Plenary Inspiration: A late-Reformation view of biblical inspiration that holds that God is the ultimate author of the Bible in its entirety. That is, God's superintending work in inspiration extends to the whole Bible and to each part of the Bible. Plenary inspiration guarantees that all that the church has come to affirm as Scripture is both authoritative and helpful for Christian belief and practice.1
1. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), pp. 91-92.
2 comments :
Luke chapter twenty-four verses thwenty-five through twenty-seven
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Second Peter chapter one verses twenty and twenty-one
knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 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.
Second Timothy chapter three verses fourteen through sixteen
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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 competent, equipped for every good work.
The important thing to remember about inspiration is it is not equivalent to divine dictation. God used a vast array of individuals from many different backgrounds and many different historical contexts to express divine teaching though a variety of styles. Thus an extremely poetically-styled Isaiah can offer what more formulaic-styled prophets as Amos and Malachi can offer through each one's individual style -- precisely what God wished expressed.
I am puzzled though about the phrase "A late-Reformation view of biblical inspiration ..." Perhaps I am uncertain about when Reformation activity started, with Luther, with Wycliffe, with Huss, with Gregory of Rimini, or with whom? And what criterion establishes whether or not some reformer subscribed to inspiration?
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