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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Mike Clement, Michael Gleb, and David Clement.
Mike Clement
The last time we got together, which was 10 minutes ago, we were talking, there was a question that was asked about the Apocrypha and how it had been included in the original King James version. But you really don't find it in very many English Bibles at all today. Very few. And we talked a little about that, and what came up is the whole area of inspiration. And Dave, what was it that you were, how do you define inspiration? Inspiration means what?
David Clement
Well the word actually translated is, is breathed, breathed out. So if you put your hand in front of your face, in front of your mouth, while you're speaking, you can actually feel the breath coming out of your mouth. And that's what inspiration means, it means God breathed. God actually spoke it, and the words came out of His mouth. Therefore, just like if we were to put our hand in front of our face while we were talking, we could feel the breath coming out of our mouths. And so you look up the original Greek language that was translated, and you would see God breathed. And so that's the idea, is the words coming out of your mouth as formed as breath.
Mike Clement
Okay, Pastor, you had a verse that you--
Michael Gleb
Well, yeah. In the last one, we talked about 2 Timothy 3:16 and it says, "Paul," writing to his young son in the ministry. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." And so all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and that's a comforting thing.
David Clement
To know that.
Michael Gleb
The Bible that I hold in my hand is God breathed, as you said. So it's coming from Him. It's not coming from the 40 plus authors of, they may have been human authors, but God inspired it. God breathed into them the very words that He would have for them to pen. Right, that's where we have a Bible!
David Clement
You know, one thing that we didn't talk about last time, but is interesting. We could go through the Old Testament prophets and we could see how God said, "You write this down." Yeah, He would say, "Write this down, write this down." So He actually told them, you know, "Write this down," and then He told them what to write down. What's interesting to note though also, because if we go over into Revelation, it talks about not adding to or subtracting from, you know? And interesting, in Revelation there were things that John was told, "Don't write that down."
Mike Clement
Right, God told John.
David Clement
God said, whatever it was that God told him, He said, "Now, you don't write that down." And so, it was literally, God told him exactly what to say, and then God told him, "Don't say that."
Mike Clement
When you take a class in Bible college and seminary and in some theology books, you find the phrase, Verbal Plenary Inspiration. And most evangelical and fundamental churches hold to Verbal Plenary Inspiration. And what that means, the verbal means: the very words; that God has inspired the very words. And we don't understand exactly how it took place, because Matthew sounds like Matthew and John sounds like John and Paul sounds like Paul and Isaiah sounds like Isaiah. And you see that their personalities or their character, or whatever are reflected in the writings. Nevertheless, the very words that they wrote were inspired. And the plenary part of Verbal Plenary Inspiration; plenary means all of them. Every single one of them. And that's supported in a number of places in the scripture. But in Matthew 5, the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this, He said, "Do not think now that I have come to destroy the Law of the Prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Now people who read that, may not know what that means. The word jot was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word jod, and jod is a letter in Hebrew. It's the smallest letter in Hebrew, and it looks like our letter, 'i', without the dot on top of it. So when Jesus said, "Not one jot, (not one, jod)," He said, "Not the smallest letter in God's word would pass away." Now a tittle: a tittle was a stroke in the pen that distinguished one letter from another. In English, if you just put a line down, that's either an 'I' or it's an 'l', but if you cross it, now it's a 'T'. And when you cross that in Hebrew, that was a tittle, that little stroke of the pen, that made one letter into another. And it does, you take the word bell, b e l l, and you cross the last 'l', now it's belt. It's a different word. Yeah, and so what Jesus said was, "The smallest jot, the smallest letter, the smallest stroke of the pen would not pass away." And that is an indication that that's the extent to which inspiration goes. Now, there is a difference between when we use the word inspiration, there's a difference between that and when we say something is inspiring. Inspiring is, it's effect on me. You know, and some people find some things inspiring and some people find other things inspiring, and we don't all agree. But if it's inspired by God, that means it comes from God, and the word that goes along with that is authoritative. Authoritative: what God's word says it says. And do you have that passage in Revelation? It talks about not adding or taking away?
Michael Gleb
Yeah, I was gonna back up that, how important it is, God's word, and jump on that in Revelation 22. This is the very last chapter of the last book of the Bible in the third or the second to last verse or the third to the last verse. "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away His part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." And so you could spend time, you know, dissecting and contextualizing that verse, but the fact of the matter is, that's a pretty bold statement. "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy," well, that's just how important it is. God's word is important. When I grew up, you know, like what your dad said, "Following directions is important," you know? Sometimes my mom would send me to the grocery store and she'd have a list, and I didn't follow the list always to the point that it wasn't a good day. And so, you know, this is just the importance of, when God says something, it's really important.
Mike Clement
Yeah. Dave, you made a reference before, to something that's found in 2 Peter, about the more sure word of prophecy that we have.
David Clement
That's right. That's interesting, because, you know, Peter was one of the 12 disciples, probably the most outspoken of all the disciples. He had more to say. He was the one that had enough faith to step out of the boat and walk towards Jesus on the water. But anyhow, we have Peter and he spent three years with Jesus, was a part of His ministry, heard the very words that Jesus said. Jesus sat down with him, discipled him, you know, we only have what? Four gospels that are written down? And if you take your time and read through them, you can probably read through all four of them in a day. But there were three years that Jesus, I mean in the book of John, it says that many--
Mike Clement
Many other things.
David Clement
Many other things did Jesus do, the books could not contain it, you know, that Jesus did. And so Peter saw a lot and he heard a lot, Jesus taught him a lot. But in the book, I believe it's 2 Peter, he says that, "We have a more sure word of testimony."
Mike Clement
Prophecy.
David Clement
Okay. I was trying to quote it there. Go ahead and read it for us brother.
Michael Gleb
Oh, okay. Well, I am actually gonna find it for you. Okay, right there, verse 19.
David Clement
Okay. It says, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto the light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." And so, here we have Peter saying, you know, "I walked with Jesus. I talked with Him, I heard Him." But now, this book that we hold today, is a more sure word. It's more complete, it's fulfilled. And so we don't have to doubt the word of God, and what we have here.
Michael Gleb
And another thing that you pointed out last time, a little, but we touched on it. Or maybe it was when we were talking. Anyhow, the idea of the Holy Spirit's responsibility inside of us too. And one of his jobs is to reveal the word to us as, not just reveal it, cause anybody could pick it up and read it. I was talking to someone just here the other day, and he was just in awe of what God was showing him that day. Even though he has read the passage a hundred times. And you know, that's the Holy spirit dwelling in us. And he has to reveal things, truth to us, because we're each at a different time in our life, every single day, you know? And I pointed out to him, you know, if Methuselah, (Methuselah was the oldest man recorded in scripture to live to be 969 years old), if he was to sit down and study the word of God every single day of his entire life, every single day he'd learn something different.
Mike Clement
Some years ago, I remember reading, I think it was Warren Wiersbe who made the statement, "Every generation has to redefine doctrine for their generation." Because new things came up and he said, "You know, we used to be able to just say that we believe the Bible is the word of God." And that was sufficient. He said, "Then we had to say, 'We believe all the Bible is the word of God, and then we had to say later on, 'Well, we believe all the Bible is the word of God and is inspired." And he said, "Now we have to say 'All the Bible is the word of God, is inspired and is without error." And I remember, in the 70's and 80's, there was a book written about reemphasizing the idea of an inerrancy. Which simply means that there are no errors in the Bible. And boy, lots of Christian organizations hustled to change their doctrinal statements to include inerrancy, because this guy brought it up. And he named names. He named organizations and schools and all kinds of things that didn't believe any longer. We have some of that today, where we have Ken Ham and some others that are emphasizing that all the Bible is true, including the book of Genesis, it's all true. In fact, Ken Ham has said, "Listen, if we can't trust the first book in the Bible, how can we trust any of them?"
Michael Gleb
Which includes some pretty important doctrine.
Mike Clement
Now, back in the turn of the previous century, from the 1800's to the 1900's, there was a fellow by the name of Harry Rimmer. And Harry Rimmer was a real defender of the accuracy of the word of God. And that was not that long after the theory of evolution came along, and Harry Rimmer would preach long and hard and loudly about the accuracy of the word of God. And what he did was, he offered, it was like a $10,000 reward, to anybody who could prove a scientific or historical error in the Bible. In his whole lifetime, it went unclaimed. Yeah, because nobody can. People will talk about it, in fact, we'll get into it, maybe in another session, the whole idea of defending the Bible. But most people that say, "Oh, the Bible is full of errors," okay, name one. They've heard that, they say that, and they may even believe it, but they've never been able to prove it for themselves and nobody else has either.