One of the msot over-worked Scriptures by fundamentalists is II Timothy 3:16. So what does INSPIRATION mean anyway? The word inspiration comes by way of the Latin wherein the King James translations of the Greek word θεοπνευστος (theopneustos) means literally “God-breathed“. Fundamentalism take that to mean something akin to “automatic writing“, in that the writers of the Bible had no will nor personality of their own, but were only putting on paper what God spoke to them. I don’t think so!
First of all it depends upon which ancient “text” wer’re using, which language, or which translation. Earlier translations read, “All Scripture that is inspired”. Change one word and you have an entirely different meaning my friend.
One cannot simply remove the human factors that go into the writing of the Bible which is a library of books, not ONE book. The Bible is written in many genres, by differing personalities, over thousands of years, to specific communities (Jewish and Christian primarily).
What needs to be considered is: who did the writing, for what period of time, under what conditions, and what the importance was for each writer. As Dr. R.P.C. Hanson said it, “The religious concept of inspiration is no longer tenable and that in its place we should speak of the Bible as unique precisely because it gives us the formative, hence the normative, account of what Christianity, as a faith in God, professes to be”.
Now, I can work with that and so can a lot of other people who need to know about God, Jesus, and the WAY wiithout hyper-literal religious concepts getting in the way of the Spirit! The Bible tells me and others how ancient societies reponded to what they “believed” to be God’s relationship to them in a given part of the world, and at specific times.
And the rubber meets the road when you cna answer that for YOURSELF. TODAY! 
0 Responses to “# 43- Practical Inspiration”
Leave a Reply