Posted by Yong TM (202.172.43.132) on January 08, 2003 at 10:25:21:
In Reply to: Nature of man, Inspiration of the Holy Spirit & the Bible posted by sy on January 07, 2003 at 18:17:35:
Good question.
Scripture spans a wide range of topics, from historical to pastoral letters. Simple recording of God's spoken WORDs to the receiver, and the spoken words of Christ would simply be accepted as the direct words of God. This is why some Bible highlights in red those words directly spoken by God and by Christ.
Some people object to this practise because there is an implication that these are a 'higher' category of scripture, as opposed to words of Paul for example.
In reformed understanding, all scripture, whether recording of Christ or God's spoken words, or the writings of the 39 OT and 27 NT books or epistles are the Word of God. The prophets and apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write God's revelation to man. This means that by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are used by God to reveal God's will to man through their writing.
The interesting point (and in a sense difficult) is that we believe also that God did not prevent these men from infusing their own cultural background, or personality into their writings, and yet still is able to speak wholly through them. We believe that the writings that constitute the Bible, while containing historical and cultural flavour, are still inerrant and infallible in the original language. We do not accept the possibility of 'human error' in scripture in its original writing (translations are another matter altogether). This is in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and is a statement of faith (or something we accept by faith). The authors of the Bible were obviously different from any other people in history when they were inspired to write God's revelation.
I suppose a crude example would be the apostle Peter walking on water. No human being by themselves would be able to do so, given our very physical nature being denser than water. But Christ enabled Peter to transcend his physical boundaries and he walked on water for a while. I would accept that in the same manner, the authors of scripture had the same experience under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.