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Today's Little Lift
by Jim Bullington
What is the Bible? Is it, as some claim, man’s record of his attempts to find God? Or, is it something entirely different, i.e. God’s means by which He revealed Himself to man?
Surely there is a world of difference in how one treats the Bible based upon how it is perceived. These various perceptions are the basis for the tremendous differences in how we as human beings respond to the Bible. Not so long ago, I worked with a man who was fond of referring to Jesus and His apostles as JC and his boys! As an atheist, he used this phrase for its shock value. However, had he believed the Bible to be a book of Divine origin, I doubt that he would have so flippantly referred to our Savior.
Some questions are in order. Did the biblical writers claim a distinction between their works and the works of “ordinary” men? If so, what was that distinction, and what are the implications of that distinction? Today’s focus text provides the basis from which to answer each of these questions.
The apostle Peter wrote, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.” (2 Peter 1.19-2.1).
First note the Peter specified a class of writings that he termed the prophetic word. Further, notice that he said that the prophetic word had been confirmed. He made these distinctions in the midst of a larger passage which warns of false teachers who spoke of their own will as distinct from God’s will. He clearly claimed a huge and significant difference between the writings of the true prophets and the false prophets of his day. Both of these groups (true prophets and false prophets) vied for the souls of men, but the results were vastly different. The false prophets brought in destructive heresies; the true prophets spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. We will expand on this last phrase.
“Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” The phrase holy men simply means special (not ordinary) men. They were special inasmuch as they were moved (literally carried or borne along) by the Holy Spirit. This is anything but man’s attempts to find God; it is descriptive of God’s efforts to reveal Himself to mankind! Herein is a difference that really is a difference!
Not only did Peter believe that men had spoken with Divine guidance; he also believed that the things that they had written had been collected in what he called the prophetic word! In his writings, Peter affirmed that a plurality of men had spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit, yet he referred to their collective writings as the prophetic word (not words, plural). Each prophet received words by inspiration, and collectively they all wrote words – BUT the reference is to WORD (singular), an obvious allusion to the fact that Peter believed their writings had preserved and were available to whomever really desired to know what God had spoken of old!
This first century snapshot of Peter’s view of the Bible is no different than our view should be in the twenty-first century. The same God who preserved the prophetic word for the first millennium and a half has been guarding it for the last two millennia also. To believers, I say, “Hold and accept no less of a view; it is what it is, and it is the Bible’s own view of itself!”
Questions:
1. Who were the holy men of which Peter spoke?
2. According to Peter, how many of these holy men spoke from their own resources (apart from God’s guidance)?
3. What does “confirmed” mean? How had their prophecies been confirmed (many possible answers)?
4. Who confirmed the words of the prophets? Do we have that confirmation? Why or why not?
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