Pauline waters filling stream of consciousness...

Today's study question is:

Paul says that "all Scripture is God-breathed," or inspired. How is the inspiration of Scripture different from an "inspired" speech or writing?

I think there's a sort of semantic twist to this question. If you change the verb-to-be and use the active verb the sentence reads, "God inspires all scripture"

That's a lot different than, "William Wallace, inspired by freedom, delivers the Braveheart speech"


I found one link to one commentary that fixated all the all part of the verse. The commentator writes:

Every single word is truth from the beginning. The totality of God's written revelation is not just true - it is Truth! There is not a speck of untruth in Scripture. It is everlasting.

I think that's a fallacious conclusion as it pertains specifically to 2 Timothy 3:16-17. If Paul were a CS nerd, I think he'd approve of the contrapositive of the original statement (which is still the logical equivalent of the 1st half of verse 16):

There is no scripture that is not God-inspired.

That's a completely different statement than asserting the truth aspect of every word. And please understand that I'm not necessarily disputing the "every word is true" idea here. I'm just saying it's not the same thing as what Paul says there.


Oliver, why does any of that matter to you?
Because it's easier for me to reconcile that everything between the covers is divinely inspired than it is for me to accept that every single statement is crafted to perfection.

If everything is divinely inspired, then there's still some room that inspiration <> dictation. I get that going down that path is a slippery slope to relativism. But lets face it; language is an imperfect device and people are likely imperfect delivery mechanisms for perfection.

And, if you were to assert the absolute truth premise, well, honestly it feels like sometimes Paul can be kind of hard on the ladies:
2 Timothy 3, verse 6: mentioned yesterday; it's not like, he's straight up calling all women silly or gullible or whatever the particular translation says; it's more of a "if the shoe fits" kind of phrasing. Still, he does specifically call out women...
1 Timothy 2:11-15: pretty rough...
1 Timothy 5:13: This verse kind of reminded me of Peggy Bundy caricature from Married with Children...
1 Corinthians 11:2-15 : this is a weird one, b/c it starts out pretty like, "do this, not that" and ends, "well, figure out what works for you"

Good ole TK would remind me that:
1. I might be looking at things through my own sort of cultural/societal prism; the norms of which would very likely offend other cultures, societies that are just as much part of God's kingdom.
2. I might not have the entire story.
3. I might just be flat out wrong.