The Spirit and the Bible

In the last blog post, we looked at the Bible's teaching that the Holy Spirit is God.

Because the Holy Spirit is God, we can be confident that the Bible is completely inerrant and trustworthy and authoritative. 2 Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. But how exactly did God do that? 2 Peter 1:20-21 gives us the answer, “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced byt the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along [moved by] the Holy Spirit.”

• • • • When people were writing the Bible, they weren’t just writing their own opinion, they were writing the opinion of God, because the Holy Spirit was working in them and through them to make the words they wrote the word of God.

      • Sometimes you’ll hear the argument that the Bible can’t be without error because it was written by people, and people aren’t perfect. But this verse specifically says the opposite of that, that no error was included because the Bible is not merely a human writing, it is the product of the Holy Spirit. And since the Spirit is perfect and is God, the things He produces will be perfect as well. The old proverb is helpful here: 'God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.'

So the Spirit has ensured that the Bible you hold right now is the true Word of God. Think about what that means

• • The Holy Spirit was at work in Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and Matthew, and Paul and all the other authors of the Bible so that they wrote exactly what you hold in your hands right now. The same Holy Spirit is also inside of you right now if you’re a Christian. Don’t you think He knows exactly how to use the Bible in your life right now to bring about the growth that God wants to see? You can take it a step further. Because the same Holy Spirit is in you that was in the authors of the Bible, it’s not a stretch to say that the Holy Spirit knew exactly the truth you would need to hear thousands of years later when you read the Bible, and He included that truth in the Bible to work in your life, not just the life of the people who heard it first. That’s what it means that the Bible was written to us.

  • If you ever needed motivation to study the Bible, this is it. The author of God's word is inside of us, and God has ensured that the inerrant word of God has everything we need for our life. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit reminds us of this.