What does “inspired” mean?

The Bible is inspired and authoritative, but many Christians misunderstand what that means. Does it mean that every statement found in Sacred Scripture is true? Absolutely not.

I can hear the gasps right now as that statement sinks in, but it’s true. Not every statement in the Bible is accurate, much less authoritative. In fact, some statements that were accurate at the time they were written are no longer accurate at all, or were only accurate when they were spoken (or written) to the particular audience they were meant for. Furthermore, not every piece of advice found in Scripture is sound advice.

Take, for example, Job’s wife. “Curse God and die,” she told her tormented husband. This is a gem of inspired wisdom for readers of the Bible, right? Not so much. She was not one to give the most godly advice in the world, apparently.

This leads to the inevitable conclusion that if the Bible is inspired and accurate–and I believe it is–then its inspiration and accuracy have to do with providing a faithful recording of what the various writers and speakers actually said. In some cases, those writers and speakers were themselves inspired, but not always. The real question is not whether a statement can be found in the Bible, but what the context of that statement is, and how it is meant to be applied.

A common quote from the Bible is that God doesn’t hear the prayers of unsaved sinners:

John 9:31 –  We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will.

But maybe we should examine the context of what the Bible actually records to determine if it is a true and authoritative statement before quoting John to support that claim.

The full story is that a man was healed on the Sabbath by Jesus, and the Pharisees were convinced this man had been a sinner as evidenced by his blindness. They eventually confronted the man, and he tells them that “We all know that God doesn’t listen to sinners.” Was this man infallibly inspired by God to say this? There is no indication of that. He was simply a guy who was healed of blindness, defending the guy who healed him.

Is it always true that God doesn’t hear the prayers of unsaved sinners? I don’t think so. What about Cornelius, the Roman centurion who prayed regularly to God?

Well, he was seeking, you say. The Bible says that those who seek, find.

Hmmm…if an unsaved sinner is praying to God in the first place, isn’t he probably…I don’t know…seeking? Granted, some seekers are a little farther down the road from finding than others, but I would still call them seekers, nonetheless.

My point is not really about which prayers are heard and which are not. My point is that we need to exercise a little common sense when quoting from the Bible. It could be a little embarrassing to quote Jeremiah jubilantly: “I now proclaim freedom for you,” then go home to find out that the full monologue is actually of God pronouncing a curse on Israel (thanks to Stan McCullars for the example):

Jeremiah 34:17-20 – “Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the LORD -‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will hand over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

Who would have thought God could be so sarcastic?