My wife is Japanese. She was raised in Japan. Thus, her primary language is Japanese. Imagine if she and I tried to have a conversation, yet she spoke in and listened for Japanese while I spoke in and listened for English. No matter how precise our conversation, we would not be able to understand each other. We must first agree on which language we will communicate in. Since I don't speak Japanese and she does speak English, English has, of course, become our language for communication.
Curiously, when folks attempt to talk about the Bible they seldom begin with an agreement on which 'language' they will use. What I mean by that is that they don't stop and first ask, 'how do you understand the nature of inspiration?' You see, if I'm trying to understand what my friend is saying about a particular teaching in the scriptures yet he believes that the bible must be interpreted literally as if each word in scripture was dictated by God and is absolutely accurate fact, then we will have a problem. I believe that the words of the bible were not dictated by God to men who faithfully recorded God's ideas. So, though I accept the Bible as sacred from beginning to end, I would interpret each teaching only through the life and practices of Jesus - as I understand them to be.
So, unless two people first make clear their beliefs on the nature of inspiration, their attempts at communication will be relatively fruitless - and no little bit frustrating. This is not to say that a person who believes that the scriptures were dictated by God to man should not engage in a fruitful discussion of the bible with someone like me. We need to hear one another. We just need to know from what perspective the other is speaking from so that we may 'decode' correctly what they have 'encoded'. Otherwise, many false assumptions will be made.
So, why do I believe as I do about the nature of inspiration? What, then, do I mean when I say that the scriptures are 'inspired'? How did I come to my particular conclusions about inspiration?
The apostle Paul, in his letter to Timothy, reminded him that, "all scripture is 'inspired' (Gk. 'Theopneustos' - God wind) by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.' (2 Tim 3:16,17)
I certainly accept that as true. The implication is that God has in some manner influenced the person that has 'written' scripture. But, what exactly does that mean? In what way did God influence those who wrote what we now call 'scripture'? Does this text insist that 'inspired' must mean verbal dictation?
It would seem to me that if even one example can be presented where that notion is 'untrue' then we must reconsider our traditional notions of inspiration. Take a gander at this next text:
"For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty." (2 Pet 1:16)
"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life..we proclaim to you also; so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1 Jn 1:1,2; Jn 1:14; 19:35; 21:24; Acts 1:21-22; 4:20)
Both the testimonies of Peter and John were that they were 'moved' to write because of what they saw, heard, and touched. In his case, inspiration simply meant that they were writing eye witness accounts. Yet notice what John said that he was a witness to, what compelled him - 'inspired' him:
"God is Light." (1 Jn 1:5) "God is Love" (1 Jn 4:16)
OK. So, what does that mean? How do these two observations help us understand the nature of inspiration?
"The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now." (1 Jn 1:5)
"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar..this is the commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also." (1 Jn 4:20,21)
That which 'inspired' him was the 'love' of God, not dictated words. The evidence of his 'inspiration' was not 'what' he wrote but 'how' it changed his life. He, like Peter, wrote about what he experienced, not as something God later 'dictated' to him, but as something God had 'done' within him. He wanted others to enter into the same experience through his testimony (Jn 20:29), even if they could never see and hear what he had.
There is another interesting and essential point in all this. What John 'saw' forever altered the manner of John's 'seeing'. He not only 'saw' the world differently after his encounter with Jesus, but he also saw his religion and the Law differently. He began to read the scriptures with new 'eyes'.
Jesus, in his sermon on the mount, gave several illustrations of how re-read the scriptures from a new perspective. Here is one: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?..." (Mt 5:43-46)
Jesus defined 'neighbor' as everyone - including my enemies. That would mean that my 'brother' (from the above text: 1 Jn 4:20,21) would also refer to anyone, not just another Christian. But this was not what the Old Testament taught, said Jesus. It was, though, what He taught. And, this 'love' for all others wasn't defined as the mere occasional tossing of a bag of rice to a poor person.
"The whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “ YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” (Gal 5:14)
If I love everyone else like myself, then doesn't that mean that I should treat everyone else as I would want to be treated? The 'Golden Rule'. (Mt 7:12)
"Whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17)
"Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification." (Rom 15:12)
"Let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love...If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.. God is love, and the one who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him." (1 Jn 4:7, 8, 12, 16)
"This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." (1 Jn 3:11)
So we could say that 'inspiration' means:
1. that those who were eye witnesses of Jesus were so moved by His love that they couldn't help but tell others about Jesus.
2. that they began to read the scriptures through the eyes of love rather than merely literally - which led them to re-interpret the Law.
"We know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully." (1 Tim 1:8)
In the scriptures we can find a plethora of teachings that simply are not very loving. In fact, there are many things that are the antithesis of love. We don't need to make an excuse for them. We shouldn't try to redefine 'love' so as to incorporate the non-loving things of scripture into our definition of love. It is what it is. But we now have Jesus. He is the 'judge' of all things - even the scriptures.
Take the example of slavery. Neither the Old or the New Testament speak of it as wrong. In fact, it is even condoned in the Old Testament. Despite that fact, Paul's letter to Philemon encouraged him to think outside the box in regard to slavery.
Paul did what many Christians did not do even up until recent centuries. He did not simply read the scriptures as unerringly 'inspired', rather he read them having been himself been 'inspired' by Jesus. He didn't permit himself to be guided by 'ink', but rather through the 'Person'.
Commenting on this very point, Peter Rollins wrote: 'Jesus taught us not merely to read the scriptures, but to enter into a dialogue with them; a dialogue that is saturated and directed by love.' ["How (not) to Speak of God", p. 62]
With that in mind, modern Christians set aside the traditional way of interpreting scripture - literally - and opted to set aside what it said in one place, for what Jesus said in another. Jesus became the 'greater Light'. Slavery, though explicitly condoned by scripture, is condemned by Christians who 'know' the way of Jesus. But how can this be legit? If the scriptures are truly God breathed - in the traditional sense of being dictated word by word by the Spirit to man - then how can man assume that the same Spirit is guiding us to disregard what was written long ago? Does God change his mind? Does God practice 'situational ethics'?
Consider the following texts:
"A voice is calling, 'clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God." (Is 40:3)
"Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me." (Mal 3:1)
"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." (Mal 4:5)
"Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" (Mt 3:1-3; Mk 1:2-8; Lk 1:76; 3:3-6)
"But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I (Jesus) tell you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, 'Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You, Who will prepare Your way before You.'..And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Mt. 11:9-15; Lk 1:17; 7:26,27)
So, at this point, both Matthew and Jesus connect the scriptures of Isaiah and Malachi with John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the one that these two Old Testament prophets were referring to that would prepare the way for Jesus. John is the one that Malachi called 'Elijah'. But it gets a bit more complicated than this.
"This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.' They asked him, 'What then? Are you Elijah?' And he said, 'I am not.'..Then they said to him, 'Who are you, so that we may given an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?' He said, 'I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said.'" (Jn 1:19-23)
Can you see the dilemma? Can you see how these verses compel us to rethink the very nature of inspiration?
The New Testament confirms that the one spoken about by Isaiah and named by Malachi is in fact John the Baptist. This is something that no one seems to dispute. Well, except John the Baptist himself - in one point at least.
John the Baptist said he was not 'in fact' Elijah. Jesus, though, said that 'in truth' John the Baptist was Elijah. We all can probably agree that John the Baptist wasn't - as he himself confirmed - literally, factually, Elijah. Yet, we can all also agree that he was Elijah in spirit. Elijah hadn't been raised from the dead in the form of John the Baptist. In 'fact', Elijah himself - along with Moses - appeared to Jesus on the mount of transfiguration later on. Elijah is not John the Baptist. John the Baptist is not Elijah. Yet he is.
My point is that 'fact' isn't always 'truth'. John the Baptist wasn't in 'fact' Elijah, but he was 'Elijah' in 'truth'. If we were to only read scripture literally and to hold it to exactly what it says, we would then have to toss out what the gospels have said. Yet, if we are willing, as Jesus said, to read the scriptures as He did, we will look for truth:
"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life." (Jn 5:39,40)
In summary, thought there is so much more that could be said about all this, the scriptures are the result of man's encounter with God. It is not the exact words that are 'inspired', but rather the authors themselves are 'inspired' - in that 'inspiration' simply means that these men wrote out of an encounter with God. The scriptures present each man's interpretation of their experience with God. If we read their words with the hope of knowing God better, we won't focus on the facts of what they wrote, rather we will focus on the One they encountered - the One found between the lines of 'ink'.
Since Jesus is the ultimate One we look to in order to truly know God - not Isaiah nor even Paul - then the love of Christ is the scale upon which we weigh all of scripture's content. This is why we eschew slavery today, rather than to embrace it as scripture-based, 'God' ordained practice. It doesn't measure up to the 'love' of God as taught and exemplified by Christ (Gal 5:22-25), then it is not the Way, the Truth, and the Life we are to follow.
Whoever merely reads the scriptures will be misled by scripture - as were the Pharisees. If we only search the scriptures to discover what we must do in order to be righteous enough to enter the kingdom of God, we will not ever find God. On the other hand, if we search the scriptures to discover who God is, they will lead us to Jesus (Gal 3:24). In him we will find and be changed by love - the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Rather than depending on scripture as if it was a book of absolute facts and an unalterable ethical guide, we read it as a book of sacred experiences with God, the details of which are subject to the Spirit of God. God is love. That which is not of love, is not of God.
"I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ man dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, by be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." (Eph 3:14-19).
Articles that add to this discussion:
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/23697.htm
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