Speaking of the inspired word of God

Faith & Science Conversation
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The “doctrine of inspiration” is a particular theological formulation that applies only to Scripture. That doesn’t mean you can’t use the English word “inspired” to apply to other things, it just doesn’t imply all the same things that are implied when you say Scripture is inspired.

The Holy Spirit inspires people to speak today, but that does not mean what they say falls under the doctrine of inspiration, which applies only to Scripture. Someone receiving and sharing a prophetic word or a great sermon is not the same thing as God’s revelation in Scripture. It is not authoritative on its own merits. It does not provide new revelation. Prophesy and preaching today speak in line with what has already been revealed in the Bible and call people to repentance and to the righteous application of biblical truth.

That said, the doctrine of inspiration allows for the Holy Spirit to continuously influence and speak through the Church as a whole to discern and apply the meaning of Scripture in particular contexts.

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42

Thank you. You said that well.

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As far as the revelation in Scripture being authoritative, nobody explains that topic better than N. T. Wright, in my view.

Here is a short version of things he has expanded on elsewhere:

One key passage from the article above:

The Bible, then, is designed to function through human beings, through the church, through people who, living still by the Spirit, have their life molded by this Spirit-inspired book. What for? Well, as Jesus said in John 20, ‘As the Father sent me, even so I send you’. He sends the church into the world, in other words, to be and do for the world what he was and did for Israel. There, I suggest, is the key hermeneutical bridge. By this means we are enabled to move from the bare story-line that speaks of Jesus as the man who lived and died and did these things in Palestine 2,000 years ago, into an agenda for the church. And that agenda is the same confrontation with the world that Jesus had with Israel–a confrontation involving judgement and mercy. It is a paradoxical confrontation because it is done with God’s authority. It is not done with the authority that we reach for so easily, an authority which will manipulate, or crush, or control, or merely give information about the world. But, rather, it is to be done with an authority with which the church can authentically speak God’s words of judgement and mercy to the world. We are not, then, entering into the world’s power games. That, after all, is what Peter tried to do in the garden with his sword, trying to bring in the kingdom of God in the same way that the world would like to do it. The world is always trying to lure the church into playing the game by its (the world’s) rules. And the church is all too often eager to do this, not least by using the idea of the authority of scripture as a means to control people, to force them into little boxes. In my experience, those little boxes often owe far more to cultural conditioning of this or that sort than to scripture, itself, as the revelation of the loving, creator and redeemer God.

Authority in the church, then, means the church’s authority–with scripture in its hand and heart–to speak and act for God in his world. It is not simply that we may say, in the church, ‘Are we allowed to do this or that?’ ‘Where are the lines drawn for our behavior?’ Or, ‘Must we believe the following 17 doctrines if we are to be really sound?’ God wants the church to lift up its eyes and see the field ripe for harvest, and to go out, armed with the authority of scripture; not just to get its own life right within a Christian ghetto, but to use the authority of scripture to declare to the world authoritatively that Jesus is Lord. And, since the New Testament is the covenant charter of the people of God, the Holy Spirit, I believe, desires and longs to do this task in each generation by reawakening people to the freshness of that covenant, and hence summoning them to fresh covenant tasks. The phrase ‘authority of scripture’, therefore, is a sort of shorthand for the fact that the creator and covenant God uses this book as his means of equipping and calling the church for these tasks. I believe this is the true biblical context of the biblical doctrine of authority, which is meant to enable us to be Micaiahs–in church, but so much more in society: so that, in other words, we may be able to stand humbly in the councils of God, in order then to stand boldly in the councils of men. How may we do that? By soaking ourselves in scripture, in the power and strength and leading of the Spirit, in order that we may then speak freshly and with authority to the world of this same creator God.

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45

That is inconsistent with how the early church leaders wrote of inspiration. I will provide this quote of Metzger, since it appears you missed it:

“It will have been noticed that in the preceding discussion concerning criteria used by early Christians in discerning the limits of the canon, nothing was said concerning inspiration. Though this silence may at first sight seem to be strange, the reason for it arises from the circumstance that, while the Fathers certainly agreed that the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments were inspired, they did not seem to have regarded inspiration as the ground of the Bible’s uniqueness. That is, the inspiration they ascribe to the Scriptures was only one facet of the inspiring activity of the Holy Spirit in many aspects of the Church’s life.7 For example, while Clement of Rome
speaks of the sacred Scriptures (here referring to the Old Testament) as ‘true and given through the Holy Spirit’ (lxiii. 2), the author of the Epistle to Diognetus writes for his own part to his correspondent: ‘If you do not offend this grace, you will learn what the Word (λόγος) talks about through those through whom he wishes to talk, when he pleases. For whatever we have been moved painstakingly to utter by the will of the Word that commands us, it is out of love for the things revealed to us that we come to share them with you’ (xi. 7–8). Among the writings of Eusebius there is a sermon attributed to the Emperor Constantine; whether or not this attribution is correct, the preacher clearly does not consider inspiration to be confined only to the Scriptures. He begins his sermon with the prayer, ‘May the mighty inspiration of the Father and of his Son … be with me in speaking these things’ (Orat. Const. 2).
“Not only do early ecclesiastical writers view themselves to be, in some degree at least, inspired, but also others affirm, in a rather broad sense, the inspiration of their predecessors, if not their contemporaries. In a letter that Augustine addressed to Jerome, the bishop of Hippo goes so far as to say (Epist. lxxxii. 2) not only that Jerome has been favoured with the divine grace, but also that he writes under the dictation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritu Sancto)—which may seem to be rather strong hyperbole applied to the often irascible Jerome. That Gregory the Great enjoyed the reputation of being inspired is easier to understand than is the case of Jerome, and Gregory’s biographer, Paul the Deacon, describes how the Holy Spirit, ‘under the form of a dove whiter than snow’, would explain to him the mysteries of Scripture (Vita S. Gregorii, 28)…

The same impression is conveyed when we examine patristic usage of the designation ‘non-inspired’. While the Fathers again and again use the concept of inspiration in reference to the Scriptures, they seldom describe non-Scriptural writings as non-inspired. When, in fact, such a distinction is made, the designation ‘non-inspired’ is found to be applied to false and heretical writings, not to orthodox products of the Church’s life. In other words, the concept of inspiration was not used in the early Church as a basis of designation between canonical and non-canonical orthodox Christian writings.
In short, the Scriptures, according to the early Fathers, are indeed inspired, but that is not the reason they are authoritative. They are authoritative, and hence canonical, because they are the extant literary deposit of the direct and indirect apostolic witness on which the later witness of the Church depends.”

Excerpt From
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
Bruce M Metzger

](https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Publication123/v4/aa/61/2d/aa612d3d-683f-3a76-4377-878d93236528/9780191606878.jpg/1200x630wf.png)
‎The Canon of the New Testament
‎Religion & Spirituality · 1997
itunes.apple.com

This material may be protected by copyright.

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No, I read it. Twice. I don’t think it is the final authority, be all, end all on the topic that you do. And I don’t even think you are applying the thesis correctly to the topic at hand. You keep using it to argue against a strawman.

Again, words have a semantic range. You can talk about writings being inspired, but it does not mean those writings are the subject of “the doctrine of inspiration.” That doctrine is a set of beliefs about The Bible, not a set of beliefs about inspiration in general or about the Holy Spirit’s action in the world. We have already covered the ground that the canon was not based on judgments about level of inspiration. Everyone here agreed that was true. The canon was decided based on which documents were considered authoritative by the Jews and the early Church.

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Metzger was certainly an expert, and he supported his views with quotes of early church leaders.

You simply disagreed without evidence.

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No, I told you I agreed. Inspiration was not the main criterion for canonization, authority was. How is that point at all relevant to the discussion here? If you would like to talk about the canonization process, start your own thread. This thread is about the doctrine of inspiration, which only applies after the canon is established.

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53

Bill, is it your view that gifts of tongues and interpretation and gifts of prophecy are not inspired unless they are quoting what is already in the Bible?

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It is relevant because you defined the doctrine of inspiration as only applying to canonized scripture, and church history shows that your view is inconsistent with the understanding and use of the term inspiration by early church leaders.

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The only thing officially considered inspired is the canon of scripture.

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59

Your Metzger quote was not about the doctrine of inspiration.

The use of the word “inspiration” is not the same thing as the doctrine of inspiration. How is this not clear after three repetitions?

Honestly, this rhetorical game you play where you infer and assume things and then attribute them to people, and everyone is supposed to spend the entire conversation clarifying repeatedly what they did not mean is tiresome, and I’m not interested in playing.

If you want to interact substantively with the article I posted, which I think gives a good explanation of the doctrine of inspiration, I would be happy to have a conversation. Or if you want to interact with ideas I have actually presented as mine, I would be happy to engage. But I’m just going to ignore posts where you fail to grasp the content of what I or others said and want to talk about something else. Endless clarifications for your benefit just bog things down.

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60

So how do you think “inspiration” in “the doctrine of inspiration of scripture” differs from inspiration when God speaks directly through a prophet or through the gift of tongues and interpretation?

Judging from scripture, which often claims to be written by people and sometimes clearly states it is the human author’s opinion, the inspiration of scripture seems to be less the Word of God than a prophetic utterance or tongues+interpretation which claim to be messages directly from God.

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Vance, how about you look up “the doctrine of inspiration” in a theological dictionary, or better yet, read the article I linked at the top and try to understand my frame of reference for what I am referring to by “the doctrine of inspiration.” I think the answer to your question will be fairly obvious.

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62

By “officially,” do you mean as judged and deemed so by church leaders, such as the Council of Carthage in the late fourth century, the first church council to list the 27-book NT? Of course, they did not make a statement on inspiration.

Are those the officials you recognize?

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I don’t agree, Christy, but if you don’t want to answer, don’t answer.

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I don’t want to answer you. :slightly_smiling_face: Anymore, ever.

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No, my point, which was a bit tongue in cheek, was I would consider them inspired only if they were recorded in the Bible, which would automatically exclude any present day exercise of the gift.

I think part of the problem is in the definition of what it means to be “inspired”. I view the Bible as God’s special revelation to man and is the result of the inspiration of the authors (see my reference to John). Any present day inspiration might result in a inspirational message, but would not result in any additional special revelation. It can also mean the Holy Spirit reveals the meaning of a Bible text to me. This means inspired can have two meanings. You seem to be using the word in the same sense for both the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing the Bible to us and the present day exercise of gifts.

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:slightly_smiling_face: Not an inspired one.

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Yes, I think when the Holy Spirit inspires someone to speak in tongues or in prophecy, the message is from God.

When God inspires someone to do something, such as writing a book or doing a mission, there is no reason to think every action or every word is directed by the Holy Spirit.

For example, Moses was certainly inspired to lead the Israelites to the promised land, but Moses made errors despite that inspiration.

Do you see it differently?

By the way, tongue in cheek comments are not well recognized by me on a forum where only the written responses are observable.

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How so?