Sabbath School for Adults: How to Interpret Scripture: Lesson 2: The Origin and Nature of the Bible

Monday April 6


The Process of Inspiration

Because God uses the medium of language to reveal His will to humankind, divine revelation is capable of being written down. Yet, as we already have seen, the Bible is the result of God’s revealing truth to us through the work of the Holy Spirit, who transmits and safeguards His message through human instruments. This is the reason why we can expect the fundamental unity that is seen in all of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation (for example, compare Gen. 3:14, 15 to Rev. 12:17).

Read 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16, 17; and Deuteronomy 18:18. What do these texts say about the inspiration of Scripture?

All of Scripture is divinely inspired, even if not all parts are equally inspiring to read or even necessarily applicable to us today (for example, the sections about the Hebrew feasts were inspired even though we’re not required to keep them today). Yet, we need to learn from all of Scripture, even from those parts that are not so easy to read and understand or that are not specifically applicable to us now.
Also, not everything in the Bible was directly or supernaturally revealed. Sometimes God used biblical writers who carefully investigated things or used other existing documents (see Josh. 10:13, Luke 1:1–3) to communicate His message.
Even then, all Scripture is inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). This is the reason why Paul states that “whatever” was written, was written for our instruction, so that through “the encouragement of the Scriptures we
might have hope” (Rom. 15:4, NASB).
“The Bible points to God as its author; yet it was written by human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents the characteristics of the several writers. The truths revealed are all ‘given by inspiration of God’ (2 Tim. 3:16); yet they are expressed in the words of men.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 7.

Today there are biblical scholars who deny divine authorship of many parts of the Bible, even to the point where many crucial teachings—Creation, the Exodus, the Resurrection—are denied. Why is it so essential that we not open that door—even a bit? After all, are we to pass judgment upon the Word of God?