In What Way Is The Bible Inspired?

How Did God Communicate His Word to Bible Writers?

In 2 Timothy 3:16, it says that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” When the New World Translation uses “inspired”, this is from the Greek adjective θεόπνευστος (theópneustos). The word is composed of theos which means God, and pneo which means to breathe or blow. One gets the idea that God has blown into the texts what He wants. Well, it comes from God.

The Bible shows that there are varying ways in which God communicates His Word. For example, Jehovah dictated what Moses should write when the Mosaic Law was written. In the 2. At Exodus 34:27, Jehovah says: “You must write down these words . . . .” Something similar is described at Jeremiah 36:4, where Jehovah first spoke Jeremiah’s words and then Jeremiah dictated to his secretary Baruch what to write. At Revelation 1:11, John is asked to write down “the things you see,” that is, visions he received from Jehovah.

Other texts had a greater degree of human authorship. Luke 1:1-4 based his account on his own investigations, such as eyewitnesses and fact-checking. Then Luke decided “to write it down in logical order.” There is nothing in the text to indicate that Jehovah dictated what Luke should write, and Luke himself pointed out that many before him had “attempted to prepare an account of the facts we believe . . . on”. Paul says that when he writes about prophecy, these are “spoken words from God.” That does not mean that everything Paul wrote was prophecy. See, for example, 2 Timothy 4:13, which shows that Paul also expresses his own thoughts and talks about his own situations. Paul himself believes that what he says has authority from Jehovah (e.g., 1 Corinthians 14:37 and 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

It was Paul who wrote 2 Corinthians. 1 Timothy 3:16 that the Bible was inspired. This text was not a prophecy, but teaching. Paul does not elaborate here to what extent the entire text is inspired, but as shown above, the Bible itself elaborates in some places to what extent God influences the various texts.

In the 2. In Thessalonians 2:2, we are warned against texts that are inspired by demons. This is especially true of “claims that Jehovah’s day is already here.” Paul says that even if such texts are “said to be from us,” Christians must not be “thrown out of balance or troubled.” This leads us to the question: Is the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses inspired to gain new understandings about generation and chronology that are important for the timing of “the presence of Jesus Christ”¹? The Watchtower itself states that “the Governing Body is neither inspired nor infallible, and therefore can err in doctrine and direction.”². On the other hand, The Watchtower claims that through Jesus, Jehovah directs the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses by holy spirit helping them to understand deeper truths³ When a religious community both claims that there are new understandings, and at the same time acknowledges that the leadership is not inspired, such understandings cannot be equated with the inspiration of Scripture as Paul refers to it in 2 Corinthians.-1 Timothy 3:16.

Former Governing Body member Raymond Franz recalled members voting during his tenure without having had time to “search the Scriptures to test it out” (Raymond Franz, Crisis of Conscience, 4th ed., 2004, pp. 112–113).

The Bible itself does not give any modern body the authority to give human interpretations that should have as binding a status as the Bible’s texts. Jehovah’s Witnesses should not claim that their new understandings are guided by God’s Word when they themselves acknowledge that they are not inspired. The Governing Body is made up of ordinary people like everyone else and their interpretations are human.

1. 2 Thessalonians 2:1 ↩︎
2. The Watchtower, February 2017, Who Leads God’s People Today ↩︎
3. Watchtower, July 2010, “The Spirit Explores . . . The Deep Things of God” ↩︎

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