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Schasc
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Username: Schasc

Post Number: 66
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006 - 8:05 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

At one time on this site someone gave some good information on what verbal inspriation is or isnt. I have been looking for it, but cant find it. Can anyone direct me to some info? This past week in a discussion with some relatives the topic came up of people that they know who have left SDA and it started because they did not believe in EGW. One person in the group said they tried to reason with these people by asking them if they followed what Jesus said about "if your right hand offends you cut it off". They went on to say that since no one takes that statment literally, there are certain things that EGW says that need to be treated the same way. The discussion then started on verbal and thought inspiration and that is why my posting question now. Thanks for your insight
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 4747
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006 - 6:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Schasc, the best "description" of Biblical inspiration that I've heard is this: Just as in Jesus there is a hypostatic union of divine and human that we cannot explain or tear apart, so the Bible is a union of the divine and human, and the two cannot be separated.

Adventists say the Bible was inspired by "thought inspiration", meaning God gave the writers ideas and allowed them to interpret them and express them according to their own cultural and personal understandings, thus introducing human interpretive error into the text. This understanding means WE get to interpret the Bible and decide what applies to us and what does not. They also say Ellen White was inspired exactly as were those men.

In order to counter the idea of inerrancy, Adventists create a straw-man argument, saying if the words are inspired, that means that God moved the pens of the writers and caused their hands to write what He wantedóas in "automatic writing". This description of verbal inspiration is a smoke screen and is NOT what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and traiuning in righteousness."

2 Peter 1:20-21 says, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

God is the source of Scripture; He gives the content. Yet the writers are actively speakingóthey each have their own voice. But as they are actively speaking, they are carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Adventists create a false dichotomy: either the Bible writers had general thoughts from God which they were allowed to interpret and verbalize as they undertsood them, or God caused the writers to do "automatic writing". But according to Scripture, neither of these is true. There is mystery here, but men did not humanly "interpret" God's ideas nor did they mindlessly transcribe them.

The Bible is the result of both God inspiring the content and of the writers actively participating in writing as the Holy Spirit carried them along. Every word of Scripture is God-breathed.

Colleen
Loneviking
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Username: Loneviking

Post Number: 467
Registered: 7-2000
Posted on Monday, October 09, 2006 - 9:09 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The May/June 2006 issue of Proclamation is all about this issue of Biblical inspiration and inerrancy. Go to the main page, click on the Proclamation magazine and go to the back issues.

Bill
Riverfonz
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Username: Riverfonz

Post Number: 2145
Registered: 3-2005
Posted on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 2:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

One of the most definitive and authoritative statements on Biblical Inerrancy is found in the Chicago statement at the following link:

http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/icbi.html

And here is a short summary statement from that document:

A SHORT STATEMENT

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms, obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church."

Stan

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