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“If all Scripture is breathed out by God, then all Scripture is trustworthy. Because we trust God, we can also trust that it is true because it is God-breathed — all of it.”
–REAGAN ESCUDÉ SCOTT
To read the introduction to this series, click here.
Welcome to the first in a series designed to help moms effectively point their children to Christ by teaching them the fundamentals of the Christian faith. In this article, we’ll discuss the source for what we know to be true about God. Where do we go if we want to learn more about Him? And how do we know that what we are learning about Him is true?
To begin, we will start with the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Scripture is both inspired by God and authoritative over all things that He created. Knowing these truths will set the stage for all other truths found in His Word.
To say that Scripture is inspired is in reference to 2 Timothy 3:16, which says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Put simply, the inspiration of Scripture is the idea that God, by His Spirit, “breathed into” the biblical writers. In doing so, God ensured that what they wrote was only what He wanted to say, and nothing else.
2 Peter 1:21 says, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
If all Scripture is breathed out by God, then all Scripture is trustworthy. Because we trust God, we can also trust that it is true because it is God-breathed — all of it. There’s not any part of Scripture that is more, or less, God-breathed than any other. You may find that red-letter Bibles imply an elevation of Jesus’ words over the rest of Scripture by highlighting them in red, as though they carry more weight than the rest of the Bible, but this isn’t the case at all. All of Scripture is God-breathed. All of Scripture is inspired and given to us by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:12-13 affirms this:
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”
It wasn’t human wisdom or human writers that inspired the Bible — it was God alone.
Here are a few catechism-style questions for you to review with your kids as you teach them the inspiration of Scripture:
Q: Who inspired the Bible?
A: God inspired the Bible.
Q: How did God inspire the Bible?
A: God breathed into human writers by His Holy Spirit.
Q: How much of Scripture is God-breathed?
A: All of Scripture is God-breathed.
To say that Scripture is authoritative is to say that it holds the final say over everything else — over science, over human experience, over human tradition, and over human reasoning. And we know that Scripture is authoritative because God is authoritative.
God’s authority is established in the very first page of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, which says “in the beginning, God created…” God owns the earth because He created it; the earth, and all who dwell in it belongs to Him (Psalm 24:1). And in the end, we know that God alone will consume all of it and bring forth a new heaven and a new earth in its place. “Behold, I am making all things new…” (Revelation 21:5). He has the authority to create and destroy everything in existence because it is His which He brought into the world by His authority.
Therefore, if we believe 2 Timothy 3:16 to be true, that “all of Scripture is God-breathed,” then Scripture alone is authoritative in that it is God’s Word to us.
Notice that it is Scripture alone which is authoritative, rather than Scripture and human tradition. In fact, Jesus warned against human tradition and the commandments of men superseding Scripture, which results in professing Christians who make “void the word of God.”
“So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
–Matthew 15:6-9
Jesus makes clear here that declaring a commandment that is not found in Scripture as doctrine makes one a hypocrite. It is in Scripture alone that we find authority.
We know that Scripture is authoritative because God is authoritative and all of Scripture is God-breathed. There is no higher source to which we can appeal for truth, faith, and practice because there is no thing besides Scripture where we can find God’s voice.
Here are some catechism-style questions for you to go over with your kids as you teach them the authority of Scripture:
Q: Who has the authority to create and destroy all things?
A: God has the authority to create and destroy all things.
Q: How do we know that Scripture has the final say?
A: Because it is God’s Word.
Q: Why does God’s Word have the final say?
A: Because He is our authority.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
–2 Timothy 3:16
Be sure to check back for the next article in this series: “The Sufficiency and Inerrancy of Scripture.”
Follow Reagan on Twitter! @thereaganscott
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
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