Doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture

Theme Verse: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

The word inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is “graphe,” which is translated as “God-breathed. Therefore, God breathed out His words to specially chosen and prepared men of God who wrote these words down to give us the Bible we have today (Bere, 2016). God used different people when writing the Bible, sometimes he told them exactly what to say, and other times He indirectly inspired them what to write. For example, Isaiah didn’t need a vision from God to see that the Israelites were sinning. All he would need to do is look around and then read the book of Deuteronomy and see how God wanted His people to act.

There are also instances where God directly told the author what to write and situations where God gave certain liberties to the writers. An example of God directly telling the author what to write is Daniel 8. God gave a vision to Daniel, who probably was around seventy a prophecy that talked about the fall of the Persians. This was a revelation from God, so Daniel had to write it exactly how God wanted him to write it (Miller, 1994). An example of God giving certain liberties to writers is when Paul wrote his letters to the different churches challenging them on various issues. To quote Charles Spurgeon, “This [Bible] is the writing of the living God: each letter was pinned with an Almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips; each sentence was dictated by the Holy Spirit (Bere, 2016).

In conclusion, the Bible is the word of God, and He inspired the authors who wrote it. Sometimes He told them exactly what to write and other times God gave the author liberty when writing His words.