INSPIRED READING

INSPIRED READING

Christians amaze me sometimes. I am connected with one in some Christian groups on Facebook, and twice now, two "Christian" women have attacked him with accusations concerning his beliefs, and I never knew him to state he believed what they were attacking him for. The most recent one, if she thought about it, was an attack on me as well, because she accused him of being the author of the website I post my bible studies on, along with accusing him of not believing that the gospels are Holy Ghost-inspired works! Well, I thought that would make a nice topic for another bible study, and I can put to rest what both may be believing between the three of us!

"But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." (Job 32:8) Wise men receive their understanding from God. The bible is full of not only history, but prophecy and wisdom, and here Elihu is citing a fact: wisdom comes from God, and the wisdom in the bible is inspired by Him. Now one might say that's Old Testament; is it only? Really? I have more from the New Testament, this time...

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. 3:16 - 17) So here's my proof; all scripture, the entire bible, cover to cover, is inspired by God. I know a gal from back home, slightly older than me, and she said, "Ricky, I can't believe in a book!" My prayer for her is that she stop being foolish in time to believe in THIS book, because the bible is the only book anyone can fully believe in!

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. 1:19 - 21) I was correcting someone recently using Scripture that we are not entitled to our own opinion. The bible says what it says, and you can't add or subtract to the interpretation thereof. They were trying to say that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were Joseph's children to another woman, so as to keep Mary "ever-virgin". If it "ain't" in the bible, then it just "ain't" so! Note in this text from the bible that again, it is inspired by the Holy Ghost!

Now as for the question about the gospels being inspired by the Holy Ghost, let us find that Gospel passage where the Holy Ghost was given to the apostles; "Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be with you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.'  And 

 when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:21 - 23) So we see here that our glorified Jesus breathed upon them the Holy Ghost, and this is how we believe that the four apostles who wrote the gospels were inspired by the Holy Ghost. As they received Him from Jesus before He went up into heaven, so we understand that the apostles were inspired by Him to write the gospels as they are written.

Now for the real skeptics, even Moses was inspired by God to write the pentateuch that we have today as the first five books of the bible; for example, God spoke to Moses here - "And the LORD said unto Moses, 'Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.'" (Exod. 17:14) See how God Himself told Moses to write! "And the LORD said unto Moses, 'Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.'" (Exod. 34:27) "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:" (Deut. 17:18 - 19)

Isaiah was also instructed by God to write: "Moreover the LORD said unto me, 'Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man's pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz.'" (Isa. 8:1) "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:" (Isa. 30:8)

Jeremiah was instructed by God to write: "Thus saith the LORD, 'Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.'" (Jer. 22:30) "Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, 'Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.'" (Jer. 30:2 - 3) "And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 'Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.'" (Jer. 36:1 - 2) "Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, 'Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned.'" (Jer. 36:27 - 28) And Jeremiah was not the only prophet told to write by the Lord...

"Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 'Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.'" (Ezek. 24:1 - 2) "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:" (Ezek. 37:16) "And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them." (Ezek. 43:11) And not only these men, but even the minor prophets were instructed by God to write...

"And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." (Hab. 2:2) Now these are many examples from the Old Testament; I can give you of Paul in the New Testament, too...

"If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." (1 Cor. 14:37) "I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare: Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you." (2 Cor. 13:2 - 3) And finally, even the last book of the bible, God instructed to write in it...

"Saying, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a 

 book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.'" (Rev. 1:11)

So let there be no mistake; God inspired all the men who wrote the bible to write it, it is the divinely inspired word of God, from cover to cover. And woe to them who have altered it, and there are versions where His word has been abbreviated and added to! "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Rev. 22:18 - 19)