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THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORD
PRINCIPLES OF DIVINE INSPIRATION
1. DEFINITION: Divine inspiration is the act
of the Godhead by which He communicates specific words either mentally
or verbally directly to men through the Holy Spirit and guides those men
as they write it or speak it, while employing their individual personalities,
vocabularies and writing styles to produce in the original languages, an
errorless revelation of God's viewpoint.
2. PERSONAL CLAIMS of inspiration made in the
Bible:
A. The prophet's proclaim, "thus says the
Lord."
B. The New Testament makes claims concerning
the Old Testament. Hebrews 1:1a
1. Paul: 2 Timothy 3:16;
2. Peter: 1 Pet. 1:10-11; 2 Pet. 3:15-16
C. 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Knowing this first
of all, that all prophecy of scripture did not originate from
one's own viewpoint (or disclosure), for prophecy was formerly brought
not by an act of human will, but men carried along by the Holy
Spirit, spoke from God."
3. SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY that predates human discovery.
Example: The earth is round -
Prov. 8:27; Job
26:10
4. PROPHETIC ACCURACY:
A. Historical prophecy: Pin point accuracy in
specifics concerning the kingdoms and nations of ancient history.
B. Messianic prophecy: Over 300 specific Old
Testament prophecies concerning the coming savior which were all literally
fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
C. The odds for these for these being fulfilled
in one man are astronomical.
5. CONTINUITY: The Bible was written over a period
of 1500 years, by over 40 authors from many different walks of life, in
three continents and in three languages. It deals with a multitude of subject
matter, including many controversial issues. Yet, from beginning to end,
there is one theme and purpose proclaimed with total agreement and consistency
and absolutely no contradictions in the original languages.
6. ENDURANCE: Matthew 5:18
A. Survival through time
B. Survival through persecution
C. Survival through criticism
D. Survival through historical impact.
7. LIFE CHANGING POWER: Hebrews 4:12; Gal.5:22-23.
The principles of Bible truth when learned and applied to one's life, will
produce changes in character and fantastic peace and joy which cannot be
experienced from any other source.
8. ONLY the original manuscripts are inspired of God. No man made
translation is inspired, and that includes the KING JAMES VERSION of 1611.
See: KJV and William Shakespear
9. The documents of the bible.
The Inerrancy of the Bible
A. This must be viewed from two perspectives.
The PRINCIPLE of it.
The PRACTICALITY of it.
B. In principle, the Bible states its own case for us.
Every passage that says, “thus says the Lord.”
Every writer that claims, “this is the word of God.”
The reliability of the Old Testament is established by the very words of
Jesus. He states at Luke 24:44 an acceptance of the Old Testament Scriptures
as they were then known by the people of Israel, divided into the three
common sections.
the law: First five books
the psalms: The books of poetry
the prophets: the prophets
And of course, at Matthew 4:4, “by EVERY word of God.”
C. In practicality, there are MANY transmission errors within the many
manuscripts that we possess.
1. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew and Aramaic, these are very minor, but
do exist.
2. It is in the New Testament manuscripts where we find a great many errors
of transmission, divided into two types; unintentional and intentional.
3. Of the unintentional types we have, errors of sight, writing, hearing,
memory and judgment.
4. Of the intentional types we have grammatical, liturgical, harmonization,
doctrinal, attempts to correct, and attempts to compromise or conflate.
D. Although these errors are numerous, they are of a relatively minor nature
and considered within the scope of the entire New Testament, NEVER affect
any major doctrinal issue.
1. The vast majority of these errors can be easily recognized and eliminated
through the science of textual criticism.
2. However, in reality, errors between the manuscripts do exist, and one
cannot say that we have a PERFECT copy of God’s word.
3. On the other hand, from the perspective of SIMILARITY of manuscripts,
most of them are identical in over three-fourths of their text, and we have
a uniform and accurate transmission.
4. This, together with the CORRECTIONS of the OBVIOUS errors in transmission
through the application of textual criticism, based on point B above, we
have a reliable copy of God’s word, which must be believed to be by Divine
design.
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