Do we know why we believe what we believe? What would we say if we were asked about the Scriptures? This devotion looks at how God inspired the writing of the Scriptures.
Nuggets
- The Bible doesn’t tell us everything about God and Jesus but is an introduction.
- God put the thoughts into men’s heads about what to write.
- If we don’t accept that God is the Author of the Scriptures, that makes them just the product of men.
- If we accept that God is the Author of Scriptures, then we will be blessed.
We’ve been looking into become mature disciples. I felt God was calling me to this when He gave me the word self-discipline for the year. (And where I go, I take you along with me!)
When I was working on a previous devotion, I came across Vincent’s sermon entitled The Lesson of Ripeness. It talks about the need to grow in our relationship with God. (It was specifically talking about growing to become a teacher. To me, that means growing to be a mature disciple, even if we aren’t going to teach.)
I got a list of topics to look at from there. We’ve been clicking them off at a good clip.
I want to go to one of the bigger topics next. Vincent wrote that one of the three aspects of a matured faith was “… his [or her] own assurance of Christian truth.”
Interesting. We just talked about truth in the last devotion. We looked at Bell’s definition. He defined truth as “universally the reality as opposed to that which is not real.” So, I interpret that to mean we have to know the truth about God.
I want to take a dual slant to it. First, I want to see what the truths are.
I haven’t talked about it in a while, but we have discussed that we need to know why we believe what we believe. Second, I want to get us to think so we are prepared for witnessing.
Worldview people are not going to accept that we believe something just because that was the way we were raised.
It may be, but I feel we should be in a better position to articulate what exactly we believe and why.
So, that is where we are going next. What is true according to Scriptures, and why do we believe it?
Ooo, baby. What have I gotten us into?
I started out with the faith and message from the domination to which I belong. That gave me categories.
So, I said to myself, “Self, you have some things in the Draft folder that would fit into there.”
I got down to the Gs.
I am going to have to sit down and figure this out. I will probably take my sister’s advice. She once told me that I had to eat the elephant one bite at a time and shoot the alligator that was nearest to the boat.
But being the transparent person that I am – I have no idea what I am going to do.
I am going to start off by giving you the categories instead of giving you the list of devotions in the series. Those are going to be the elephants.
Then I will break those into their own series – the alligators. That way I can address them whichever way is best. Plus, I can give us a break when I can.
Otherwise, it will be the series that never ends.
What We Believe categories
The Scriptures
God
Man
Salvation
God’s Purpose of Grace
The Church
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
The Lord’s Day
The Kingdom
Last Things
Evangelism and Missions
Education
Stewardship
Cooperation
The Christian and the Social Order
Peace and War
Religious Liberty
The Family
The Scriptures
We are going to start out with the Scriptures. That is logical, isn’t it? Where do we get the information about what we believe? From the Scriptures mainly.
Right now, we are going to focus on the fact that God inspired the Scriptures. If we don’t accept the Scriptures as from God, we won’t believe the rest.
Let's Put It into Context
Scriptures are, according to the Holman Bible Dictionary, the “historic Judaeo-Christian name for the specific literature that the church receives as divine instruction.” We generally call it the Bible. The Holman Bible Dictionary defines Bible as “the collection of books written by various authors that possesses final authority in Christian communities.”
Abbott gave us a good description about what the Bible is and isn’t. He cautioned us that the Bible is not a “… complete and comprehensive presentation of Divine truth. You are not to look in it for a revelation or disclosure of science of any kind, physical or metaphysical, natural or supernatural. It is not at all a scientific treatise.”
We’ve talked about the first part. We’ve said before that the Bible doesn’t tell us everything about God and Jesus.
What did John say? “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn. 21: 25 NLT).
We’ve said before that the Bible is an introduction to God. After conversion, He reveals Himself to us more fully – and continues to reveal Himself to us as we seek Him until He calls us home. So, the Bible is where we seek God.
Abbott made another interesting comment that I had been thinking about lately. He wrote, “Nor are you to regard the Bible as an infallible book of equal value and equal authority in all its utterances and all its parts; as a book ‘without any intermixture of error.’” He gave seven reasons why he thought this, which you can read by clicking on the link below.
I think the Scriptures written in the Spirit language are infallible. It is when we put it into human language – and have humans responsible for editing and publishing it – there can be problems.
For example, one thing that is in my Drafts folder is doing devotions on the verses that have been left out of the different modern translations. Yep, there are verses that have been left out for whatever reason.
God as Author
“and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Tim. 3: 15-17 CSB)
Yes, human men actually put quill to scroll (or whatever they used) to put words on the “page.” God, however, put the thoughts into their heads about what to write. That is why, Denney told us, the prophets were called the man of the Spirit or men of God.
The writers were directed by the Holy Spirit what to write. Paul described the process. “When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths” (I Cor. 2: 13 NLT).
Yeah. That is why it is confusing to understand sometimes. It is written in human language but is a translation from spirit language. We need the Holy Spirit to interpret it for us. That could also explain the perceived contradictions.
No, we aren’t told how the Holy Spirit communicated with the men to get the words down on the scroll. That shouldn’t be the focus. The Holy Spirit communicated with them.
I’ve told you in previous devotions when I felt God talking to me about what I write. (No, I am not writing Scriptures. Yes, God is directing what I write.) Sometimes, it is a flash where it is like God is talking directly to me. Other times, the words just come out of my fingers.
Either way, they come from God.
If We Reject the Scriptures
If we don’t accept that God is the Author of the Scriptures, that makes them just the product of men. Vail made a valid argument as why it couldn’t just have been the conception of men (or even angels). Basically, he questioned why they would lie saying time and again “thus said the Lord” and would give us all these do’s to do and don’ts to not do if it was not inspired by God.
It seems to me that, if the Scriptures were not God inspired, it wouldn’t be the cohesive book that it is. Think about it. Moses lived a long time before Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul lived. Those were the authors who wrote the bulk of the New Testament.
Both the Old Testament and New Testament have the same theme – Jesus is the Messiah and Savior sent to save us of our sins. Occurrences point back to things prophesied.
If God wasn’t behind the writing of these separate letters that were compiled into one book, it wouldn’t be the cohesive book that it is.
In my opinion, one argument against the Bible being inspired by God is that it challenges human reasoning if it was. You know, it makes it a control issue.
If we say it was written by God – our Creator and Sovereign Lord – then it follows that we should follow it. If we deny He inspired it, we don’t have to follow it.
If We Accept the Scriptures
If we accept that God is the Author of Scriptures, then we “… may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Tim. 3: 17 CSB). We will be blessed.
Making the Connections
When God created us, He gave us free will. That means we can choose to submit to Him – or we can choose not to submit to Him.
Submitting to Him and believing He inspired the Scriptures (so that we have to follow them) means we are blessed.
Not submitting to Him because we don’t want to do what He calls us to makes us cursed.
Being cursed has a huge consequence.
But isn’t that the major purpose of the Bible? Isn’t it to give us the information we need to make the decision whether we want to be blessed or cursed?
I mean, God doesn’t need the Bible. He already knows His laws and commandments.
The Bible is just for our benefit.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Did you catch that? We are the men [and women] of God talked about in verse 17. We are only people of God after the “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (II Tim. 3: 16 NIV). That means there is opportunity to use self-discipline to grow.
God gave us a resource – in our language – so that we can seek Him. If we seek Him, we will find Him. He wants us to use this book to turn from our sinful ways and submit to Him.
Sovereign God. We are humbled that You would design a plan of salvation so that our relationships with You could be restored. In order to facilitate that, You have given men words to placed into a book to show us Who You are and what we need to do to admit our sins, believe in Jesus as our Savior, and confess to You as Sovereign Lord. Help us to hear the spiritual language so that we can learn more of You. Amen.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
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