Understanding Inspiration And Scripture

(Every now and then I want to write and share my thoughts on topics of interest that people - often but not always parishioners - have raised with me.) 

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How do we know if something is inspired or not? It's a really good question. And what do we mean by "inspired." Another really good question. They're good questions because for a lot of people of faith, when they're confronted with a question about their faith the default position to fall back on is "the Bible says ..." I've often cautioned people to be suspicious whenever they hear the words, "the Bible says ..." - especially if the person can't cite where the Bible says it, but especially because you know that someone else is going to be able to turn to some other part of the Bible that seems to say something completely different, and they'll say in return "the Bible says ..." Stalemate. So. What do we make of that. What is inspiration, anyway?

It's pretty easy for Christians to simply say "the Bible's inspired," and to leave it at that. But that doesn't solve all the problems, because different Christians believe in different inspired writings. So, as a Protestant, I believe the 66 books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation to be "inspired." Now, that particular number has never been a given. One of the questions in the early church was whether the 39 books of what we now call the Old Testament were "inspired" (ie, were they canonical?) Some Christians, like a man named Marcion (who was a second century bishop), wanted the Old Testament excluded completely from the Bible. He wanted only the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke - carefully excised to remove references to the Old Testament. Martin Luther had serious questions about the inspiration of certain books of the Bible, especially Revelation and Esther. Thomas Jefferson of all people once published his own version of the New Testament, again carefully edited to suit his purposes and his understanding of God. So my 66 books are a lot more than some wanted - and they're a lot less than some have. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches have additional books in their version of the Bible referred to as "The Apocrypha." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has the Book of Mormon. And there are all sorts of writings rejected as canonical by everyone - but can they be dismissed as inspired? Inspiration is complicated.

I hate after all this to say "the Bible says," but at least in part it does! There are a variety of Old Testament writings that are sometimes appealed to in order to support the concept of the inerrancy of Scripture (which some believe is what inspiration means.) But those writings generally refer to "the law" (which means not even the writing making the declaration qualifies) or "the word of God" - which is more than just the Bible. From a Christian perspective in fact, the word of God is Jesus - the Word Made Flesh. His life (yes, discerned largely from the Gospels) is the ultimate revelation of God. I want to deal, though, with the New Testament as a whole. I know that atheists and skeptics are loathe to accept the Bible's testimony about itself, but on the other hand the passage I'm about to cite isn't really about the Bible; it's about inspiration. It's the usual proof text used to support the idea that the Bible is inspired by God and therefore inerrant. It's 2 Timothy 3:16:

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness ..."

This passage is often used to lend support to the idea of the direct, divine authorship of the Bible. So, in other words, people wrote the words - but under the supervision and control of God, as if God were actually holding their hand. So there is neither error nor contradiction possible, because this is not the writing of an imperfect human; it is the writing of a perfect God. I won't even deal with the idea of biblical inerrancy or whether there are contradictions in the Bible, except to say that, as I read these words, I realize that the verse doesn't say that Scripture is perfect. It says that it is "useful." That's interesting. To say that something "is God-breathed" is to say, essentially, that it comes from the Spirit - because, of course, God's Spirit is always at work inside us, and many of us are constantly "inspired" to write or speak what we feel God calling us to write or speak. I believe my sermons are "inspired." I believe I write them under the guidance of God's Spirit, but I also believe that I am an imperfect agent at best. Thus, I would make no claim to my sermons being perfect. Perhaps useful - to some anyway. Am I comparing my sermons to Scripture? No. I'm only using them as an illustration of what it must have been like for the biblical authors - struggling to discern what God had called them to say or write, struggling to find the right word or the right phrase or the right image. I don't believe God sat on their shoulders and dictated the Bible word for word into their ears. I believe that the Holy Spirit gnawed at them, so to speak, fighting through the everyday clutter of the normal human mind and trying to be heard - which isn't always easy. God can be easily drowned out. God often "speaks" quietly, and maybe we're not always sure what we heard. And so we listen, and we pray, and we try to filter out the noise of the world to let us focus on what God is telling us. And that's hard to do, so I have to assume that the composition of the books of the Bible was a normal example of human writing.

The passage above also doesn't define what "Scripture" is. At the time the verse was written there was no New Testament, so the author may have been referring to the Old Testament, or to whichever of the competing collections of post-Jesus writings his own community had chosen. The final decision about what was in and what was out was still a few centuries away, and actually - as I noted above - it's not really over. There hasn't been a final decision. Even Christians can't agree. So is the First Book of Maccabbees Scripture? Or the Book of Judith? Or Psalm 151? I say no; but some Christians say yes. (You could ask the same questions about the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, etc.) Or could they all be inspired? Nothing in 2 Timothy 3:16 restricts inspiration to what we call the Bible. "All Scripture is God breathed" isn't the same as saying that everything God-breathed is Scripture. It's sort of like all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles. I believe there is inspired writing that is not Scripture. I believe it because I have felt inspired when writing sermons or other things, but I would certainly never claim for them the authoritative place of Scripture in the life of the community to which I preach. So inspiration cannot be restricted to just a few writings written over a handful of centuries of human history. Inspiration cannot have stopped 1900 years ago. Has God truly stopped speaking to us? Does God not speak to us directly today? Does not God continue to be revealed today? I believe God does; therefore I believe in ongoing inspiration, because some are moved to write what they feel God has revealed to them and to share those writings with others.

"Scripture" is the collection of writings that one's faith community has decided to be not just "inspired" but also "sacred." I accept the 66 books of the Old Testament and the New Testament as both inspired and sacred. I believe the authors wrote under the influence of God; that God moved them to write what they believed about God. I believe the church (at least my part of it) has been inspired to accept these 66 books (and only these 66 books) as Scripture - both inspired and sacred. But that is a human decision, and as with all human decisions it has to be put forward with a degree of humility. Scripture (in whatever form) is not God; God is not Scripture. Scripture witnesses to God. It is "inspired" by God - but God is other than Scripture. God is more than Scripture. If we believe that Scripture and God are essentially the same thing then we have limited who God is and how God can relate to us. If we believe that God and Scripture are an exact one to one equivalence, then we have turned Scripture into an idol which limits our understanding of God, rather than an inspired writing that encourages us to grow in our understanding of God.  So "Scripture" is time tested, and it is tested by the wider community. Scripture is, as 2 Timothy suggests, that which we have decided is useful in guiding our corporate life as a church. It is therefore authoritative within our own faith community. It is the basis for who we are within our faith community and for how we relate to the world around us. But we err, I think, if we make it an absolute standard for all. The inspiration of Scripture rests on the idea that the community itself was inspired to choose these particular writings as their authoritative guide. But if "inspiration" can go beyond Scripture - which, again, I believe it must - then how do we determine what is inspired?

Deciding what's inspired is, I suppose, a part of inspiration. I feel the pull of the Holy Spirit, leading me in certain directions. There are two basic tests I would apply. If something declares the love of God (since I do believe the scriptural witness that "God is love") then I believe it is inspired. I am equally convinced of the divinity of Jesus, and of his life, death and resurrection. Anything which declares otherwise I cannot consider inspired. Writings don't have to do both of those things for me to consider them inspired by God, but they have to do at least one - and they can't contradict the other. So to say "God is love but Jesus never lived" (or wasn't resurrected, or wasn't divine) to me negates inspiration. Or to say that "Jesus is the divine Son of God - and God hates everyone who doesn't believe that" to me negates inspiration. Thus, inspiration can be found outside the Bible (I have no problem with that) but if it's found outside the Bible it has no authority over the community founded on the Bible, and it may just be meaningful to me - and/or to whoever wrote it. Certainly a part of the work of a divinely inspired writing is that inspires me to go deeper - constantly deeper.

I end by saying that I am passionately in love with the Bible. I began reading it in my mid 20's. I found in the Bible a source of strength, and a power that made it different from any other book I had ever read. I find it a source of comfort in times of trouble. I find it a source of hope when everything seems to be going wrong. I find that every time I read it (or a part of it) it has something new to say to me; some new insight to give me; a deeper love for God to instill within me. None of what I've written is intended to say that the Bible isn't important. It is. It's the most important "thing" in the world as far as I'm concerned. It is "God-breathed." It is inspired. Of those things I have no doubt. But it is a "thing." It isn't God, and God can't be restricted by the Bible; God's actions can't be dictated by the Bible and God's sovereignty can't be compromised by the Bible. God is God. The Bible is the Bible. The Bible is a reliable and useful witness. Inspiration is real. And God still speaks to us all. We just have to listen.