|
The inspiration of the Bible |
|
|
|
|
At Emmaus Bible College we believe in verbal plenary inspiration (2 Tim 3: 16).
This has been the orthodox view of inspiration for most of the church's history but has been superseded in recent years. 'Verbal' means that we believe the Holy Spirit guided the original writers as they chose the words to give the Lord's message however they were still written by real people. 'Plenary' means that every word was inspired, in other words, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God rather than the Bible contains the Word of God or that there are other sources of God's revelation.We believe that the Scripture has no errors of fact and that God does not change his mind. From time to time the Bible may report the fact that someone told a lie, prophets prophesied falsely or discuss evil spirits gave false directions but it is a fact that these lies were told, the false prophecies were made or the false directions were given. The claim of inspiration only applies to original manuscripts as they were written by the men God inspired to give his revelation. No translation can claim to be divinely inspired; however, the Christian can use translations with confidence but should be willing to check other translations from time to time. Paraphrases are only the opinions of men and should never be used as a foundation for specific doctrines. In this context it must be remembered that poetry is inspired as poetry, narrative is inspired as narrative and all kinds of Scripture must be treated as they were intended. The Bible is not a scientific textbook but it is never scientifically wrong, nor is the Bible an historical textbook but it is never historically inaccurate. The Bible is a relationship handbook; telling us how we may have the richest possible relationship with Almighty God, our Creator, Saviour and Lord. |
