The Bible

WHAT IS THEOLOGY?
The term theology is a compound made up from the joining of two words
from the Greek language:

(Theos): This is the Greek word for God.

(Logos): Word or study.

Theology then is the study of God and those things that God has revealed.
We also ought to understand what theology is NOT.

Theology is not about man's religious experiences which God or his

opinion of what God ought to be like.

Many people like to speak about God being real to them. This often
indicates a false sense of reality in which God is real to one person but
non-existent to another.

Theology is the study of God's revelation of Himself to man. This definition

presupposes that God has revealed Himself to man. Were it not for the fact
that God had revealed Himself, we would know nothing at all about God.
Can you discover the depths of God?
Can you discover the limits of the Almighty?
They are high as the heavens, what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? (Job_11:7-8).
There is a knowledge gap between God and man. Man cannot, by his own
self effort, know anything about God. It is God Himself who must bridge the
gap if we are to know of Him. The good news is that God has done this,
revealing Himself to man.
Today's postmodern movement tends to shy away from the study of
theology. It is claimed, I don't need theology, just give me Jesus! But the
question then arises, Which Jesus? It is in the subject of theology that we
learn of who Jesus really is.
Those who say they love the God of the universe without knowing facts
about Him are in error. You can know facts about God without knowing Him
and loving Him, but it is impossible to know Him and love Him without also

knowing certain facts about Him. It is like saying that you know and love your
wife when you know absolutely nothing about her.
At the same time, it might be argued that it is possible to know all about God
without actually knowing Him. This is true and it is one of the dangers of the
study of theology. We must answer that knowing God involves more than the
mere knowledge of certain basic facts about God, but also that it is not less
than at least a fundamental awareness of who God is.
TYPES OF THEOLOGY

Natural Theology: This is the study that examines those facts

concerning God and His universe that are revealed in nature. This is
considered theology by our earlier definition because we are examining
how God has revealed Himself in nature.

Exegetical Theology: This is a study of each of the individual books

of the Bible, taking into account the context of each of those books,
the meanings of the original Greek and Hebrew texts, and the interplay
of historical, cultural and archaeological backgrounds as we seek to
understand those texts. For example, we might do a study of the book
of Genesis, noting the internal outline of the book and seeing how the
author uses particular narratives, teachings and arguments in order to
make his point.

Biblical Theology: This is the study that trace's God's truth about
Himself and His relationship with men as that truth is developed
historically in the individual books of the Bible. It was this kind of
theology that Stephen presented when he preached his sermon before
the Jewish Sanhedrin.

Thus we might do a study of the book of Genesis and ask how God is
revealed in that particular book, understanding that the writer and the
original readers did not have the rest of the Scriptures because they had not
yet been written. We would read Genesis and we would ask what was the
concept of God those original readers were derive from this book.

Systematic Theology: This is the study that follows an analytically

devised scheme to organize into a single system all of the truth that
we have about God and His universe. The Apostle Paul uses this kind of

systematic approach in his study of the righteousness of God in the

book of Romans.

Practical Theology: Taking all of the previous aspects of theology and

putting them into practice so that my life is different than it previously
was. This is the goal of all study of theology. It is so that my life will be
changed so that I love God more and serve Him better.

We must recognize that God and the Scriptures rule over our theology and
not the other way around. This means that if our theology conflicts with the
Bible, we need to change our theology. As such, we are to follow the example
of the Bereans.
10 And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night
to Berea; and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of
the Jews. 11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in
Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.
12 Many of them therefore believed, along with a number of
prominent Greek women and men. (Act_17:10-12).
Here were a group of noble-minded followers of the Lord. They heard the
message being preached by Paul and Silas and it was different from that with
which they were familiar. Their reaction was to become diligent students of
the Scriptures, examining them daily to see whether that new message was
true. It is the Scriptures that drive our understanding of theology and not the
other way around.

GENERAL REVELATION

Definition: When we speak of General Revelation, we speak of the way

that God has revealed Himself in a general sense to men through His
acts of creation and providence. It is still revelation. It is an active act
of God in revealing Himself to men. But it is also general and is
available for all men to see and to understand.

Scriptural Support.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard. (Psa_19:1-3).

When you go and look at the solar system and the planets and the galaxies,
there is a message there for us to be seen and read. Those heavens give us
a message and a declaration. They tell us something and it is something we
can know if we are listening.
In Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe, one footprint on the sand showed to the
marooned hero that another person was on his island. In the same way, the
heavens and the earth are filled with the countless footprints of the Lord.
...that which is known about God is evident within them; for God
made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His
eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so that they are without
excuse. (Rom_1:19-20).
Here is what we must understand about revelation. It is not merely the
existence of random elements of evidence. It is deliberate. It is revelation.
The signs of God's presence in the realm of nature are only visible to us
because God has revealed them to us.
This is also described as natural revelation. This does not mean that it
merely comes naturally. Rather, it means that it is revelation that takes place
within the realm of nature.
This passage states that there are two specific aspects of God's existence
which are revealed in creation.

His eternal power.

His divine nature.

This sets forth the limitation of this general revelation. No one ever looked at
a sunset and deduced the doctrine of the Trinity. You cannot look through a
microscope and see the principles of justification and sanctification. General
revelation is limited in what it reveals about God.
God has revealed His power and divinity through His creation. The immensity
of creation shows that He is very big. The fact of creation shows God's divine
nature. This revelation has broken the infinity barrier. This revelation has left
men without excuse.

SPECIAL REVELATION
Special revelation refers to God's work of actively revealing Himself to men
through various special means.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many
portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in
His Son (Heb_1:1-2 a).

In these two short verses, the writer to the Hebrews provides a summary of
Special Revelation. It is the message that God spoke...

In many different portions: God's revelation of Himself did not come all
at once. There was a progression to its unveiling.

He revealed Himself to Adam and Eve.

He revealed Himself to Noah.

He revealed Himself to Abraham.

He revealed Himself to Moses.

He revealed Himself to Joshua.

He revealed Himself to Samuel.

Each of these revelations brought a little more understanding of God to man.

The writer of Genesis had a certain limited amount of information. The writer
of Joshua had a little more. The writer of Samuel had even more. Each writer
added to the pool of knowledge about God. In each case, the Old Testament
prophets came away with another glimpse into the character and person and
plans of God. But the final and complete communication of God was not
accomplished through any of these means.

In many different ways: God's revelation of Himself over the ages took
many different forms:

He spoke to Job out of a whirlwind.

He spoke to Joseph in dreams.

He spoke to Moses from a burning bush.

He spoke to Samuel in a voice in the night.

He spoke to Elijah is a still, small voice.

He spoke to Daniel in a vision.

Each of these various forms of revelation were different from one another.
There was not one single method that stood out over all the others until the
coming of Jesus.

In His Son.

After God spoke through the prophets there was a great silence. For 400
years there had been no prophet to speak the word of the Lord. But now in
these last days God has spoken again. This time He spoke through a new
agency that had never before been used. He now has spoken to man through
His Son.

This is the fullest revelation of God. It is the person of Jesus Christ. It is the
person of the One who, being God, became man so that He might
communicate God to us.
The ultimate revelation of God took place when He clothed Himself in flesh
and came to live among us (Joh_1:14). He said to Philip on the night of the
Last Supper, He who has seen Me has seen the Father (Joh_14:9). None of
the prophets could ever make that sort of claim. Their knowledge of God was
always limited. In contrast, Jesus had an experiential knowledge of God
because He is God.

Let me use an illustration. If you wanted to get to know me, you could talk to
someone who knew me. They could tell you a lot about me. You might come
away with a certain number of facts such as where I was born or where I
went to school or where I have worked. But if you really wanted to get to
know me, the best way would be to talk with me. Indeed, you would be hardpressed to say that you really knew me if you had never had a face-to-face
conversation with me. The same is true of God. The best way to learn of God
is to meet Him in the flesh. You meet Him in the flesh when you meet Jesus.

In the Bible.

The Bible is the written record of the revelation of God. But it is also more
than that. It does not merely contain the word of God; it is the word of God.
There are some editions of the Bible that have rendered the words of Jesus in
red. That is not a bad practice in that it can serve as an aid to help us
differentiate between the narrative portions and the spoken words of Jesus.
But we fall into error when we think that those sections in red are more a
part of God's word than those that are rendered in some other color of print.

Who Wrote the Bible?

The Doctrine of Inspiration
At the root of the Reformation were five theological statements known as the
solas (Latin for alone). These statements point to five foundational truths
upon which the church stands.
When they spoke of Sola Scriptura, they did not mean that it is wrong to read
the evening paper or to do something that was not expressly commanded in
Scripture. What they did mean is that the Scriptures are to be our final rule of
doctrine.
By contrast, the Roman Catholic church has historically taught that the Bible
carries an equal weight of authority to the church. The Roman church
teaches that when the Pope speaks officially (ex cathedra from the seat),
his words are of an equal weight to the Bible and serve as the only possible
interpretation of the Bible.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for

reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man

of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2Ti_3:1617).

This is the foundational passage on the subject of the inspiration of the Bible.
It says very pointedly that all Scripture is inspired by God. The doctrine of
inspiration is basic to any
discussion about theology. If the Bible has not been given to us by God, then
we are unable to know theological truths about God. There are three points
that need be observed.

The Fact of Inspiration: All Scripture is INSPIRED by God... (2Ti_3:16

a).

I have heard people speak of how they were watching a beautiful golden
sunset and inspired to paint a picture or to write a poem. But this is not what
this verse is saying. The phrase inspired by God is translated from the
single Greek word (Theopneustos). This is the only time that this word ever
occurs in the New Testament. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first time
this word is ever used in the Greek language. This means that Paul may have
coined the word himself to describe the work of God in producing the
Scriptures. Paul does something similar in 1Th_4:9 when he says that you
yourselves are taught by God to love one another literally, you are Godtaught. In both cases, Paul utilizes a compound word, made up of two
commonly used Greek words which are joined together to form a new word.
Plutarch uses once in De Placit Philos 5:2 where it is in contrast
to , but this is after the death of Paul.

The first word is Theos. It is the word for God.

The second word is pneo . It is a verb meaning to breathe or to

blow. It is also the verbal form of the Greek word for spirit .

Therefore, we could say that all Scripture Is God-breathed. The very breath
and spirit of God has been infused into the writings of the Bible. This is why
we refer to it as the Word of God.

Although the specific term that Paul coins was a new one, the concept was
not. The Old Testament describes God as accomplishing the work of Creation
by the breath of His mouth (Psa_33:6). In the same way, the Bible is
the result of the creative work of God.

The Extent of Inspiration: ALL Scripture is inspired by God...

(2Ti_3:16 a).

All of Scripture is God-breathed. It is not just a small portion of the Bible, but
every single sentence and every single word that is God-breathed. This is allencompassing. Jesus stressed this principle when He spoke of the abiding
quality of the Law in His Sermon on the Mount.

"For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the
smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is
accomplished." (Mat_5:18).

The Greek text is even more specific. It says, Not one IOTA or one KERAIA
shall pass from the law.

The IOTA was the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet.

The KERAIA was the little horn attached to the Hebrew letter BETH to
distinguish it from the letter KAPH.

Don't miss this! Jesus says that each and every letter and dot of God's word
would continue to stand. We could say that not one cross of the T and not
one dot of the I will pass away. There is not one part of the Bible that is
more inspired or more trustworthy than any other part. It is ALL completely
God's word.

The OBJECT of Inspiration: All SCRIPTURE is inspired by God...

(2Ti_3:16 a).

It is the Scriptures themselves that are inspired. Paul does not say that the
writers of the Scriptures were inspired. He says that the Scriptures
themselves that are inspired.

If it had been merely the human authors who had received a revelation from
God and then had written their own interpretation of that revelation, then we
might wonder if they had not permitted error to creep in as they put this
truth into their own words. However, this is not the case. It is not the writers,
but the Scriptures themselves which are said to be God-breathed.

This means that God did not guarantee that everything that Peter or Paul or
any other of the human authors ever wrote were correct. No doubt, they
wrote many other things that were not inspired by God and the inerrancy of
those other writings is not guaranteed. Rather, it is the truthfulness of the
books that make up our Bible that is guaranteed by inspiration.

At the same time, we must recognize the aspect of dual authorship. By this, I
mean that there were really two authors of each book - the Holy Spirit and
the human author.

There are instances where the human writers described things of which they
were eye-witnesses and merely wrote of the thing that they had seen. At
other times, these same writers described events that they could not
possibly have known about without a supernatural revelation from God (such
as those events which took place prior to the creation of man).

There were also times when they wrote and did not themselves understand
the full implications of that which they wrote (Daniel writes certain things
which are to be sealed up until a future time).

Therefore the principle of inspiration refers to result, not the method in which
the Scriptures were written. In this way, the Bible was written both by men
and yet at the same time it is the Word of God.
DEFINITION OF INSPIRATION

What it is Not.

We have all heard people speak of how they were watching a beautiful
golden sunset and were inspired to paint a picture or to write a poem. This is
not inspiration in the theological sense. Inspiration is not a feeling or a
wonderment or an excitement or even a sense of creative energy.

What it Is.

It is the truth that God has moved certain men to write in such a way that
the result of that writing, the Scriptures, are the very word of God.

Contrast of Revelation versus Inspiration.

Inspiration is a narrower term than revelation. Inspiration relates to God's

revelation of Himself as it is found in the pages of the Scriptures. Although all
Scripture is inspired by God and all Scripture is therefore revelation from
God, not all of revelation is Scripture. We have already noted how God has
revealed Himself at many different times and in many different ways. The
Scriptures are therefore only one of the many ways in which God has
revealed Himself.

Revelation

Inspiration

God has revealed

Himself

God in-breathed the

Scriptures

Involves both general as Confined to the Bible

well as special revelation