SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/01/2025 8:00 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-5
“The Inspired and Inerrant Scripture”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy
3:16-17
Message of the verses: “16 All Scripture is
inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for
training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped
for every good work.”
I
continue quoting from John MacArthur’s commentary relating to these two
wonderful verses. As mentioned this will
take me a fairly long time to get through this.
“Scripture is
inspired and inerrant in its words. To deny that all of the Bible is inspired obviously
is to deny that all the words of Scripture
are inspired. Just as obviously, such
denial places man as judge over God’s Word, acknowledging as authentic and
binding only those portions which correspond to one’s personal predispositions. Whether the human judgment about inspiration
is made by a church council, church tradition, or individual preference, it is
based on subjective, sin-tainted, and imperfect knowledge and
understanding. When men decide for
themselves what to recognize as true and worthwhile, as meaningful and
relevant, they vitiate all authority of Scripture. Even when they concur with Scripture, the
agreement is based on their own human wisdom.
“Unless the very words
of Scripture are inspired and authoritative, man is left to his own resources
to ferret out what seem to be underlying
concepts and principles. But instead of
discovering what has been called ‘the Word behind the words’—that is, the
divine truth behind the human words—that approach leads to the very
opposite. It presumptuously and
self-deceptively ‘discovers’ man’s word, as
it were, behind God’s words, judging God’s divine truth by the standards of man’s
sinful inclinations and distorted perceptions.
As Paul said to Titus, the commandments of men turn people away from God’s
truth’ (Titus 1:14).
“Even from a purely logical perspective, to discount the words of Scripture is to discount all
meaning of Scripture. Not only is it
impossible to write without using words but also impossible, except in the most
nebulous way, even to think without words.
It is as meaningless to speak of thoughts and ideas without words as to
speak of music without notes or mathematics without numbers. To repudiate the words of Scripture is to repudiate the truths of Scripture.
“It is true, of course, that both testaments contain revelations whose bare words of God intentionally made cryptic. In some cases, as with Jesus’ parables, the purpose was to hide the meaning from willful unbelievers. When the disciples asked Jesus why He spoke to the multitudes in parables, ‘He answered and said to them, ‘To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted’’ (Matt. 13:10-11). In other cases, as with predictive prophecies, even the most godly believes, including the men to whom God revealed the prophecies, could not discern the full meaning. Peter explains, for example, that, ‘as to this salvation [through Jesus Christ], the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which no have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look’ (1 Peter 1:10-12).
“In other words, although Scripture never reveals truths
apart from words, in some places it reveals words apart from their full
truth. The point is this: The words
of Scripture are always inerrant, whether or not they convey their full
meaning to those who read them or can be fully understood by our limited
comprehension.
“When Moses protested to God that he was not qualified to lead Israel because he had ‘never been eloquent’ as was ‘slow of speech and slow of tongue,…the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? It is not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say’ (Ex. 4:10-12). When Moses continued to object, ‘the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, ‘Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently…And you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and it shall come about that he shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be as God to him’ (Ex. 4:14-16, emphasis added).
6/1/2025 8:28 AM
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