Why Must We Believe the Bible Is Divinely Inspired?

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Rico Tice: Why should we believe the Bible is divinely inspired as opposed to just great literature?

Scott Oliphint: Right, it’s a great question, isn’t it? We could start here. I think there are a number of ways to parse this out, but let’s start here. The very first temptation in the garden when the serpent came to Eve was, has God said?

Rico Tice: Really said, yeah.

Scott Oliphint: Has God really said. Now Moses tells us in Genesis 3:1 that the serpent was more subtle, more crafty. And then we see the craftiness and the subtlety when he comes, not just with a contradiction of what God has said, he’ll do that, but initially comes with the question. What’s the purpose of the question? The purpose of the question is to make Eve question the authority of God. Now she comes back and says, “No, no, he hasn’t said that. But he said that if we eat from the tree that we’ll die”, and then Satan comes and he says, “You will not die.”

Scott Oliphint: I think important for us to recognize is that what we learned from scripture is that the questioning of the authority of God, in His word, whether He’s speaking to Adam and Eve, whether He’s speaking to the profits, whether He’s speaking in that what we have as our Bibles, that the authority of God there has been the burning question throughout history, since the fall. That’s a lesson for us. The temptation is always going to be for many to pick this Bible up and to read it and then to begin to say that can’t be true. I just can’t believe something like that.

Scott Oliphint: Now, when we begin to think that way, what we start to think as well, it’s a helpful book, it has some nice phrases. The Bible is one of the most quoted books in the world, has been for centuries. Why is that? Because it is good literature, but the Bible doesn’t think it’s just good literature, the Bible and Jesus thought this way. The Bible says to us about itself it is the very word of God. Even Peter, when he’s reflecting on the Mount of Transfiguration, he’s talking in his last epistle, we were on the Holy mountain. We were there. He doesn’t say to his readers, you should have an experience like that as well.

Scott Oliphint: What he says is you should pay close attention to the word of God, because it is the word of God. It is spoken by God who by men carried along by the Holy Spirit so that it’s God’s word spoken. I think we have to recognize the character of what we have here is given to us, not as words from men that God approves, but the word of God that men spoke, because God inspired them to do that. That puts the Bible at a completely different level than any other great literature out there. Because in here we have the words of eternal life. No other great literature gives us that.

Rico Tice: And it’s interesting, isn’t it? I find that if I’m talking with someone and we’re looking at this, I’ll sometimes stop and I’ll say, look, is it you can’t believe it and therefore I’ll continue to explain it, or is it that you won’t?

Scott Oliphint: Yeah.

Rico Tice: Because actually this is an inconvenient truth.

Scott Oliphint: Yeah, very good.

Rico Tice: And you’re not going to do it. Do you find that a bit that you’re having to have that in mind as you’re training people can’t and won’t?

Scott Oliphint: Yes, absolutely. It does have to do with the will, doesn’t it?

Rico Tice: Yeah.

Scott Oliphint: I’ve used the illustration before. Maybe it’s not the best one, but I’ve used the illustration before of marriage. You’re dating a woman and you think this might be the person for you so you get engaged and all of that is fine, but when do you really get to know, when did I really get to know my wife? It’s when I made that commitment. If we had just stayed on the level of dating and going out, when you’re not really living with it, committed to it, you don’t really know it.

Rico Tice: Yeah.

Scott Oliphint: And oftentimes it’s the will of the person that doesn’t want to commit to this and say, “This is what I must believe”.

Rico Tice: Yeah.

Scott Oliphint: But that’s where we have to come to. I think that the advantage is for us as Christians, especially when we’re talking to those who are not Christians, the advantage is that the word of God carries the power of God with it. Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel. It’s the power of God”-

Rico Tice: Yeah.

Scott Oliphint: “For salvation.” So that one of the things that I like to do with people when, I’m talking to them about these sorts of things, if they’re not trusting in Christ, I want to say, well, let’s see what the Bible says. Well, they say, “I don’t believe the Bible.” I know you don’t, but I want you to know what it is you don’t believe, because I know that if they’re-

Rico Tice: Very good.

Scott Oliphint: Exposed to scripture, the power of God comes with that.

Rico Tice: Yeah.

Scott Oliphint: The Holy Spirit, it will never return void. And so the Spirit uses the word of God to change people’s hearts.

Rico Tice: And it’s very interesting that promise in John 7:17, he says, “If you look at what I say, if you hear it and you do what it says, you’ll find out it’s from God.”

Scott Oliphint: Yeah.

Rico Tice: There’s a sort of experiment there.

Scott Oliphint: Yeah.

Rico Tice: Of faith of … I often say it’s like the sliding doors of a shop. It only opens when you step on it to go in.

Scott Oliphint: Very good, yeah.

Rico Tice: Faith is three things. It’s information, it’s a scent, it’s agreeing with it, but then thirdly, it is trusting and that’s such a battle.

Scott Oliphint: Yeah.

Rico Tice: To get people to trust.

Scott Oliphint: That’s exactly right. Westminster Confession, because I teach at Westminster, I think it’s helpful here. The Westminster Confession, which is not written for those outside the church, but within the church. But I think it’s helpful for all of us that the confession says that the authority of scripture, which it ought to be believed in obey depends, not on us, not on any man, not on any church, but wholly and completely on God, because He is the truth. And therefore we’re meant to receive it because it’s the word of God. It’s back to the will. Will you receive this as the word of God? Apart from this, you’re lost.

Rico Tice: And Scott, what does that mean for our evangelistic methodology? Because I see in England, a lot of pastors losing their nerve. What advice would you give? You’ve got students heading out into a pretty tough world.

Scott Oliphint: Right.

Rico Tice: You’re training them.

Scott Oliphint: Right.

Rico Tice: What does that mean you’re saying?

Scott Oliphint: A huge question. I would say two things. Number one, we never talked to someone who lives in a vacuum. We’re always talking to someone who lives in God’s world, who knows God, Romans 1:18-20, and who says, there is no God. They are by definition a walking contradiction. They know, but they suppress, they know the God of whom we speak. And when we bring scripture to them, the power of scripture is used by the Spirit to affect what He wants to affect. And I think, unless we say what God says, we have nothing to say to those outside of Christ. We always want to speak the truth of God to those who don’t know Him.

Rico Tice: Yes. And it’s been amazing in England. They’ve done a survey of how people come to faith. And the Gideons, we all think they’re so old fashioned. They give out these Bibles. 28% of people have been given a Bible and just read it for themselves. And blind eyes have been opened as Christ has walked off the pages.

Scott Oliphint: Yeah.

Rico Tice: It’s having that confidence. The Bible’ll do it.

Scott Oliphint: That’s it. We have nothing to say unless God has said it.

Rico Tice: I’m always saying on ministry, make sure your Bible goes out at four levels, from the front, in a small group, teaching it one-to-one, reading it for yourself at home. Word ministry is not just-

Scott Oliphint: Right.

Rico Tice: Preached from the front.

Scott Oliphint: Right.

Rico Tice: It’s just let’s get the churches together following Jesus as he walks off the pages of scripture.

Scott Oliphint: Yeah, that’s very good.

Rico Tice: It’s that confidence in scripture.