Inspiration?

The inerrancy wars rage on, and on, and on, and…

This month has seen a spate of inerrancy posts, no doubt inspired, at least partially, by Jim West’s provocative post on his definition of fundamentalism. Much heat, some light :) Good summary here.

One thing that bothers me about the debate is that infallibility is linked to inerrancy in most all posts. I would disagree. Someone (I lost the reference, sorry) on one of the blogs pointed out that inerrancy is a subset of infallibility. Correct! But, let’s take it a bit further: infallibility is a subset of inspiration.

OK, what’s the point? Well, this whole debate got me thinking, and then I received an e-mail the other day that pulled me in a different direction. Now we’re talking exclusivity and the kingdom of God.

I think I can safely say that all Christians believe in the inspiration of scripture, after all 2 Timothy 3:16 (vulgate) uses the very word inspiro based on the Greek QEOPNEUSTOS. From there we have the subset of infallible, with a further subset of inerrant. Well, now apparently there is a further subset: 6 day literal creation. No adhere, no bother applying. No grandfather clause either, out the door. . .this e-mail told of the non-renewal of some contracts because of that, or at least implied that was the reason. Who knows, really. It might just have been posturing, or not.

But, it made me wonder what Jesus would have thought about our little word battles. He seemed more interested in love: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13.35) Not a word about doctrine—silly Messiah! Everyone knows you have to have a doctrinal statement! How else will we know who is in and who is out?

I think we missed it! We build our walls, God tears them down. We draw our lines in the sand, God crosses them. We build our institutions; God has the nerve to start a new work outside of them!

All I can say is, “Praise God!” I am glad he is bigger than our labels. Me, I don’t know what I should be labeled; all I want is to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” at the end of it all. So, I guess that makes me a servant. What about you?