Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God….” This shows that everything in the Bible is the word of God. But there are actually people who say that not everything in the Bible is the word of God. Isn’t this denying the Bible and deceiving people?
Answer: About the viewpoint “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” we must understand the context in which Paul said these words. At the time Paul wrote letters to Timothy's church there was only the Old Testament. The New Testament had not been formed yet and there were just dozens of epistles scattered around and kept by various churches. This shows that these words of Paul were referring to the Old Testament. The Israelites only regard the Old Testament as the Bible. The New Testament was not formed until after AD 300. Church leaders at the time held a meeting as they thought the last days were near, and that the utterances of Jesus and the epistles of the apostles should be brought together into a book, and distributed to the various churches like the Old Testament. Therefore, they compiled together the epistles written by Jesus' apostles and disciples, and following research and confirmation, selected 27 books to become the New Testament, which was later combined with the Old Testament to become the complete Bible. This is how the New and Old Testaments were formed. Further, regarding the formation of the Bible, we must also understand just who wrote it and who recorded it. The Bible has several dozen authors, but none of them said the epistles they wrote were inspired by God. if God had said all scripture is given by inspiration of God, then God should have said it via prophets, but the books of prophets contain no such words. The Lord Jesus has also never said such words. The apostles have also never said the epistles they wrote and their testimonies were all inspired by God, and moreover they did not dare to say they were God's words. This is fact! But later on, all believers in God think that all that God uttered is in the Bible, and that even though the New and Old Testament were written by men, they were both inspired by God. But have we ever thought about whether this conforms with the facts?
The Bible was inspired by God, and everything in the Bible is the word of God. This is a fact openly accepted in Christianity. This is only the opinion of men. Men’s opinions cannot represent God! Only God is most clear on the inside story of the Bible. Let’s take a look at what Almighty God says! Almighty God says, “In fact, apart from the books of prophecy, most of the Old Testament is a historical record. Some of the epistles of the New Testament come from people’s experiences, and some come from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit; the Pauline epistles, for example, arose from the work of a man, they were all the result of the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, and they were written for the churches, and were words of exhortation and encouragement for the brothers and sisters of the churches. They were not words spoken by the Holy Spirit—Paul could not speak on behalf of the Holy Spirit, and neither was he a prophet, much less did he see the visions that John beheld. His epistles were written for the churches of Ephesus, Philadelphia, Galatia, and other churches” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Concerning the Bible (3)). “Not everything in the Bible is a record of the words personally spoken by God. The Bible simply documents the previous two stages of God’s work, of which one part is a record of the foretelling of the prophets, and one part is the experiences and knowledge written by people used by God throughout the ages. Human experiences are tainted with human opinions and knowledge, and this is something which is unavoidable. In many of the books of the Bible are human notions, human biases, and humans’ absurd comprehension. Of course, most of the words are the result of the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit, and they are correct understandings—yet it still cannot be said that they are entirely accurate expressions of the truth. Their views on certain things are nothing more than knowledge derived from personal experience, or the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. The foretelling of the prophets was personally instructed by God: The prophecies of the like of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel came from the direct instruction of the Holy Spirit; these people were seers, they had received the Spirit of prophecy, and they were all prophets of the Old Testament. During the Age of Law, these people, who had received the inspirations of Jehovah, spoke many prophecies, which were directly instructed by Jehovah” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Concerning the Bible (3)). Almighty God’s word has explained it very clearly. The Bible is not a record of all the words personally spoken by God Himself and only documents God’s work. In the Bible, only the words of Jehovah God and the Lord Jesus, as well as the words spoken by prophets as inspired by God are truly the word of God. The rest is mostly historical records, as well as men’s experiences and knowledge. Therefore, the saying “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” does not conform with historical fact!
—the movie script of Disclose the Mystery About the Bible
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