#DailyDevotion You Can Depend On The Bible Because It Is God’s Word

2 Peter 1:20-21 ²⁰Understand this first, that no prophecy of Scripture came as some private explanation. ²¹For no prophecy was ever spoken because a man decided to prophecy, but men said what God gave them to say as they were directed by the Holy Spirit.

Here is perhaps one of those places we turn to for sola scriptura, only scripture. It, the Scriptures were not written by the will of men. It is not any man’s personal opinion and work about what they think of God or what God wants. No, Peter says the prophets were not carried by their own to produce these works. The Holy Spirit carried them to speak and to write. So their origin, their source is God. If their origin and source is God then they are perfect, complete, without error in any way shape and form. I am speaking of the content.

We indeed have some copies that are varied some because of the mistakes of a scribe or an ambitious editor. Those variations make up about 5% of the text we have (at least for the New Testament). Most of those variations can be explained, leaving out a word, copying something twice, mistaking similar letters and with the Greek grammar you know there is a problem because these often don’t make sense. There are a few places where there is a variation which does make sense but for those who want to disprove the inerrancy of the Bible, most everyone in every denomination agree they don’t change the meaning of the Bible as a whole or contradict the Christian faith even if those variants do change the meaning of the particular text. We can be extremely certain of the original text of the New and Old Testament. This text we received from God and faithful translations (and the overwhelming number of them are faithful) convey and teach us God’s Word, his will, his attitude toward us, his promises and what he has done for us in Christ Jesus.

In addition to this this we have Paul’s witness in 2 Tim. 3, “ ¹⁶All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, showing what is wrong, correcting and training in right living…” Inspired, what does that mean? The Greek is Theopneutos, theo–God, pneutos—breathed, God-breathed, that is to say it is spoken by God. When we talk we breathe. You may remember Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Whosoever sins you forgive they are forgiven…” The speaking of those words was the breathing references. The breath is also related to the Spirit. In Scripture spirit, breath, soul are often the same word. You could then say the Word of God, the Scriptures are God-Spirited. Whenever the Word is read or spoken, the Spirit is always there with it working the Father’s will. When Jesus speaks of baptism he says the water and the Spirit. (John 3:5) When Paul speaks of baptism he says the water and the Word (Eph. 5:27) As we can the common thing is the water. The Spirit and the Word are one though they are distinct. So we can turn to the Scriptures to learn what God’s will is. We find out what his attitude toward us is. We find the promises he has made us. We can be certain of its teachings and should look to it alone as our source of all teachings of God. We can do this because it is infallible as it’s origin is the Holy Spirit, who is God. What we will find in particular are several things: Man sinned against God. God loves us so much he sent his Son to become one of us, Jesus Christ, to pay the debt of sin. Jesus is resurrected and ascended to the Father at the right hand of God and is returning to judge the living (believers) and the dead (unbelievers).

Merciful God and Father, give us your Spirit so we may understand your Word, believe it and through faith in Christ enter eternal life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.