This month's topic:  Theopneustos

"All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).

Orthodox Christianity confesses belief in the inerrancy and the infallibility of Scripture. When we as Christians say that the Bible is inerrant we are saying that the Bible is completely truthful and accurate in every respect in all that it affirms. I stress this definition of inerrancy because some believe that the Bible is true only concerning our faith and practice, but true Christianity believes that the Bible is true in everything that it affirms. This would include not just our faith and practice, but also history and science. Some would argue that the Scriptures contain errors. What others refer to as “errors” we refer to as “textual variants”. There are places in Scripture where the meaning of a word is not certain in its original language. Maybe the translator left out a letter of a word or did not include a word; this would be an example of a textual variant.

One great thing about our modern English translations is they give us notes in the margin concerning these textual variants. These notes might read, "some ancient manuscripts read.... or  "the meaning of this word is uncertain", but this occurs only 1 percent of the time throughout Scripture. When we look closely at the context of a sentence containing a textual variant it’s meaning is usually quite clear. So we know that the Bible that we have contains 99 percent of what the original manuscripts did. These original manuscripts are known as the "autographs". The word autograph means self-writings. Although none survive today, these autographs are the very Words of God himself. The autographs are the "Word of God breathed out", as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16. Here he uses a very special Greek word, "theopneustos". Paul has combined two Greek words, theos, "God" and pneuo, "to breathe". So from the language we can clearly see that Paul is saying that Scripture is literally "breathed out by God". Older translations refer to Scripture as being, "Inspired". Now I am not here to argue translations, but the word inspired does not do justice to the original language. In the English language many people are said to be inspired.  Some examples would be writers, artist and athletes, but surely we do not believe that their words, works or performances are inerrant or divine. As humans these people are capable of mistakes, but God is divine and he never errs. The men who wrote the Bible were not inspired, but rather the very Words of Sacred Scripture themselves were inspired. They were as Paul said literally, "Breathed out by God". Because Scripture is completely truthful in all that it affirms, we know that God is morally perfect. "God is not a man, that He should lie" (Num 23:19) and " The words of the Lord are pure words" (Psa 12:6).

Let us look at the meaning of infallibility. The word infallible has often been seen as interchangeable with inerrant, but there is a difference. Inerrancy deals with the truthfulness and accuracy of God's Word and infallibility deals with God's inability to lead us astray. This is why Scripture is as Paul said, "profitable". Not only is the Bible true in all it affirms, but because it is the "God Breathed Word" we will never be led astray by it to do wrong. Instead we are instructed, rebuked, restored and trained in Godly behavior.