16All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Tim 3: 16-17 HCSB
In what sense is Scripture inspired? The short answer is in every way possible. Although I am sure that is not the answer that you are looking for. The essential point to be grasped is that when men wrote the Scriptures, their statements did not originate in their own thinking, but were put into their minds by the direct action of the Holy Spirit. They wrote the word of God in the sense that they wrote words that came directly from God. Thus, when Paul wrote, for example, “I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart” (Romans. 9:2), he was certainly expressing his own feelings, yet his desire to express that sorrow, and the words with which he expressed it, and perhaps also the sorrow itself, were put into his heart by the Holy Spirit.
Consider another example, that of Jesus’ disciples who would be taken before rulers to give an account of their faith. Jesus told them not to think about what they would say, but rather to “say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11). Here Jesus explains what inspiration involves. When an inspired speaker or writer says something, even if it is first-person testimony, it is not he who is speaking, but God. Now of course the person is speaking in the sense that he expresses thoughts that are in his mind, but he is not speaking in the more important sense that he formulated those thoughts. The inspired speaker or writer utters only words put directly into his mind by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4).
In 2 Peter 1:21, Peter explicitly denies that the Scriptures were written “by an act of human will.” The motivation to write Scripture came rather from the Holy Spirit, as we have seen. Scripture originated when “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” That is, the Spirit impelled them to write, and they wrote only words that came from God. There is disagreement as to what verse 20 means, but in my judgment it refers to the writer’s interpretation of his subject matter: “No passage of Scripture expresses one’s own [i.e., the writer’s] interpretation,” since the impulse to write comes from the Holy Spirit, not the writer’s will (vs. 21).
Accordingly, when Paul declared “the word of God’s message” to the Thessalonians, they received it “not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13; see also 1 Corinthians 2:12-13). The letters of Paul went out over his signature, and truly expressed the thoughts in his mind, but those thoughts were put there by God (2 Peter 3:15-16) and were expressed in sentences provided by the Holy Spirit.
Consider the Psalms, which were written mostly by the prophet David and which contain many prophecies of Christ. David’s own testimony about the origin of the Psalms could not be clearer: “David the son of Jesse declares, the sweet psalmist of Israel, The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue ” (2 Samuel 23:1-2). Similarly, Peter explains, “the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16). When David and the other prophets prophesied of Christ and his coming kingdom, they were puzzled by the statements being formed in their minds, and so they were “seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow” (1 Peter 1:11).
Another interesting glimpse into the mental processes of an inspired writer is provided in Acts 2:25-31. There Peter (speaking “as the Spirit was giving [him] utterance,” vs. 4) explains that David, although writing first-person pronouns in Psalm 16, as in “Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,” was not writing about himself (since he would remain in the grave), but about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since David was a prophet (vs. 30a), God was giving him the words of Psalm 16 (see Deuteronomy 18:18), but as he wrote them, his mind was fully engaged to understand as much as he could of what he was writing. He recalled (presumably with the Spirit’s nudging) God’s promise that the Christ would come from his descendants (vs. 30b), and, with insight provided by the Spirit, he “looked ahead” to that day and (in words provided by the Spirit) “spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay” (vs. 31). The inspired writers evidently understood most of what they were writing, although some understanding of it was not granted to them (1 Peter 1:11-12).
Thoughts from Pastor Toney 