Is the Bible Divinely Inspired?

Many today regard the Bible as if it is simply a book written by men – wise men, perhaps, but men all the same. In their minds, there is nothing authoritative about the Bible; we can get some good ideas from it, and some comfort, and concepts that might even make us happy, but it is not from God. This should cause us to pause and ask: is the Bible really only from the ideas of men, or is it from God?

For the atheist or agnostic, we pose a question: if there were an all-powerful creator God, what kind of book would he write? What kind of questions would it need to answer? We submit that the Bible shows us the will of a creator God who gives us everything we need to live and breathe.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 gives us an interesting look into what the Scripture really is. The Apostle Paul writes that it is “given by inspiration of God”. The word “inspired” means, literally, “God-breathed”. This is why we call the Bible God’s Word – it is the Word given and breathed by God. In this, we can understand from the start that the Bible is not simply the ideas of the men that wrote it, but the Word of God put forth, just as if God had spoken it Himself.

Simply knowing that God has spoken will not be our full understanding, however. We can accept that God has given us His Word without really trusting in it. The Scriptures tell us that God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18). It is impossible for God to lie to us, because it is simply not part of His character. He will guide us and lead us with the Bible, and we can know Him and trust Him. This means that we implicitly understand that the Bible is absolute Truth, and that God will not lead us astray with it.

God wants us to know and understand His plans for us. The only way for that to happen is if God tells us Himself. 1 Corinthians 2:10-13 tells us that God has made the truth available to us by men guided by His Holy Spirit, who wrote in their own styles, but with a unified message – the message that God has for humanity. He has given us His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Understanding that God has made His Will known means that we must then understand our responsibility to that message. God has spoken to us today through Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-2). God warns us about disobedience to His Word (Hebrews 2:1-3). The destiny of our souls depends upon knowing and understanding the Will of God through the Bible (1 Timothy 2:4). -Steven McCrary