The doctrine of Inspiration is hotly debated in Christianity today,  and there are many questions about its nature. Is Inspiration Biblical? Does it apply to the whole Bible? Does Inspiration “equal” Inerrancy? Was Inspiration a one-time event? To what extent is the Bible Inspired? Just the general message, or the exact Words? Why are the different books different styles if God Inspired them all? These questions and more have kept the discussion on Inspiration interesting, and our brief look at this discussion will hope to answer all of these questions and more.

For our purposes here, we will mainly examine one verse, and break it down word by word so that we can get a complete view of the doctrine of Inspiration. First, however, what does the term Inspiration mean? Well, the term inspiration is a translation of the Greek word “Theopnuestos” which quite simply means “God-breathed”. In reference to the Scriptures, this is saying that the Bible was “Breathed out” by God, or, as 2 Peter 1:21 puts it, the authors of the Scriptures were “moved by the Holy Ghost”. The Doctrine of Inspiration can be summarized this way: Inspiration is the supernatural method by which God divinely authored the Scriptures. The exact details of this Inspiration are what we are gonna be looking at here.

The verse we will look at is 2 Timothy 3:16 which says:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

This verse is packed with information regarding this doctrine, making it the perfect place to take our study. The first part of this verse is where we will have our focus. First, I want special attention to be paid to the very first word in this verse, the word “all”. This is important because a lot of people get this wrong, Inspiration covers every part of the Bible. Far too many Bible teachers have begun teaching that only parts of the Bible are inspired, that the Bible is mostly from God with some corruptions added in. But, this view is contary to the clear testimony of Scripture. There are even those who teach that the Bible is inspired and inerrant when it refers to faith or morals, but complete fiction when it references history. These views simply cannot be reconciled with the clear wording of 2 Timothy 3:16. Paul wrote to Timothy that all of the Scriptures are inspired, not just some parts, not just most of it, all of it. That means every book of the Bible, every chapter, every verse, and every word. This is what is called Verbal Plenary Inspiration. The word verbal quite simply means words, and the word Plenary means all so this term could easily be summed up as the full Inspiration of all the words of the Bible.

The second word in this verse that I want to draw special attention to is the word “is”. This is also an interesting and important word. Inspiration applies to every single word of the entire Bible, so attention must be given to the specific words used, because they aren’t arbitrary. They are divinely inspired by God himself. What this word teaches adds even another layer to our understanding of Inspiration, and that is its presence. Specifically its presence right now, today. Inspiration didn’t go away, God did not inspire the Bible and then let time corrupt it and strip it of its Inspiration, but the Bible is inspired today, just in the same way that it was when God originally Inspired it.

Now that we have looked at some of the specific words let’s look at some other important aspects of Inspiration. We know that it applies to the whole Bible and that it still applies today, but the question of how exactly God “Inspired” the Bible is a question we must also look at. There are several different views as to what Inspiration looks like, but only one aligns with the clear teaching of Scripture. For our purposes here we are only going to look at the most common two of the views. Those two views are verbal plenary inspiration, the biblical view, and what is known as the “dictation” view. The debate between these two views comes down to one question, did God dictate the Bible, without allowing the human authors any input, or did God miraculously inspire each word of the Bible, still allowing the human author to choose their own words? This may not seem important, but in reality, the answer to this question will greatly impact our view on Inspiration. Did God dictate the Bible? Are the authors only transcribing God’s words? Or, did God Inspire the words that the human authors chose with the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

So, what’s the difference between dictation and Biblical Inspiration? Dictation in the strictest sense is the act of one person stating something, and then someone else recording what that person said word-for-word. None of the recorder’s style or vocabulary would come through, they would have no input whatsoever into what is written. However, in Biblical Inspiration, God uses the individual author’s style, vocabulary, and even personal experiences and opinions to convey His message. This is why in the Bible we can see a clear difference between the writing styles of Peter, Paul, and John, none of the Biblical authors write in the same ways, which is something that could not be if God simply dictated the Bible.

Further, we find in 1 Corinthians 1:14-17

14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;

15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.

16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.

17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

Here Paul openly admits that couldn’t remember whether he had baptized anyone else, but if God was simply dictating the Bible this would not be. Instead, we learn something interesting about how Inspiration worked, the biblical authors could only write what they personally knew already, and what God supernaturally revealed to them. An example would be Moses writing of the creation of the world even though he wasn’t there, God supernaturally revealed to him what happened so he could write it. But then in 1 Corinthians here we find Paul forgetting something as seemingly trivial as who he had baptized. You see, God was using even Paul’s forgetfulness. In this passage he’s trying to explain that it doesn’t matter who had baptized them, it didn’t make them special, and that it was so insignificant that he couldn’t even remember who he had baptized. His forgetting inadvertently supported his message perfectly, but regardless couldn’t be there if God had dictated the Bible. God took Paul’s temporary lapse in memory and Inspired it to be Holy Scriptures because even that further enforced the message God was giving through Paul.

All this supports our initial conclusion, that verbal, plenary inspiration is the method by which God “breathed out” the Holy Scriptures. God didn’t dictate His Word, He Inspired it. This means that every word of the Bible is 100% inspired, and 100% infallible, even though God used the individual personalities, styles, and vocabulary of the human authors. Occasionally He even used their own opinions, and even memory lapses to teach us.

Now, we have established what Inspiration is, and how it works, so we must turn our attention to two of the questions we started with. First, does Inspiration equal Inerrancy? In Bibliology (the area of theology dealing with the Scriptures) there are two twin doctrines, inerrancy, and infallibility. The doctrine of Inerrancy states that the Bible is Inerrant or, without error, which basically translates to the Bible being completely perfect with no errors, no mistakes, no contradictions, and no discrepancies. The doctrine of Infallibility states that not only does the Bible contain no error, but actually cannot contain error. In other words, Innerancy means that the Bible has no errors, and Infallibility means the Bible actually cannot contain errors. Now you can probably see why I referred to them as “twin” doctrines.

The question was, “does Inspiration equal inerrancy?” This answer will be very short because it isn’t complicated. God does not lie, and cannot make mistakes, the Bible is clear about this. Psalm 18:30, Deuteronomy 32:4, and Matthew 5:48, these verses all teach the perfection of God which includes an inability to lie or make errors, because something that is perfect cannot make errors. Inspiration teaches us that every word in the entire Bible came directly from God, and if God cannot make mistakes, then the Bible likewise cannot have mistakes. So, Inspiration does equal inerrancy, let me explain it in a simple three-point outline:

1. God is perfect and therefore cannot make mistakes.
2. The Bible was supernaturally Inspired by God.
3. Therefore the Bible cannot contain mistakes.

This is the simplest way of summing up how Inspiration “equals” inerrancy, but there was one more question we set out to answer. That question was whether inspiration was a one-time event. The short answer is yes, but let me explain why. The Bible was only inspired once when the original authors were miraculously guided by God while penning the Scriptures. God doesn’t re-inspire every copy of the Bible, every copy of the Bible is already inspired because it was preserved by God. This is called the doctrine of Preservation which I’ll write about in a different article. So, yes inspiration was a one-time event, but every copy of the Bible that we have is inspired by God because He preserved His Word.

The Doctrine of Inspiration is a complicated issue and one that is debated by many scholars and teachers of God’s Word. But, ultimately whatever you believe we can all agree that the Bible was Inspired by God and that in it we find the truth we need for salvation. But always remember, regardless of what the scholars and Bible teachers say, The Word of God is our final authority.

Before we close, I want to answer one final question that you may be asking, how does this apply to Bible translations? Well, that answer is short and simple. If God inspired the Bible, then it is inerrant, and if we still have the Inspired Word of God, then we still have the Inerrant Word of God, which is something that cannot be accepted if you use modern versions. If you believe that we still have God’s Inspired and Inerrant Word, then you can only believe in one translation because multiple translations that are different cannot all be Inspired or Inerrant. One will be correct, and all the others wrong.

Stay in God’s Word, and always walk after the cross.

-Sawyer Barnes