without error.

INERRANCY AND INSPIRATION


Introduction



As Christians we worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We know this God through his revelation of himself in scripture. We adhere to the Scriptures to understand who we are and the character of God. Therefore it is important to know the origination of the Bible. Understanding inspiration and inerrancy gives one a better appreciation, and adherence to the authority, of the Bible.



Inspiration
Ultimately God is the source of the Bible. He used human authors to write down his words which have been passed down from generation to generation. The Bible can be used to interpret the Bible. And within the Bible we find its claim to be the authoritative word from God. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
The Bible itself claims its divine origins, and Jesus also upheld the authority of scripture. In John 10:34-35, Jesus claims the word of God cannot be broken. In Matthew 5:18 Jesus affirmed the truthfulness of the prophecies of the Old Testament. Peter describes prophecy within scripture: “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1 Peter 1:20-21). The Holy Spirit came upon the writers causing them to write exactly what God himself desired to convey to his people.




Inerrancy

Through our understanding of inspiration the notion of inerrancy inevitably emerges. Because all scripture is God breathed, and God is truth and cannot lie, it can be determined the words of scripture are inerrant. God is omniscient and he cannot lie. The words he breathed were true and non-contradictory. Because the Bible is inerrant we can assert the truth, trustworthiness, reliability, accuracy, and infallibility of everything originally written. The Bible is wholly true including historical, scientific and spiritual matters. Because Scriptures were divinely inspired no error exists on any subject matter. We cannot claim the Bible’s truthfulness about the gospel, but then claim a small error in a historical matter. The Bible is wholly true and can never be false.


While God did not promise an errorless transmission of the divinely inspired writings, we can claim the inerrancy of the original texts. Thus if a contradiction is identified within the Bible we know the answer lies either from a transmission error or our misunderstanding. Because we are plagued with our fallen human nature, we are always looking for ways to escape authority. By claiming the Bible contains errors it is easy to slip out from under the consequences of truth by claiming the Bible simply isn’t accurate. It is because of this natural tendency we, as Believers, should seek to have an educated opinion regarding the issue of inspiration and inerrancy.



Conclusion
The doctrine of inerrancy is not something the church should fight to the death because belief in inerrancy is not essential for salvation. However, it remains an important issue to understand and study because as followers of Christ we base our lives off the words found within this book. If we do not hold this book as the very words of God we will not give it the authority it demands in our lives. Our lives should reflect the significance of claiming the Holy Bible to be inerrant and inspired by God. As we claim the authority and truthfulness of the scripture we will not be tossed around by other teachings as described in Ephesians 4:14: “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” The Bible is divinely inspired and thus free from error and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.