2 Timothy 3:15-17
I would like to begin with a true story that shows how ignorant people can be when it comes to the Bible. A pastor who was responsible for religious education in a school once walked into one of the classrooms while a lesson was going on and asked, “Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?” One of the students stood up and said, “It wasn’t me, sir.” The pastor thought this was a joke at his expense and turned to the teacher with the question, “Is this how this class usually behaves?” The teacher answered, “I think this student is honest, and I really don’t believe he did it.” As he left the room, the pastor went to find some comfort from his deacon and explained to him what had happened. The deacon said, “I have known both the boy and the teacher for several years, and I don’t think either of them would do such a thing as knock down the walls of Jericho.” By this point the pastor was so distressed by the answers he was getting that he reported the incident to the school’s committee for Christian education. The response he received from them was this: “Let’s not make a big issue out of what happened. We will pay the bill for the damage and record it as repair and maintenance expenses for the school. Whatever it comes to, our insurance can surely cover it.”
What we believe matters, because what we believe shapes the way we live our lives. If we do not know what we believe, then we are in danger of becoming what Ephesians 4:14 describes:
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14)
So that this description does not apply to us, we must know and understand well the basic points of our teaching. And I want to tell you that one of the most important of them is the divine inspiration of the Scriptures.
The point in our “Statement of Faith” that deals with this question reads: “WE BELIEVE that the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament is verbally inspired by God and constitutes God’s revelation to man — the infallible and authoritative rule of faith and conduct. Divine inspiration applies equally and fully to all parts of the original texts and guarantees their trustworthiness (2 Timothy 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:21; Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:13).”
What do we mean when we say that the Bible is “God-breathed”? In 2 Timothy 3:16 it says:
All Scripture is God-breathed. (2 Timothy 3:16)
This text testifies that “all Scripture,” the entire Old Testament — both its individual parts and the whole — is the Word of God. In it the words of the Holy Spirit are recorded. The Greek word “theopneustos,” which is translated “God-breathed,” literally means “God-breathed out.” This shows the degree to which what is written in the Old Testament belongs to God. It truly contains what God Himself has said. For example, in Jeremiah 30:1 it says:
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.’ (Jeremiah 30:1-2)
According to some, the inspiration of the Bible is merely a lifting of people’s natural insights to a higher level at which they begin to grasp the truth. Others go to the opposite extreme and say that the writers of the Bible wrote the sacred text in a trance or while they were beside themselves. But God did not use the authors of the sacred books simply as machines. Their participation in the process of writing was not limited only to a passing on of the words that God had spoken or placed in their hearts. Very often, of course, they wrote down word for word what they had heard from God. But it is also clear that God treats them as His co-workers and uses their own vocabularies, styles, and life experiences to convey His truth.
Inspiration, therefore, is the breath, or rather the Spirit, of God, who made human beings able to grasp, express, and write down God’s truth. In 2 Peter 1:20-21 it says:
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20-21)
So the inspiration of the Old Testament is complete, whole, absolute, and verbal. This means that in the autographs — the first manuscripts, written by the authors themselves in the original biblical languages — every word is inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. For example, in Acts 1:16 we hear the apostle Peter say:
16 “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus.” (Acts 1:16)
Notice that when Peter speaks of a prophecy given in the Psalms, he describes it as a word from the Holy Spirit — “the Scripture… in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David.”
The apostle Paul relates to the Scriptures in the same way in Acts 28:25, where he presents a text from the book of the prophet Isaiah, which he quotes with the words:
“The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet…” (Acts 28:25)
Here again we see that what was written by the prophet Isaiah is in fact a message from the Holy Spirit! These examples display and confirm what the apostle Peter said, that “no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” In other words, all the biblical authors are spokesmen of the Holy Spirit.
For us, the practical consequence of all this is that the whole Bible, and in particular the Old Testament, is a trustworthy, objective record of everything God had to say to humanity. The Bible truly can be regarded as the supreme authority on matters of faith and conduct.
Faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible is especially important, because it helps us to recognize the biblical books as different from all others and truly to receive them as the Word of God, which is holy!
The Old Testament Canon
The word “canon” means “straight line.” It can also mean “measuring rod,” “a measuring reed” (Ezekiel 40:3). In Galatians 6:16 the Greek word “canon” is translated into Bulgarian as “rule,” and it can indeed mean “standard.” A standard is the basis for comparison of everything else. With regard to the Bible, the word “canon” means the collection of books accepted as God-breathed, because they meet the corresponding standard and therefore can serve as the criterion by which human faith and deeds may be tested. From very ancient times the word “canon” has been used with regard to Scripture. Certain books were recognized as God-breathed and trustworthy and were included in the biblical canon. Other books also claimed to be God-breathed, but they were not included in the canon, because they did not meet the appointed standard.
The “Bible” that Jesus Christ used was the Hebrew Old Testament. While He was on earth, Jesus left no instructions for forming or compiling a new collection of sacred writings that would be separate from or additional to the books that He and His disciples received as the Word of God. By that time the Old Testament was already an established collection of books, commonly called “the Scripture” or “the Scriptures.” Both before and after His resurrection, Jesus relied on the testimony of the Old Testament and treated it as an absolute and supreme authority (Luke 24:25-27, 44).
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” (Luke 24:25-27, 44)
With these words of His, Jesus endorsed the Hebrew canon. The total number of books in the Hebrew canon is 24. They are divided into three groups — the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Writings are sometimes called “the Psalms,” because this is the first book in that group. Regardless of the different grouping, however, the material in the Hebrew canon overlaps completely with the material in the 39 books of the Protestant Old Testament canon. The difference in the number of books arises simply from the different grouping. For example, the Jews collected the twelve books of the Minor Prophets into one book, which they call “The Twelve.” In the days when books were not produced in the form of papyrus (or leather) scrolls or rolls, the order of the books was not of primary importance. But when codices, or sewn-together sheets, gradually displaced the papyri, the ordering we have today in the Hebrew or Bulgarian Bible came into use.
The Apocryphal Books
In the Orthodox and some Catholic versions of the Old Testament there are 11 books that are called “apocryphal.” The chief of them are the books of the Maccabees, Ezra, Baruch, Esther, Tobit, Judith, and others. These are books written not in Hebrew like the rest of the Old Testament, but in Greek, during the four centuries of “silence” between the writing of the last canonical Old Testament book, which is the book of the prophet Malachi, and the birth of Jesus. The Greek word “apocrypha” means “a hidden, falsified thing.”
I am not saying you should not read the Orthodox Bible. The corresponding books in it are no different from those in the Protestant Bible. But I warn you that the Orthodox Bible also includes apocryphal books, which can mislead and confuse you.
The reasons these books are not included in the Protestant Old Testament canon are as follows:
- They are not, and never have been, included in the Hebrew canon of the sacred books. The Jews never accepted them as books meeting the standard that the rest of the Old Testament books meet. The apocryphal books found a place in the Greek (the Septuagint, LXX) and Latin (the Vulgate) translations of the Old Testament, but they are absent from the Hebrew canon.
- Unlike the other Old Testament books, these books are not mentioned or quoted in the New Testament, even though its authors often used the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).
- Not one of these books claims to be God-breathed.
- These books contain historical, geographical, and chronological errors of a kind not found in the rest of the Old Testament books. Although these books do contain some historical information — in particular about the four-hundred-year period between the Old and New Testaments — not all the historical data in them is accurate.
- The apocryphal books teach and uphold doctrines that are different from and contrary to the Scriptures.
- The spiritual and moral level of the apocryphal books is considerably lower than that of the Old Testament as a whole.
Some people in our church have Orthodox editions of the Bible, read these apocryphal books, and find them especially interesting. They even wonder why nothing is said about them in church. But such wonder and such interest betray obvious spiritual immaturity and an inability to distinguish the holy from the unholy, the God-breathed from that which is not God-breathed. Instead of wasting our time on the apocryphal books, which can lead us into spiritual error and serious problems, let us read and study the canonical, God-breathed books!
Do you remember what Jesus said while He was being tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:4)?
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)
This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 8:3. The word that gives life is not just any word, but “every word that comes from the mouth of God” — that is, the God-breathed word. Where can we find it? Only in the canonical books — not in the apocryphal ones or in any others! And what are we inclined to live on? On everything else, but not on what God gives us?
The Transmission of the Old Testament
The transmission of the Old Testament is the process by which the biblical manuscripts were copied down through the centuries. God allowed each of the original biblical autographs, or manuscripts, to vanish from the scene, but this did not happen before copies or transcripts of these first original books had already been made and placed at the disposal of His people.
Perhaps one of the reasons God did not see to it that the original autographs were preserved is man’s tendency to worship material objects. Besides, if they had been preserved, perhaps many would have cast doubt on the evidence for their authenticity.
None of the ancient literary works was preserved in the copying process as carefully as the Old Testament Scriptures. The scribes who copied the sacred Scripture in order to preserve it were extraordinarily devoted to their work. They did everything necessary so that the duplicates might be exactly like the originals. The scribes were highly educated. Before they received the right to copy the sacred text, they apprenticed under those who had already become experts in their work. The scribes did not copy the text sentence by sentence, or even word by word. They copied letter by letter. Their precision can be sensed in the words of Jesus, that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than the smallest stroke of the pen — a comma or a period — fall from the Scripture (Luke 16:17).
17 It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. (Luke 16:17)
This was the precision that was expected of the scribes. If a given page had 288 words, then the copy also had to have 288 words. These scribes knew exactly how many letters were contained in each book of the Scripture. They knew how many times each individual letter occurred in a given book. They knew which letter was located exactly in the center of the book. And every one of these tests had to come out positive when the copy was compared with the original. If the copy did not correspond to the original, the work, which had required weeks to complete, was destroyed, and a new copy was begun.
The Hebrew Old Testament was so painstakingly and conscientiously preserved through the remaining centuries that when the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written in the first century A.D., were discovered in 1948 and compared with the existing Hebrew manuscripts from the years 900–1000 A.D., they were almost identical.
So, although some errors were occasionally made in the copying process (even the Bibles printed in the modern twentieth century have printing errors!), God preserved the Old Testament text in such a way that not one of its doctrinal truths is exposed to danger from such errors. On the contrary, the biblical text still speaks to us today with the same authority and life-giving power that it had at the moment it was first written down.
The Contribution of the Old Testament to Modern Man
Despite its antiquity, the Old Testament still contains God’s voice to us today. For Jews and for Christians alike, the Old Testament is sacred history, which reveals God’s revelation of Himself to us human beings. In it is recorded not only what God has done in the past, but also the divine plan for the future of humanity. For this reason the Old Testament contains the truth for the entire human race.
The Old Testament is not only sacred history. It is also redemptive history. Its authors have a great deal to say on the subject of God, His character, and the salvation of man. What we can learn from the Old Testament is, for example, that:
- God is the supreme and independent Creator and Lord of the whole universe.
- Man is a sinner who needs salvation.
- God is holy, and He hates and condemns sin.
- God is love, and He offers salvation to sinful man.
- A Savior will be born who will die in order to save man from his sins.
- Israel is indisputably chosen to be God’s channel of a redemptive message to the world.
- All of history will end before the throne of Almighty God.
The Old Testament is especially valuable because of its God-breathed text concerning the beginnings of the world. In it we can read about the first man and the first woman; about the first sin committed by man; about God’s first conversations with man; about the first revelation of the way in which man would be restored to his fellowship with God.
The Old Testament can bring us to the knowledge of Christ and to salvation through faith. In 2 Timothy 3:15 it says:
15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)
The Old Testament can not only usher us into the heavenly kingdom. It is also spiritual food for the Christian. It was precisely the Old Testament that the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote:
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
The various parts of the Old Testament affect the reader in different ways. The prophetic indictments produce in us an awareness of sin. The laws of Moses show us the way to please God. The psalms of David encourage us to praise and prayer. The testimonies of the historical books inspire us to walk in the path of righteousness. The prophecies about the last times warn us and at the same time sow hope in our hearts.
Let us read the whole Bible — not only the New Testament, but also the Old — in order to hear what God has to say to us and to be changed by Him, perfected and motivated for good works that glorify His Name.