Thursday, October 16, 2014

How does "Inspiration" work? What does it mean?

In (2 Timothy 3:16-17) the Apostle Paul makes a huge claim regarding the importance of Scripture. He states, 
Inspiration Defined
The New Testament was a originally written in the Greek language. The Greek word for “inspired” in this passage is theópneustos. Theópneustos is a compound word that contains theos (the word for God) and pneo (the word for breath). The simplest way to define this term is that inspiration means “God breathed”. This is the way the NIV and the ESV translate this passage. 

When one is reading the Bible they can trust that what they are reading is not the words of men, but the words of God through men. This is what Peter means in (1 Peter 1:20-21).
This does not mean that God restricted human activity in order to have them pen exactly what He wanted, but instead He utilized their own styles, abilities and personalities to create Scripture as He saw fit. God enabled and empowered in order to have written exactly what He wanted. Geisler and Nix in their book A General Introduction to the Bible, articulated it this way,
Inspiration is that mysterious process by which the divine causality worked through the human prophets without destroying their individual personalities and styles to produce divinely authoritative and inerrant writings (39).
Although some use the word “inspired” in reference to motivation to paint or write, (such as a singer being inspired by a life event to write a particular song), in the biblical sense,  inspiration means “God breathed”. Inspiration is how God was able to use people to create HIS message for mankind. Inspiration is the important link in the chain from God to man.

By Cliff Sabroe