Appendix A

A More Sure Word

Inspiration and Inerrancy

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 2 Peter 1:21.

I base my confidence on the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible according to the orthodox view. But there are various theories on inspiration. [4] The orthodox view of inspiration is called, verbal, plenary inspiration. Verbal inspiration means that the Spirit of God guided the choice of words used in the original writing. Each book of the Bible reflects the writer's personality in his thoughts, opinions, prayers, and fears. Although this human element exists, orthodoxy contends that God directed every word so that all words are equally inspired, hence the term, plenary which means full inspiration. The uniting of God with man in Scripture speaks of Christ's prayer for unity (John 17) and Paul's statement, "the two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church" (Eph. 5:31 & 32). Because of this, the Scriptures have a double authorship, or confluent authorship. That is to say the human and divine authors worked together (flowed together) to produce the inspired text.

A liberal position believes that the Bible was inspired the same way Shakespeare was inspired. The neo-orthodox view believes God revealed himself in mighty acts only, not in words. My point of view is the orthodox position. God worked through the personalities of the biblical writers in such a way that - without suspending their personal styles of expression or freedom - what they produced was literally "God breathed." The emphasis is that the Scriptures themselves are inspired, not the writers only.

Because so many men have contributed to the writing of the Bible, there are many skeptics and nominal believers that think the Bible is only the Word of God in certain parts. This is the basis for eclecticism, which is the pick and choose approach to religion. The problem with this view is that one never knows, nor is in agreement, as to which passage is inspired. A convenient way to sin and to be justified in one's sin. Also, because the Bible plainly writes about the sins of the saints, some may point to them as acceptable since they were done by the holy people. An example of this is polygamy. The Mormons justified their polygamous marriages based upon the practice of some of the patriarchs. Since there is no direct refutation of this practice in the Bible, they felt justified. However, as Paul said to the Athenians, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at" (Acts 17:30), and Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you ..." (Mat. 19:8): God overlooked the practice temporarily, but never commended it.[5]

Orthodoxy believes that the doctrine of inspiration applies only to the original manuscripts. Yet there are no original manuscripts left in existence. Therefore all translations are based upon copies of the originals. Furthermore, inspiration is in the original languages, not in the translations .[6] Because there are no more originals, critics claim inaccuracies from copyists. And if the copies are inaccurate, then how can you trust a translation? The Bible has been defended by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls[7] which verified the accuracy of the copyists as 99.9% correct. That's a minuscule margin for error!

The Bible is not only inspired, but is inerrant. This is an important doctrine because if it errs on minor details, then it could also err on important matters, such as our salvation. Furthermore, history shows that when people question the accuracies of small details, they eventually question larger doctrines as well. It is note worthy that Jesus treated the Old Testament as historical fact, even controversial stories such as Noah's flood, Jonah in the fish, and others. If Jesus didn't know that these things were true, then we would have no assurance that his teaching of other matters, such as our salvation, are true either. Therefore, I repeat that these premises are held true in the writing of this volume:

1. The Bible is a completely trustworthy document because the author is God, who is perfect, truthful, inerrant, and reliable.

2. The Bible is a reliable historical document upon which to base a treatise on history.