Today’s blog will examine the following points:
- Human or Divine?
- God Moved, Men Wrote
- Human Authors Shaped the Text
- A Collaborative Effort
- Helps Us Understand the Text
Human or Divine?
The first wrestling rule is, “The author was inspired, I’m not.” But that leaves unanswered the question, “What part of the Word is divine, and what part of human?” I confess that is a trick question. But when the Bible refers to the “Word,” it can mean Jesus, the Living Word, or the Bible, the written Word. Yet it is not a trick question because the answer in both cases is “Both.” Jesus was fully human and fully divine. So is the Bible. And in the end, it must be so, for this is how God communicates Himself and his will to humanity. Because Christ is fully divine, he understands all the fullness of God. Because he shares our humanity, he knows how to express that in terms we can understand. The Bible employs a similar process.
God Moved, Men Wrote
All communication takes place on the basis of the shared experience. When you want to know something about an unfamiliar place, or skill, or activity, only someone who is been there, who has that skill, or who has participated in the activity can explain it to you. The best way to understand inspiration, is to have someone who experienced it explain it. Providentially, we have such an explanation. Peter, whom we believe was inspired, provided it: “Prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” From this I derived rule #2: “The Holy Spirit moved the man — the man moved the pen.”
Human Authors Shaped the Text
I hope you’ll forgive me for quoting myself, but I wrote about this already in my most recent book: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20: 30, 31). John not only tells us that he did not write the other signs that Jesus performed, but explains how he decided which ones to include. He selected the ones that would help us believe. Indeed, more of Jesus’ actions were unrecorded than the total that were included in all the Gospels. Again, John explains: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21: 25).*
Luke also tells us about his process: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4).
John and Luke employed different approaches, but both clearly were quite active in the composition of their accounts of Jesus’ life. And again, this all fits a pattern. God revealed his will to different people, with different talents and different experiences, and they expressed it in different ways.
A Collaborative Effort
So, when we asked the question, is the Bible human or divine? The only possible answer is, “both.” It is God’s divine communication of his saving will expressed through the unique language and experience of the human chosen to cooperate in the communication.
Helps Us Understand the Text
As we shall see when we get further along in this process, and understanding of the time, place, language, and culture of the human author will inform our reading of the text, because meaning is what we are after. What most people mean when they ask about the human and/or cultural content of the Bible is, “What part no longer applies to us?” Or, “What specifics can we disregard?” But those are the wrong types of questions to ask. What we should be asking is, “What is the meaning of this passage?” “What was the purpose of the author in writing these words?” Because when we know that, then we can begin to understand what the passage can tell us about how to live, today, in our time, and place, and culture.
*Dickerson, Ed . For Such a Time (p. 13). PPPA. Kindle Edition.
