I used to teach in a university. In addition to teaching we were expected to do research; in fact, a department’s quality was measured by its research publications.
This produced some pressure. I found myself ‘carried along’ with the desire to publish—to publish for the good of the department but also, later, for personal satisfaction. Looking back, I am acutely embarrassed by this confession. While some of my papers were moderately useful, others were not of excellent quality and should not have been published.
Leaving aside deliberate misrepresentation or exaggeration, even well intentioned research can be flawed in its design, execution or reporting. In some areas, like medicine, there are stricter standards nowadays for peer review, but errors are still published. And it is impossible to prevent publication of a finding that has happened just ‘by chance’, and which needs later to be revoked. We cannot always believe what we read.
The Bible is Inspired
The contrast between this imperfect system and the Bible could not be greater. The men who penned the words of the Bible were also ‘carried along’, but not by human motivations and aspirations. They were driven and compelled by God’s Holy Spirit: ‘No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit’ (2 Peter 1:21).
Some of these people would have been enthusiastic and delighted to write passages like Psalms of praise to God. But others might have preferred to remain silent and not write. Their message was often unpalatable and therefore hard to deliver. The prophet Jonah even tried to flee from the presence of God in order to avoid giving a message that he did not like to the Assyrian city of Nineveh (Jonah 1:1–3, 4:2).
Others, like Jeremiah, had messages that were painful for the recipients to hear. At the start of his book, Jeremiah says how he initially protested about prophesying, saying that he did not ‘know how to speak’ (Jeremiah 1:6). But God reassured him that the prophetic words would not be his own: “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak” (v. 7).
But Jeremiah endured much suffering in delivering God’s message to the Jews. After they had reacted in an extremely hostile manner to God’s words Jeremiah wrote:
‘I have become a laughing-stock all the day; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name”, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot’ (Jeremiah 20:7-9).
This was not a pleasant experience for him.
Many times in the Bible the writers’ words are attributed directly to God. The phrase ‘Thus says the Lord’ occurs hundreds of times in the Old Testament. And Jesus made similar claims about his words: ‘So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me”’ (John 7:16).
Jesus repeated this several times. He also told his apostles that they would be enabled to faithfully teach divine truth (John 16:13). This is because they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit: ‘But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you’ (John 14:26).
Not Simply ‘Dictation’
What about other passages in the Bible? Not all the words were ‘dictated’. But the apostle Paul wrote to his fellow worker Timothy:
‘You have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work’ (2 Timothy 3:15–17).
He describes the words as ‘God-breathed’—that is, as if they had come from the mouth of God Himself. This does not require dictation. It does, however, guarantee God’s oversight and authentication of the original texts, although we may not fully understand how He did this.
God oversaw the writing of His word —the Bible, also called the scriptures —so that the original words were what He wanted. This includes passages where people relate their own experiences (for example many Psalms of David, Jeremiah’s feelings, Daniel chapter 4 which was written by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and accounts of trials endured by different apostles). It includes eye-witness accounts (for example in Luke’s gospel and then in Acts). It includes descriptions of historical events (typically the books of Kings and Chronicles), lists of genealogies (for example in Genesis and Chronicles) and censuses (for example in Numbers): these were almost certainly compiled from existing material.
But all of this was carried out in perfect conformity to God’s will, and under His complete direction and supervision. The writers were not robots: a great deal of their personal experience, attitude or style comes through. But these writers were never left to their own unaided efforts, the result being that their writing was free from error. The Bible is God’s words, not a potentially flawed human record of those words. Scriptures are divine words, penned by men but actually words of God.
Jesus’ View of Scripture
Jesus had the highest regard for his scriptures (our Old Testament). He said that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10:35). Many times he refers to scripture being “fulfilled” (Matthew 13:14, 26:54, 26:56; Luke 22:37, 24:44; John 13:18, 15:25, 17:12). The last of these references is actually a prayer to God Himself. And on one occasion, when Jesus was correcting his opponents, his argument relied on the single word ‘my’ in a quote from Psalm 110: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’ (Matthew 22:44). Although ‘my’ is a distinct word in English, it is represented in the original Hebrew by a single letter. So Jesus endorsed the detailed accuracy of the scriptures.
The apostles had a similar respect for the absolute authority of the Old Testament scriptures, and also the New Testament scriptures that were being penned in their own days. Peter in his letters regularly quotes the Old Testament and also writes about the letters of Paul: ‘There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures‘ (2 Peter 3:16).
Consequently, we believe that the Bible’s messages and themes are accurate and consistent. They never evolve into different ideas. This allows for the revelation of extra details, building on earlier ones. It does not allow for a change in ideas or doctrine. In this way, ideas about the Messiah start in Genesis (the first book in the Bible), but further details are given and then enlarged on in a consistent manner through the Bible. The God of the New Testament is the same God, with the same character, as the God described in the Old Testament. In fact, this amazing consistency, despite the many writers and the long time period involved, is strong evidence that the Bible is God’s words.
Why Does This Matter?
If the Bible contains the words of God Himself, then we should treasure the words of the whole Bible as authoritative and as God’s unique revelation to us. Unlike research papers there is no need for ‘peer review’; the standards are the highest possible; there are no misleading or exaggerated claims; no conclusions to be revoked or modified, and no part that should not have been included.
This used to be a common view. The translators of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611, and those of later versions, had great respect for the integrity of the words themselves, not just general ideas. They believed that the author was “divine”, and the translators believed that “the manuscripts were providentially handed down and were a trustworthy record of the inspired Word of God”. They aimed for “utmost accuracy” in translation: the “strictest attention to the letter of the text”—trying to convey the actual words, not a creative paraphrase.*
If this is true then we should study the words of the Bible carefully in order to try to establish exactly what they mean.
The apostle Peter wrote, ‘No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation’
(2 Peter 1:20). Prophetic words and ideas were not those of the writers. In fact, they did not always understand them (1 Peter 1:10–11). Prophecy and revelation of truth come from God. That being the case, we are not entitled to choose what the words “mean to us” in an arbitrary way. We should try to establish what God intended by them. This is not always easy, but it should be our aim—because our Bible perfectly expresses God’s will and His glorious plan of salvation. And Jesus, who is essential to that plan, bears witness to the authority of the actual words of scripture as originally penned.
Warnings
We therefore should be very careful with versions of the Bible that are paraphrases and which may misrepresent the original words and meanings.
We also need to believe exactly what the Bible says. This involves thorough study, not “cherry-picking” of isolated verses quoted out of context. We need to look at who is speaking, to whom and why. Some of the accurate records are accounts of lies. Jacob lied to his father when pretending to be Esau, saying that God had helped him to catch the game for a meal (Genesis 27); Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1–10). And, more insidiously, the friends of Job told a mixture of truth and untruth, thereby misrepresenting God, not speaking of Him ‘what is right’ (Job 42:7). This shows how dangerous “cherry-picking” from the Bible can be.
Also, some passages are not literal. Here is an example: ‘The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands’ (Isaiah 55:12). The passage is obviously about people, not nature itself: mountains do not sing, and trees do not have hands.
Jesus tells us to ‘tear out’ our eye if it offends us (Matthew 5:29). Of course, we could pluck our eyes out, but self-mutilation achieves nothing. Jesus is not referring to blinding ourselves, but to exercising self control over what we look at.
But nor must we treat literal passages as purely figurative. When the text says that a great fish swallowed up Jonah and then vomited him out (Jonah 1:17, 2:10), that is a literal historical fact, and actually confirmed by Jesus (Matthew 12:40). Passages like this may also have figurative significance, but we can misunderstand the original primary meaning if we confuse literal with figurative. We will not look, or prepare, for the physical return of Jesus to earth to set up God’s Kingdom if we believe that such words are figurative statements about Jesus being in our hearts.
Every Word True
The words of the Bible matter because they are God’s words. God is not motivated by human standards. He never lies, but is always true. ‘Every word of God proves true’ (Proverbs 30:5). We cannot find God’s words anywhere else. We should treasure them.
Research publications can gain acclaim and then subsequently become obsolete or out of date. The Bible never has these problems. ‘For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains for ever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you’ (1 Peter 1:24–25).
These are the words that we can read in our Bible. They are a matter of life or death (John 6:63). And yes, we can believe them.
ANNA HART