An Article of Faith

The word “inspiration” is found but once in the New Testament. It occurs in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God,” literally “God-breathed.”
Divine inspiration logically follows divine revelation. In revelation God speaks to man’s ear while by inspiration He guides the pen to ensure that the imparted message is correctly written down.
There are several ideas about the process of inspiration. One is called the natural theory. This says that the Bible authors were inspired in the same sense that William Shakespeare was inspired. Another theory, called the content theory, suggests that God merely gave the writer the main content or idea, allowing him to choose his own words to express the concept. In contrast Jesus Himself says that the very letters of the words were also chosen by God:
“I tell you the truth,” declares Jesus, “nothing will disappear from the law until heaven and earth are gone. Not even the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will be lost until everything has happened” (Matthew 5:18 NCV).
This position is referred to as the plenary-verbal view, which says that all (plenary) the very words (verbal) of the Bible are inspired by God. Jesus once told Satan that the Christian is to live be each of these inspired words:
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4 NASB).
The individual authors of Scripture understood that their writings were being guided by the Holy Spirit of God, even as they were writing them:
“First, you must understand this,” writes Peter, “No prophecy in Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. No prophecy ever originated from humans. Instead, it was given by the Holy Spirit as humans spoke under God’s direction” (2 Peter 1:20-21 GW).
Peter declared this was true, not only of the Old Testament prophets, but also of the New Testament apostles:
“This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles” (2 Peter 3:1-2).
He also cites the apostle Paul’s New Testament letters as equal with Scripture in 2 Peter 3:15b-16, “just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
“And this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit will not leave them, and neither will these words I have given you. They will be on your lips and on the lips of your children and your children’s children forever. I, the LORD, have spoken” (Isaiah 59:21 NLT)!
(Jessie J. Charpentier Sr. is pastor of Jenkins Memorial Baptist Church in St. Martinville.)