1528. The Inspiration and Inerrancy of God’s Word

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

We're continuing our study of bibliology and today's speaker is Dr. Nathan Crockett. Please turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3. You find a friend, you find your way to your seat, you stand and we all together, every single chapel quote the Bob Jones University Creed. We affirm nine different things we believe to be true about God, his word, and his world. And what is the very first thing that we affirm?

You did it today and you've done it many of you hundreds of times. We say, I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments. In our series on bibliology, that's the topic I've been given today is to talk to you about the inspiration and the inerrancy of the word of God. You're in 2 Timothy 3, the first verse says, this note also that in the last days perilous times shall come. And it goes on to describe a whole litany of sins in verses 2 through 5, verses 6 through 9 give illustrations of exactly what Paul's talking about. In verses 10 through 12, they point to Paul's personal example.

Look at verse 13, but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them. And that from a child thou has known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise into salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ, in Christ Jesus. Verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, that's teaching, for reproof, that's refutation and conviction, for correction, that's setting things right, for instruction in righteousness, that's training or discipline in righteousness.

Why? So that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished or fully equipped unto all good works. As we look for the next several minutes at the topic of biblical inspiration, I want to talk to you about the fact of inspiration, the method of inspiration, and the result of inspiration.

So let's start with the fact. When 2 Timothy 3 verse 16 says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, you maybe are aware of the fact that the word behind that is literally that it's breathed out by God. All scripture is God breathed. Our English word inspire or inspiration actually has the idea of breathing in, right?

We talk about going on a walk in the woods and it's kind of like a breath of fresh air. I was so inspired or I read a particular historical fiction novel and it was very inspiring. That's not really the idea in verse 16. We use the word inspiration, but the idea is not to breathe in, the idea is to breathe out, that God exhaled his word, that he breathed out his word. Now we have a word in English, there's inspiration to breathe in, the word expiration means to breathe out, but we don't use that for the Bible for obvious reasons because we use the term expiration to refer to expired milk and things like that. But when you think about the inspiration of scripture, you should literally be thinking of the idea that God breathed out every word that's in the Bible.

Now that's the fact of inspiration. There's a lot more we could say there, there's other passages we could look at, but I want to talk to you about the method of inspiration. How many of you are either in Bible doctrines class or you've taken Bible doctrines class at Bob Jones? Many of you.

Many of you. I teach two sections of Bible doctrines this semester and we talk about many wrong views of inspiration, the partial view, the concept view, for instance the natural view of inspiration says well God didn't really have anything to do with it, it was just some people having a really good day. Paul was kind of in the zone when he wrote the book of Romans, like we maybe talk about oh that Shakespeare play is so inspired. That's a false view of inspiration. On the other hand, a view that maybe some of you almost assumed growing up is the mechanical dictation view. I think some of us from the time we were kids we just imagined that God was up in heaven and Peter or Paul or Luke were sort of in a trance and God just dictated out every word and this human just passively wrote it down.

The mechanical dictation view, that view is also wrong. When you look at the various genres and the different authors use different types of vocabulary or when you think about the fact that Paul frequently says I Paul to the church at Colossae if God was dictating he would say I God the church at Colossae. Or writing to the Corinthians Paul can say I thank God that I baptized none of you except for these couple families that I baptized if God was dictating it he wouldn't be saying I thank God that I baptized none of you.

So it's not the mechanical dictation theory or the dynamic or bardian or partial or concept or all these false theories. What is the way, what is the method in which we received the Bible? If you could turn to 2 Peter chapter 1 you'll see this if you've taken Bible doctrines you've memorized this verse. 2 Peter 1 tells us how God did this. Verse 20, knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Holy men of God spake as they were moved the Greek word behind that is used in the book of Acts for wind blowing a ship along carrying a ship towards its destination as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. How many of you play an instrument musical instrument? Okay many of you. How many of you play more than one musical instrument?

Okay a few hundred of you. I won't pick on anyone in particular here but we could you know you know have someone it's pretty amazing at the artist series people being called up here on the spot to sing Amazing Grace. My hat was off to you for doing a great job with that but I won't call anyone up here to play but just imagine that we called a guy up here who plays several instruments and he played Amazing Grace with a trumpet and then he played Amazing Grace with a trombone and he played Amazing Grace with a French horn. It would sound different each time based on the instrument that he was playing maybe if you were blindfolded you'd say I don't think that's the same person playing in each case it was the same instrumentalist but his mouth and his wind were going through a different instrument so it seemed slightly different and the Holy Spirit as he breathed out his word he used the pen and personality of individuals like Peter or Paul or Luke or Moses. Even for you if you think about maybe maybe your notes or class notes look kind of like chicken scratches on Friday I took a picture of one corner of my desk and this is what it looked like. On the left hand side are three three by five cards I was having a zoom call with some business associates one of them a European one of them an Asian and we were talking about some plans we had for something coming up in the next few years and I was just jotting stuff down and afterwards I went back with a different color and I highlighted a few things that I thought were significant that was on one side of my desk it's kind of embarrassing for me to look like that looks like I have horrible handwriting really messy it's sloppy it's just a rough draft chicken scratches something I'm going to come back to to do a more formal presentation later. On the other side next to it were cards I'd written to my kids and with those it wasn't a rough draft it was something that I was trying to take more time because this is important I'm writing to my kids and so I tried to use my best handwriting which isn't that great but still if you looked at what's on the left and you look at what's on the right you might say I don't even think that's written by the same person but in each case I'd written that actually on the same day but I had a different audience in mind so someone could read the book of Deuteronomy and say that seems very different from the book of John but God as he breathed out his word chose to use certain individuals and it's remarkable to think that when Paul was learning to speak growing up and his mom was teaching him the word that would mean justification God had that lesson in mind so that Paul would someday use that word in the book of Romans exactly where God wanted him to use it God presided over the entire process of inspiration and the method of inspiration sometimes we call this divine human confluence that it's a working together is the Bible God's book absolutely did he use human instruments to write it absolutely so the fact of inspiration the method of inspiration let's talk now about the result of inspiration the result and there are so many things that we could talk about here in fact in my doctrines class we're talking about many different results three of them that I want to draw to your attention would be the authority of scripture because the Bible is breathed out by God it should have authority or great weight in our lives what God says matters the sufficiency of scripture that if you need to be counseled for instance you don't have to look to all these different secular sources scripture is sufficient but the one where I want to give the majority of our time here and the one I've been tasked with is this idea of the inerrancy of scripture that scripture is without error if you're in doctrines class you're probably looking at inductive reasoning for that you're looking at deductive reasoning for that you're looking at external evidence you're looking at internal evidence we're talking about things like fulfilled prophecy which you don't have in other religious books we're talking about biblical archaeology that repeatedly affirms the veracity of God's word but for sake of time here one thing that I want to address because I think it's growing in popularity is people who say I believe the Bible I believe the Bible is God's word yeah I think it's inspired I just think the human author slipped up every now and then I hold to inspiration in some general form but I don't hold to inerrancy that's a logical fallacy I believe without getting too much into logic if you have just a basic syllogism right where you have your your major premise and your minor premise and then a conclusion if you grant the major premise that God breathed out all of scripture then there's a really significant minor premise and that is that God always tells the truth right second samuel 7 28 now lord god thou art god thy words be true numbers 23 19 god is not a man that he should lie neither the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good titus 1 2 in hope of eternal life which god that cannot lie promised before the world began hebrews 6 18 it is impossible for god to lie it's impossible for god to lie i have five kids the youngest is four the oldest is 11 one thing that's really enjoyable as they get older as we go on a hike together or walk around the neighborhood or if i'm driving them to soccer practice i like to ask various questions just to see their response and here's how a typical conversation like that might go i might say all my kids like soccer here's the world's best soccer player right now and my son christian my eight-year-old would say messy and my daughter disagrees within my 10-year-old she would say reynaldo there's this debate between messy and reynaldo but my 11-year-old son who really likes watching european football with me would say no no no guys you're totally wrong dad said who's the best player not who's the best of their generation or who was the best messes 35 reynaldo's 37 reynaldo doesn't even start from anchester united right now they are not the best player in the world right now and he would probably talk about last season that kareem benzamo is the best for y'all madrid if you count goalies tivo kotwa he really likes embape from psg though he would agree that embape is playing pretty selfishly right now he would maybe talk about manchester city signing earling holland who's maybe the best goal scorer currently and he'd probably talk about kevin debrina being the best midfielder who also plays for man city he would give a very detailed thorough answer that i would think in my view would be quite accurate and then my five-year-old would speak up brimming with confidence who always wins his soccer games at recess and he would say i think if i keep eating my veggies i think i'm going to be the best soccer player in a few years in the world and he would remind us of the fact that he so often tells us that in his final game at firman summer camp he scored nine goals for his team and all his siblings would say but they were five-year-olds against you that's easy and my daughter would do something that she does repeatedly in conversations like this she's four years old going on 14 she would have a little smirk on her face and she would say all of you are wrong god is the best soccer player in the world she has given this answer when we've talked about the fastest person in the world the best architect every single time and initially it surprised me but now i've come to expect it because she's been taught at home in sunday school and at church that god can do anything and she's right but hebrew says it's impossible for god to lie if god breathed out all of scripture and god always tells the truth then all of scripture is true john 17 17 sanctify them through thy truth thy word is truth psalm 19 7 the law of the lord is perfect first peter 123 being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of god which liveth and abideth forever it's been said that people do not reject the bible because it contradicts itself but because it contradicts them now it's important to realize what inerrancy does and does not mean the fact that god's word is without error that does allow for certain things like incomplete accounts one gospel author will tell you this part of an account another gospel author will tell you this part of an account that's normal recording of history that's not an error it allows for non-technical or non-scientific language like the sun rising that's what it appears to do and you could say well we know from science that the sun doesn't actually move the earth revolves around the sun that's not an error in the bible that talks about the sun rising it allows for rounding of numbers for instance when it refers to how many people were killed in a battle if i ask you how long your textbook is and you say 400 pages i'm not going to say liar i counted it's 406 pages the fact that you rounded a number is not a lie that's a common thing that we do if you ask me how old i am i'm going to say 42 years old i'm not going to say 42 years and this many months and this many weeks and this many days and this many minutes there are google sites where you can figure that out if you're interested but i'm just going to say 42 we frequently round numbers that's not an error so there are many different things that sometimes people assume are an error that are actually not now before we go on to talk about application because i want to end with some application i want to point out something that is bothersome to me when people say it okay i have a number of friends who are unbelievers i'm praying for them like to see them come to faith in christ and i don't expect them as an unbeliever to believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture but sometimes i'm talking to someone and maybe you've had this experience and they say well don't quote from the bible the bible is just like any other book if somebody body tells you the bible is just like any other book they are historically factually actually dead wrong the bible is not just like any other book there are more copies printed of the bible than any other book in the world by far no other book comes close the bible has been translated into more languages of the world than any other book by far there's not even a close second place you can look this up depending on who you read some people if you divide old and new testament separately talk about the bible being translated into over 3300 languages the lowest number i found is 2240 languages for instance the quran i think has been translated into 173 languages not even 1 10th not even 1 20th uh harry potter series something like 170 these are some of the other top books in the world like nothing comes close to the bible in fact there's a secular author aj jacobs i can't recommend his works he's certainly an unbeliever he's a self-proclaimed agnostic he's a jewish man and he wrote a book called the know-it-all where he read through the entire encyclopedia britannica in a year and wrote funny things about it he was trying to become the smartest guy in the world and it was a funny type of book and it became a new york times bestseller and so all of his friends were asking him what are you going to write about next the dictionary he just wrote a book on the encyclopedia and he said the more he thought about it he realized his next book had to be about the bible and he wrote a book called the year of living biblically where he tried to live out every single command in scripture he grew out his beard he grew out his sideburns he carved hebrew scriptures above the doorpost of his manhattan apartment which his landlord did not like he wasn't sure how to stone a person or how to do an animal sacrifice it's sad if you know i can't recommend the book because of some of the language in it but it's sad because he goes through the book he reads the bible over a dozen times he gets very focused on the old testament the legal system as a jewish person and he misses jesus he appreciates much about the bible he loves the book of ecclesiastes for instance but he misses jesus but it's interesting in the preface he said when i decided to write on the bible it hit me like of course anybody who's honest with the facts acknowledges the bible is the world's most important book what president of the united states gets sworn in with his hand on an encyclopedia none of them who gets buried with an encyclopedia nobody but millions of people get buried with a bible how many wars have been fought over an encyclopedia in other words here's an agnostic jewish guy who reads the bible many times and doesn't believe and it's really it's inspiration or the deity of christ and yet he's honest enough as many atheists are to acknowledge the bible is the world's most significant book so there is a uniqueness to scripture it's one of a kind if anybody tries to tell you well the bible is just another book they're historically factually completely wrong one author said this this book is the mind of god the state of man the way of salvation the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers its doctrines are holy its precepts are binding its histories are true and its decisions are immutable read it to be wise believe it to be safe practice it to be holy it contains light to direct you food to support you and comfort to cheer you it's the traveler's map the pilgrim's staff the pilot's compass the soldier's sword and the christian's character here paradise is restored heaven opened in the gates of hell disclosed christ is its grand subject our good its design and the glory of god its end it should fill the memory rule the heart and guide the feet read it slowly frequently prayerfully it's a mine of wealth a paradise of glory a river of pleasure follow its precepts and it will lead you to calvary to the empty tomb to a resurrected life in christ yes to glory itself for all of eternity it's a book that changed the world the inspired inerrant word of god before we move to final application many of you are in a situation either now or in the coming years where you'll be joining a church and probably your church has you read the church constitution as you read the constitution when it talks about scripture almost inevitably it will say we believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the bible or we'll talk about verbal plenary inerrancy what do those words mean verbal simply means we believe that every word of the bible is inspired not just the thoughts not just the concepts not just the new testament but in the original autographs every word in greek hebrew and aramaic plenary means full so we believe not just that every word of god is inspired but every part not just the gospels but also the genealogies what if your bible were only 99 true one of the things that's fascinating with kids is to see them learn new words and even young children realize that words are important i remember when one of my boys i won't mention which one but was two and a half and he had one of these sort of rubbery plastic little fat forks that almost looks like a spork so it can't poke out a kid's eye and he did what so many boys do with things when they have a stick or whatever and he was pretending like it was a sword and two and a half years old he looks over to me and he's like he was talking about his sword and he said dada i'm gonna cut you in half now i wasn't worried for my life but i thought that's that's not really appropriate talk especially at the dinner table talking about cutting your dad in half so i called him by name and i said honey that's not a kind thing to say you you shouldn't say it like that and he said oh sorry dada i'm gonna cut you in half please he recognized the importance of the magic word even at two and a half years old every word of god is important spurgeon said i would recommend you either believe god up to the hilt or else not to believe him at all believe this book of god every letter of it or else reject it there's no logical standing place in between i asked several students in a doctrines class what should be a response to the word of god and i wanted to share with you several of the things they said many of these i was planning to say anyways but i think it's fascinating that this came from students we should study it amy carmichael said never let good books take the place of the bible drink from the well not from the streams that flow from the well we should share it some of you are maybe familiar with the name pin jollette he's part of the famous magician duo pen and teller he's famous for being a magician famous for being tall he's six seven and he's famous for being an outspoken atheist in fact he's written a book about atheism that some people consider the atheist bible so i thought it was fascinating for someone who's such an outspoken atheist when i saw a youtube clip and this is a direct quote from him about christians who don't evangelize i've always said that i don't respect people who don't proselytize that would be his word for evangelize i don't respect that at all if you believe that there's a heaven and a hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life and you think it's not really worth telling them because it might feel socially awkward or atheists who think people shouldn't proselytize and who should just say leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize how much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and to not tell them about it i mean if i believed beyond the shadow of it out that a truck was coming to you and you didn't believe the truck was bearing down on you about to hit you there's a certain point where i tackle you and this what you believe about eternity is far more important than that there's a famous atheist saying if i really believed the bible i would tell everyone i know about it we should share it we should obey it james 1 22 but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves the bible was not written primarily to be known the bible was written to be lived the bible wasn't written so you could study it and do really well in bible jeopardy and go out and be a jerk to all of your roommates you know we have a word for somebody who knows the bible really well but doesn't live it they're called a what starts with an h they're a hypocrite we should we should obey it when we see what god wants us to do and fourthly and there'd be many other things we could talk about but i thought it was great that students suggested this that we should trust it we should trust it john 6 6 6 68 peter says this lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life where else would we go if your dad passed away and you went back to the home place and you found a diary of your dad's that nobody knew about you would probably really want to read it why because it was your dad maybe nobody else in the student body would care that much about reading it but you want to read the words of your dad and if the holy spirit of god indwells you there's something about reading his word the word that he breathed out through holy men of god that it resonates with you those of us faculty members probably all know what it is to have a student who comes to faith in christ during the school year and they come to you and they say the bible has come alive to me now it was so boring to me before i never got it it never made sense i always begrudged chapel i didn't like discipleship group but now that i have the holy spirit of god indwelling me i love it now i am not saying that if you don't have daily devotions or if you don't jump up out of your bed every time you read the bible you're not a believer i'm not saying that at all i've given course reviews for many many years and occasionally out of thousands of course reviews i'll see something about like this when i'll ask what's your least favorite part about this class and someone will say that we had to read the bible it's an anonymous survey but if that's your attitude do you think you should have strong assurance of salvation if you hate coming to chapel if you never ever have any inclination to read the bible if it is to you the world's most boring book but you say but nathan when i was a little kid i repeated a prayer after somebody if you have no appetite for the culture of heaven what makes you think you'd want to spend eternity there and maybe you say well because i don't like the alternative i at least need some fire insurance i remember more than a decade ago a speaker in chapel saying this and i wrote it down because i thought it was powerful he said heaven is not a place for people who can't stand the thought of hell hell is a place for people who can't stand the thought of heaven heaven is not a place for people who can't stand the thought of hell hell is a place for people who can't stand the thought of heaven and one of the beautiful things about trusting thought of heaven and one of the beautiful things about trusting God's Word is that for believers the more you read it it's life-giving and it gives you incredible assurance of your faith and the reality of spiritual things but for unbelievers it should work just the opposite that if it's an entirely closed book to you and there's nothing in God's Word that resonates with your heart at all that should be a really good sign that you should you should check am I really regenerate am I truly born again am I am I actually God's child what about when you do doubt what about when you come to a passage and you say oh man is there an error there I don't know what to do here I shared this with one of my doctor's classes and they said they thought it might be helpful a teacher who years ago retired shared this in my class one time I thought it was helpful and he applied it to men but women you can listen in as well but for a lot of you guys very likely in a few years you'll be married let's say you dated this girl for a couple years she was the greatest girlfriend ever you get married you've been married like three years you finally get a starter home and one day you decide to to take an extra long lunch break you normally always eat lunch in the office but on this day you decide to take an extra long lunch break and you actually go home you know you go home to surprise your wife and you get her favorite food from her favorite restaurant and as you're about to pull into your driveway you see a pickup truck there that you don't recognize you see your wife's car and a pickup truck parked in your driveway and you think it's kind of odd so you just actually pull back kind of on the road behind a tree and you just kind of watch for a couple minutes and then you see your wife come out and she stands on the front porch and this guy comes out and he stands on the front porch and you notice that he's young and he's good-looking actually better looking than you are and all these thoughts start going through your mind as you watch him leave your wife and get in his pickup truck now your wife has been nothing but faithful for the five years you've known her do you hire a private investigator do you talk to her about it what do you do well let's say that a week later you're still thinking about this and it's your birthday and your wife makes this great birthday meal and your favorite cake and she tells you honey I have a special gift for you this year for the past couple years without you knowing I've been working jobs on the side I've been saving up in that really old stinky room down in the basement I want to convert it into a man cave for you or study or something special for you and just a week ago I hired a contractor to come out here he took all the measurements he's actually ordered everything and starting to tomorrow he's gonna start building a special room for you downstairs honey I love you and this sense this emotion rushes over you that you are so appreciative of your wife and you feel so foolish forever doubting because for five years she had proven herself faithful time and time and time again well men and women what's it like when the God of heaven breathes out a word to us and for thousands of years billions of people trust their life and their eternal destiny on it but you think maybe you found an error do you give God the benefit of the doubt as you saturate yourself with scripture as you read it study it memorize it meditate upon it you will find that the words of the living God will purify your sin parched soul in a way that nothing else can your daily interaction with the inspired inerrant Word of God will be for you a daily means of grace which we also desperately need you've been listening to dr. Nathan Crockett listen again tomorrow as we continue this series on bibliology on The Daily Platform