How is the Bible inspired?

Jesus was the authority of the first Christians. So they asked, “which books testify to Jesus?” And the books that did were considered “canonical” and “inspired.” For the early church, each book in the Bible did not have equal authority. There was a “hierarchy” of the Biblical books. The Gospels ranked the highest, then Paul’s epistles, and Revelation was the least important. It was squeezed into the canon in the late fourth century. Why the hesitation? Revelation did not seem to rightly express the gospel.

Thus the Bible is only our authority, when we read it as a revelation of Christ. The Bible is not an authority when used by the Ku Klux Klan for example. Without the revelation of Jesus, the Bible can be used to justify some of the most horrendous things.

Dena Schlosser, a suburban housewife from Plano, Texas, called 911 to report that she had offered her daughter to God. When the police arrived, they discovered “He Touched Me” playing loudly on the stereo while Schlosser stood in ecstasy, gently swaying to the music, covered in blood and holding a large knife. In later discussion with the court psychologist she explained that she believed God wanted her to offer her infant child to him as a sign of her devotion.

Dena had Bible verses to justify what she did; Abraham was going to sacrifice his son. Obviously the life and teachings of Jesus was not the instruction manual for her interpretation. She did not see Christ in the Scriptures.

With the understanding that Christ was the Word, the early believers compiled what we today know as the “canon.” The word is often associated with a collection of books. But originally the ‘canon’ was a ‘criterion,’ an authoritative ruler used to judge what texts point to Christ. The greek word, “kanon,” is a “reed” or a “measurement.”

The canon, then, did not originally refer to the collection of Scripture. It referred to the gospel message, also known as “the canon of faith.” And a book’s alignment to the canon of faith determined if the book was inspired or not, and if it should be included in the Bible; the gospel message had to be prefigured in the book, otherwise it was not "canonical."

So the church spoke of “the canon of faith,” or the “rule of truth,” or “the faith once delivered,” (Jude 1:3). These terms referred to the gospel they had received from Jesus, and which was handed down to the church by the apostles. By this canon––this ruler, standard, or this gospel––the early church measured what should or should not be included in the Bible.

Often when we talk about the “canonical books” we think of “the books in the Bible.” But the early church would think about that which “aligns with the gospel message.”

We should never bring our presuppositions, assumptions, agendas and biases and “read into the text” what we want the Bible to say. But often we read it with the lenses of our personalities, education, race, gender, culture or our religious heritage etc.

The New Testament, however, only allows us to bring one pre-commitment to our interpretation of the text – the gospel. Christ told us that we have no business interpreting the Bible without seeing Him and His gospel: “Beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures,” (Luke 24:27). And so Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,” (24:44-45).

A Christ-follower must read the Bible like Jesus did. “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms…” must be read as stories that prefigure Christ.

The Scriptures are “inspired” in this way, that they are a witness to Christ. The gospel-story is the cipher that opens the book, and when we understand that all the Scriptures are stories about Christ, then our eyes are opened to recognize Him, (Luke 24:31).

Rather than reading the Bible as the “letter that kills”–i.e. as “biblical literalists,” Jesus, then, should be the lens through which we read the Bible. And only then, will we read the Bible as the "inspired" text which it is.