally penned in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and since translated into many languages, has this affected Bible inspiration?" Again, we answer, "NO!"
1. As long as an accurate translation has been made.
2. A word translated from one language to another conveys the same thought or idea, and the same message is received.
3. The New Testament itself illustrates this point. In the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C., the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt. This translation is known as the "Septuagint" and was frequently quoted from by Jesus and other inspired writers of the New Testament - cf. Matt. 22:31-32
QUESTIONS:
1. What importance is there to studying the inspiration of the Bible in a class on "How To Study The Bible?"
2. What three attributes of God show He has no limitations?
3. What can man learn about God from nature?
4. What do we mean by "verbally inspired" and give scripture that supports this idea.
5. Has the fact that the Bible is translated from the original text into different languages affected its inspiration? Explain.
