Hi
,
At one of our seminars a while ago, my wife was talking to a professor from a local university. This lady was discussing the reasons why I was wrong in not believing evolution. She said that she teaches a course at this college called "God and Evolution". She made a number of strange statements about how God used Darwinism to do His creating. However, when my wife asked her if she believes the Bible is
inerrant, she countered that she believes the Bible is "inspired". Carrie pressed the issue, asking her again if she believes that the Bible is without error. Again, the professor stated that she only believs the Bible to be inspired.
There's a BIG problem with this viewpoint, especially in our general use of the words today!
If the Bible is inerrant, that means it is without mistakes in the original manuscripts. The accounts and teachings in the Bible are true and trustworthy. However, if the Bible is merely only inspired (especially as it is used today), then opinions, corrections, alterations, etc., can be made to it to bend to various teachings and cultural viewpoints since inspiration simply implies that the teachings are wonderful, uplifting,
great, moving, etc. - but not necessarily true.
To be sure, God "inspired" the writers of the Bible, and in this purest sense He would make sure that His ideas and intentions would have been accurately conveyed and would therefore be true. So, both words - inerrant and inspired - are an integral part of understanding the framework of the Bible. To remove the fact of inerrancy leads immediately to random speculations about what certain passages mean when they become interpreted
in light of current culture. This leads to being "blown about by all winds of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14).
