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Perhaps one of the most hotly contested Scriptures today is in Paul's second letter to Timothy.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

It is a claim to divine inspiration ("No, it's not," the skeptic--Christian or not--will tell you) of Scripture ("No, it's not," said skeptic will repeat), placing the Bible in the category of "God's Word" ("No, it doesn't," our friendly skeptic will strongly affirm ... without proof or evidence, of course). That is, the text is a clear statement that the Bible is God's Word.

Already any skeptical readers are shaking their heads or even pounding their keyboards to assure me this is not the case. But let's look at the text.

First, it refers to "all Scripture". So Peter refers to Paul's writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:14-16) and Paul refers to Luke's Gospel as Scripture (compare 1 Timothy 5:18 with Luke 10:7), so this cannot be simply construed as "Old Testament" as many would try to suggest. The only reason the canon of Scripture was not determined until the 4th century was not that they didn't see it as Scripture, but because of a guy named Marcion who offered his own version that they had to refute. The Muratorian Canon, for instance, was compiled by 170 AD and contained none of the books we don't have and all but 3 of the books we do. Scripture was clear from the beginning.

The really difficult term there is "inspired". "Yeah," the skeptic will say, "we get 'inspired'. Lots of writers are inspired." And the whole sense of the term is deflated to mean little more than "really cool". Is that the sense of the wording? Well, the ESV uses the phrase "breathed out by God" and Young's Literal Translation uses "God-breathed". Why the difference? How is "breathed out by God" different from "inspired by God"? Well, "inspired" means most literally "inhaled". The opposite, "expired", would mean "exhaled". But, as in "expired", we understand "inspired" to mean something different now. Now it means "aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something" ... or "really cool". But the word (and it is one Greek word) used in the text of the verse is θεόπνευστος--theopneustos. Interesting, isn't it? It is not "inspired by God" (as we would understand it today). It is one word. That's θεός--theos--and πνέω--pneō--from which we get our words "theology" from the first and "pneumatic" or "pneumonia" or the like from the second. It is a single word that means "God-exhaled". In light of our modern "inspired writing", there is a sharp contrast between "inspired by God" and "God-breathed". If I had a warm view of God, it might inspire me to write warm things about God, warm things that may or may not be true. But "breathed out by God" or "God-breathed" eliminates that notion. Nor is such an idea a mere wordplay. It's what's in the text.

Now, some may wish to disagree that the Bible is God's Word. They would do so against the plain meaning of the text as well as the historic view of the Church. Some may wish to deny that words exhaled by God will be infallible or inerrant. I find it interesting that scholars almost unanimously agree that Jesus viewed the Scriptures as God's infallible Word, but so many today who claim to approach Scripture from Jesus's perspective do so while denying Jesus's perspective that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Some may wish to set aside the Bible (while, beyond my comprehension, they try to affirm a "high respect for the Bible"), but they do so against the plain text and the clear understanding of Christ. At that point, they're on your own. For those of you who wonder, it's clear. Wonder no longer. The Bible is the God-breathed Word of God.

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

"As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man." Prov. 27:19