“God gave us His inerrancy through the process. God involved Himself in the process from the actual scripting to the end product of preparation to do anything that is good. Paul includes implementation in the inspiration involvement of God.” Dr. Don Lynch
Holy Spirit breathed, or God breathed Holy Spirit through the write and into every writing. The term “graphe” means writing, engraving, thus scripting or Scripture.
The Divinely-breathed scripting was not automatic writing. The writer’s style, personality, and perspective remain part of the process, but the breath of God provides some guarantees.
To answer the question, “What did God’s spiritual involvement in the process provide?”
1. Inerrancy
We know God involved Himself in ridding the scripting of error. We know men wrote down what was written – God didn’t write the Bible with a stylus as He did the first set of stone tablet He provided Moses – but, God involved Himself in the scripting so that they did misrepresent God or communicate something inconsistent with Truth.
The Bible doesn’t say everything about everything. It is not exhaustive. But, whatever the Bible says about anything is entirely accurate, without error.
For example, anything the Bible says about marriage is true, consistent with God’s design for marriage, superior to any cultural conceptions and definitions for marriage. It is true, and everything else is only valid to the extent it agrees with the Bible.
There is not “well, that was a cultural thing in Paul’s day” allowed. There is not “well, we recognize Paul was not speaking to modern marriage.” No!
And, that brings us to intention.
2. Intention
If God involved Himself in the scripting to avoid error, we could also read Divine Intention into the scripting process. What God included in the final form, He Providentially preserved. That is, He was involved in the process from beginning to end.
To say, “Paul says this and that culturally that we can ignore” but “Paul say this and that by inspiration that is eternal Truth” is both silly and illogical. It assumes God leaves it to man to determine what He wants to communicate in His inspired scripting. He does not. That is why He got involved in the first place!
So, Paul says something about marriage. He is not married. Paul says something about marriage as it relates to him not being married. Paul says something about the roles of husband and wife. Paul says something about the relational dynamics between husband and wife. Paul says something about the responsibilities the roles and relational dynamics demanded.
We cannot dismiss anything Paul says about marriage that is included in the Bible. It is God-breathed. God breathed Holy Spirit in the scripting. God guarantees what is included in the Bible is how God thinks. The Bible does not contain God’s thinking. The Bible is God’s thinking. It does not contain God’s Word. It is God’s Word.
3. Implementation
Beware any tendency to dismiss something the Bible says when you hammer It into a system inspired by man. Beware any tendency to assume God updated the framework through modern thinkers. Beware any tendency to discover something in the Bible that you label “new revelation” when the revelation is as ancient as the Ancient of Days.
The Bible is not a collection of theories. The Bible is a blueprint for implementation. We do not know the Bible through hypothetical imaging. We know the Bible by experiencing It in real life, by living by the blueprint.
When we apply inspired, inerrant revelation to real life and living, we experience Truth from our inward parts into our outward speech and behaviors. We are free when we experience Truth, not when we digest the truth about the Truth.
Inspiration guarantees inerrancy. Inerrancy guarantees integrity. Integrity guarantees insight. Insight guarantees implementation. The Bible successfully produces what God wants wherever and whenever we apply It to life as God’s Word.
Beware the idea that we can read the behaviors of Barnabas and Paul concerning John Mark with a perspective and determining who was “right and wrong” in practices. We do not have that privilege or power since God’s involvement also provides us with a revelation of God’s intentions.
That is, when God Holy Spirit breathed through the scripting of Luke, Barnabas disappears from the narrative. This change of perspective does not occur because Luke no longer sees Barnabas. The scripting moves between perspectives; it is not an “if Luke sees it, it is recorded” compilation. It is an inspired by God’s breath historic perspective that shows us what God was thinking, not Luke.
That is, when God inspired Paul to script information about marriage, with no personal experience of marriage, God is involved in communicating what God thinks about His design and definition for marriage. We have two strong Sources for our definition of marriage: Jesus and Paul. Neither was married. Each sets the foundation stones for all we need to know about God’s design and definitions to produce successful marriages.
Conclusion
We cannot separate intention from inspiration. We cannot assume any assignment to determine which parts of what God scripted are to be taken seriously or dismissed as “for those folks back then but not for us today.” We cannot take scissors to any book, chapter, verse, or word of the inspired scripting – Holy Spirit chose words, created some words, and breathed upon words – without damaging inspiration, intention, and implementation.
The Paul summary of “graphe” is clear: God gave us His inerrancy through the process. God involved Himself in the process from the actual scripting to the end product of preparation to do anything that is good. Paul includes implementation in the inspiration involvement of God.
