Saturday, April 21, 2012

How God Put Together the Scripture Notes


'Men Moved By the Holy Spirit Spoke From God' (2 Peter 1.21)
Charles e Whisnant    April 22, 2012 
Series The Bible You Hold In Your Hand #14
THE QUESTION IS HOW DID THE HOLY SPIRIT PRODUCE THE WORD OF GOD THROUGH HUMAN WRITERS?
Can God infallibly guarantee that any single human action will freely occur if he cannot totally control all free human action ...? We believe not.  God can never guarantee that any human will freely do what he wants. 
 
We are teaching that, for anything to be Holy Scripture, its every word and statement need not be positively and absolutely inspired in the author, with the Holy Spirit supplying and forming in his mind the individual words and statements. It is enough that the sacred writer be divinely drawn to write down what he sees, hears, or knows otherwise, that he enjoy the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit to prevent him from mistakes even in matters he knows on the word of others, or from his own experience, or by his own natural reasoning. It is this assistance of the Holy Spirit that gives Scripture its infallible truth
1A       What was the means whereby God had the Bible written by men?
2A       Who wrote the Content of Bible? 
1.     God      2.   God and Man     3. Prophets and Apostles
3A        Did the human author have any freedom in penning the book he was writing?

4A       Was every word that was penned by the author of scripture dictated by the Holy Spirit to men?

5A       How is it that God "sovereignly controls the mind and personality" of a biblical author so that his "whole personality” expresses itself naturally to write exactly what God wanted to be expressed?

6A       How did God bring the Bible into reality?

7A       How did God use men to write the Bible?

8A       Did God in the beginning (before the foundation of the world ) decree a plan whereby He was going to have men write the Bible?

9A        T or F  God perfectly accomplished His will in the lives of genuinely free men through the use of His omniscience.

10A     What is the definition of  Spiritual confluent inspiration?

11A     Can God infallibly guarantee that any single human action will freely occur if he cannot totally control all free human action.?  That is if the writers of the scripture were to put in words what came to their mind, would it still be the Word of God?

Our objective in these lessons is to bring some clear light as to how God brought about the writing of the Scripture. That is a challenge for sure.  That is how can we make the doctrine become perspicuous? (Clearly expressed and therefore easily understood)

Scriptural inspiration has traditionally been understood by Christian theologians to be plenary, verbal, and confluent. (when things come together like God and the writer.)

12A     The historic position of the Early church fathers that Scripture is characterized by plenary, verbal inspiration. What does that mean?
13A     Were the writers like a flute-player breaths into a flute? Or were the writers like a divine plectrum?

We want to suggest  how  the plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture is  compatible with Scripture's being a truly divine-human product?

 How can one hold to the verbal inspiration of the whole of Scripture without lapsing into a dictation theory of inspiration which, in effect, extinguishes the human author?
I want to suggest how God brought about the writing of the Bible. 

A theory of divine inspiration based upon God's middle knowledge is proposed, according to which …

God knew what the authors of Scripture would freely write when placed in certain circumstances. By arranging for the authors of Scripture to be in the appropriate circumstances, God can achieve a Scripture which is a product of human authors and also is His Word


Featured Post

Did Jesus Die For All Men

Did Christ Die for all Men or Only His elect?   The following is a written response to a brother with the following question about l...