If you recall, the Bible revealed that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Although we understand that the holy men who wrote God’s Word were inspired by thought, we need to dive a little deeper into how those thoughts manifested into the Scriptures.

Using myself as an example, I can tell you that writing Christian books and making videos for the Gospel was not something I always aspired to do. As I was studying and learning prophecy, the thought simply came to me that I needed to write what God had revealed to me. In other words, God inspired me to write.

While I am in no way trying to elevate my level to those who wrote the Bible, I am trying to show you how inspiration works. Even though I believe God inspired me to write, there were still instances where I made spelling mistakes. Though God prompted me to express the ideas that were revealed to me, He did not prohibit me from making grammatical errors. There were even instances where I originally had a misapplication of a verse, yet this did not discourage my belief that God was behind the push to get me to write.

Inspiration and Inconsistencies

What we must understand is that inspiration falls on an individual, not necessarily his or her words. Scripture is not the inspiration; Scripture is given BY inspiration. This doesn’t diminish the fact that God’s Word is holy; it simply reveals that inspiration focuses on the individual who wrote God’s Word.

Once we understand how the Bible was inspired, we no longer see the writer’s mistakes as problematic. Mistakes? Yes. You may not be aware, but there are multiple instances where the Bible writers made mistakes. And although we admit these mistakes, we understand that God inspired man’s thoughts, yet their words were their own. Let me explain:

One or two demoniacs?

In the Gospels, we find a discrepancy between Luke’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the demoniac, and Matthew’s account of the event. Notice the difference:

And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. Luke 8:27

Now, notice how Matthew recalls the same event:

And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. Matthew 8:28

If you read both writer’s accounts, it will become apparent that these are the same events; however, Luke declared there was one demon-possessed man, and Matthew recalled two demon-possessed men. Clearly, one of them made a mistake. However, if we remember that God inspires thoughts, we can understand that even though God inspired both Luke and Matthew to write the Gospels, He did not stop them from making errors such as these. Clearly, God wanted us to know about Christ’s encounter with a demon-possessed man (or men), but the number of men was not crucial in order to understand the thought that God wanted to convey.

Had Luke or Matthew begun writing that it was John who cast out the demon, that would have completely usurped the intended thought of this encounter. You see, once we understand that it doesn’t matter whether it was one, two, or 200 demoniacs, Christ had the power to cast out devils, and this was the thought that God wanted to convey. And while there is a clear discrepancy in the wording of this encounter, the thought itself is without error. 

What color was Jesus’ robe?

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. Matthew 27:28-29.

Notice what color Mark saw:

And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! Mark 15:17-18

It’s entirely plausible that Mark or Matthew was colorblind. It’s also possible that Christ’s robe appeared to be red or purple from where they witnessed the crucifixion, or they simply took a witness’s account of the robe’s color, and one of the witnesses was mistaken. Either way, we must understand that the robe’s color is not pivotal to the thought God wanted to convey through Christ’s disciples.

Think of thought inspiration like this: Imagine you are at a friend’s house. Your SUV is parked in that friend’s driveway. Then, at some point, whoever you parked behind needs you to move. That individual may say to you, “Can you move your car?”  Well, technically, an SUV is not a car. Even though the individual’s statement had an error, you still were able to comprehend what that individual was trying to convey and the need to correct their statement would be unnecessary. This is how we must view thought inspiration.

Rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

Now that we understand that the Bible is inspired by thought, we now must take what we’ve learned and apply it to studying God’s Word. The Bible says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 

There have been times in which I’ve picked up the Bible, opened to a random page, and began reading. While it is always good to read God’s Word, this method of reading Scripture is not the preferred method. When we read God’s Word, it is best to read it in complete thoughts. In essence, if I began reading the Bible in the middle of a thought, I may walk away with an erroneous understanding of Scripture. It is therefore recommended to read the Bible within the context of its complete thoughts as opposed to opening the Bible and random picking Scriptures to read.

The logical question is— How do we determine where a complete thought begins and ends? The good thing is that we don’t have to do the work. Many of the Bible translations divide the thoughts for us. Here’s an example below:

As you can see, there are headings that separate each thought. While these divisions weren’t added by those God inspired to write the Word, they are a good barometer for understanding where a thought begins and ends. Therefore, the next time you pick up the Bible to read, you can now read God’s Word by the thoughts that God inspired and get a fuller picture of what God was trying to convey. Now that you understand how the Bible was inspired, we must now must understand a critical part of Bible interpretation. You must understand Policy and Principle.