Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro - The Doctrine of Inspiration

Welcome to Week 3 of our class on Bibliology, the study of the Bible.

Let’s pray and then we’ll get started.

(Pray)

Last week, we talked about the subject of revelation.

We defined revelation as anything that God discloses to humanity that could not be known any other way.

We said that there are two major categories of revelation - general and specific.

General revelation includes things that are apparent to all people, at all times.

Creation is a good example of that.

tells us that everyone should be able to notice the world around them and recognize that it all had to come from somewhere.

And those who reject the notion of God, in spite of this evidence, are simply suppressing what should be obvious.

says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse."

So we said from this verse that general revelation is sufficient to show us that there is a creator, and because of that, it is also sufficient to condemn us, because 1. many reject what should be apparent, and 2. once we know that there is a God, it should also be apparent that we fail to worship him as we ought.

And yet, last week we also said that even though general revelation is sufficient to convict us, it is insufficient to save us.

That is, looking at creation tells us that there is a God, but it doesn’t tell us how we can know that Creator.

But that leads us to special revelation - special instances where God has revealed specific information to certain people and at certain places.

Special revelation is sufficient to save, and examples of special revelation include: dreams, visions, angels, miracles, appearances of God (such as the burning bush), Jesus Christ himself, and ultimately, the Bible.

Jen Wilken, a popular Christian author has said, “The Bible is our burning bush.”

That is to say, it is God’s way of speaking directly to us.

So all in all, we talked about the WHAT, not the HOW, of the Bible.

We established that the Bible is God’s revelation to us.

The next question we have to ask is “HOW did that take place?” “How did God communicate the revelation of the Bible to human beings?”

“How did God communicate the words of Scripture to Moses and David, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and others, so that when they actually sat down, they wrote exactly the words that God wanted them to write?” Did he beam it into their heads as they wrote?

Did he take over their bodies?

Did God record it in a book that appeared out of the sky, the writers picked it up and passed it on to others?

How did it happen?

The answer to these questions is the subject of today’s lesson: inspiration.

Inspiration talks about HOW God communicated the words of the Bible to its human authors.

established that the Bible is God’s revelation to us.

God revealed himself through the writing of the Bible.

The next question we have is “How did that take place?” “How did God communicate his words to Moses and David, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, - all of the writers of Scriptures, so that when they actually sat down, they wrote exactly the words that God wanted them to write?” Did he beam it into their heads as they wrote?

Did he take over their bodies?

How did it happen?

The answer to these questions is the subject of today’s lesson: inspiration.

Inspiration talks about how God communicated the words of the Bible to its human authors.

What exactly do we mean when we say that the authors of the Bible were ‘inspired’?

Let’s start out first by defining what we do NOT mean.

The biblical authors were NOT “inspired” to write the books of the Bible in the same way that artists are inspired to paint.

(Picture of Bob Ross)

We say nowadays that that sunset ‘inspired me’ to write a poem, or paint a canvas.

But the biblical authors did not look at the countryside and feel ‘inspired’ to write a religious book about God.

Rather, we define inspiration this way:

Inspiration = the act of God “breathing out” Scriptures through human writers so as to ensure its authority and perfection.

That definition comes from a central text for the doctrine of Inspiration:

(‘breathed out also is rendered as ‘inspired by’ in the NIV)

let’s look at how our own church defines inspiration:

The official teaching of the BFC (the “Faith and Order” Article 1.2) says:

“Inspiration is:

a special act of the Holy Spirit

a special act of the Holy Spirit

by which He guided the writers of the Scriptures

· by which He guided the writers of the Scriptures

so that their words would convey the thoughts He wished conveyed,

· so that their words would convey the thoughts He wished conveyed,

would bear a proper relationship to the thoughts of the other inspired books

· would bear a proper relationship to the thoughts of the other inspired books

and would be kept free from error of fact, doctrine, and judgment.”

· and would be kept free from error of fact, doctrine, or judgment.”

Let’s break this down a bit… Look at the definition above for the answers to the following questions.

Some Questions About Inspiration

Which Person of the Trinity inspired the authors of the Bible to write?

The Holy Spirit

Did God write the Bible by having a magical hand appear out of thin air and write out all of the books of the Bible on blank paper?

No

1.

Did God write the Bible by having a magical hand appear out of thin air and write out all of the books of the Bible on blank paper?

___NO__

How did inspiration take place?

The Holy Spirit guided the writers of Scripture so that their words would convey what God wanted to convey.

1.

How then was the Bible written through the Holy Spirit?

_______the Holy Spirit guided the writers of Scripture (either consciously or unconsciously) so that their words would convey what God wanted to convey.

Based on the answers to the previous questions, the doctrine of inspiration says that there were two main authors of the Bible.

They are: 1. God 2. Man

1. Were the biblical authors inspired to write their own words or God’s?

___God’s thoughts using their own words___

says that there were two main authors of the Bible.

They are:

Were the biblical authors inspired to write their own words or God’s?

God’s words conveyed through human agents.

2. If there are many human authors to the Bible, how is it that none of their books contradict each other?

Mere coincidence?

Or something more?

____God guided them so that they wouldn’t contradict each other.

If there are many human authors to the Bible, how is it that none of their books contradict each other?

God guided the authors to prevent contradictions.

Because the Bible is ultimately made up of God’s words, can there be any errors in them?

No.

3.

Because the Bible is ultimately made up of God’s words, can there be any errors in them?

__No__

Just so you know… The Bible Fellowship Church holds to a position of verbal plenary inspiration.

(Verbal = words | Plenary = all).

This is in contrast to God guiding the general thoughts of the writers.

We don’t just hold the Bible to generally accurate, or generally true, but completely.

All of the words that were written were chosen by God for a reason.

So everything story and event was chosen for a reason.

But even more specifically, every word was chosen for a reason.

So hence, when Pastor preached through Philippians recently, he even spent time on the greetings, and the wording of that section.

Why?