Objectivity & Inspiration

 I have been finding Professor Paul Helm's little book on Scripture, Just Words: Special Revelation and the Bible (Evangelical Press, 2019), helpful and thought provoking. It has taken me a while to get into this book but I've found Helm's clarity and precision rewarding. 

For example, he usefully stresses the historical and objective aspects of the Bible. God has acted and spoken decisively and publicly. The Christian faith must proclaim clearly to a culture obsessed with progress and the contemporary that these past events and the biblical testimony about them are authoritative for all people and all places, even if the context of both event and hearer matter. What God has done and said is neither merely timeless nor time-bound but can speak effectively (if somewhat accommodated-ly) to all times. 

Helm also usefully discusses the modes of inspiration. He suggests we may distinguish the more prophetic (such as some Old Testament oracles) and the more compiling (such as some history or Luke's writing of his gospel). But these things are always on a spectrum. The Apostle Paul certainly claims special revelation and divine authority but he is compiling in the sense that he is using pre-existing words and history and he will have been influenced by a great many other testimonies about Jesus. As many writers have commented, what matters most is not the manner of inspiration but the result. However the Bible came to be, what the Bible says, God says. It comes to us as the very voice and words of God. 

Helm rightly urges us to consider both the matter and manner of Scripture: what it is and how it says what it says. The different genres, styles and aims of this library of books make a difference. The Bible is highly selective, focused on God's purposes in Christ. It is not a modern history or biography nor even a theology encyclopaedia or text book. An infallible poem could be rather different from an infallible letter or parable.

We will do well to attend to the aim and scope of the Scriptures as a whole and in their parts, keeping the central plot line in focus. The verbal inspiration of Scripture calls for a patient and careful study of all its words but at time we will want to follow a dense argument closely whereas there might be other passages (such as some of the poetry of Job) which are painting with larger brush strokes.