The apostle Paul wrote to his young protégé Timothy, "But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:14-17). The Greek adjective θεοπνευστος (Strong's #2315), found in verse 16, is translated, "given by inspiration of God." This is a compound word found only here in the Greek New Testament. It is from theos (Strongs #2316), "God," and pneustos from pneo (Strongs #4154), "to breathe;" thus, literally "God-breathed" or "God-inspired;" hence, "God-inbreathed." Pickering sums up the consensus of all lexicographers by defining the word as, "inspired by God, divinely inspired, that is of divine origin;"F1 and Young affirms the definition is literally, "God-breathed;"F2 The English word "inspiration" is the noun form of the verb "inspire," (in + spirare, to breath into). It denotes the result of the Spirit's infusion into the words of sacred writ. So, when Paul affirmed in our text under study, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Timothy 3:16), he is stating that the "inbreathing" was into the text of Scripture rather than into the men who penned the Scriptures, though, the inspired writers were under divine guidance in what they wrote (1 Peter 1:11,12). Likewise, he wrote to the Corinthians: "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth" (1 Corinthians 2:13). Therefore, inspiration consisted of the "inbreathing" of truth into the word selected to bear the message of God (John 17:17), and resulted from the injection of truth into the words that the "holy men of God" were prompted to write (2 Peter 1:21). These words were inspired because they mirrored exactly the "mind of the Spirit" (Romans 8:6) and were the vessels of the revelation of the Spirit (Proverbs 1:23; Isaiah 59:21; Ephesians 6:17). This they achieved perfectly since the words were selected by the Spirit for precisely this purpose. They may properly be said to be "inbreathed" (inspired) because they accomplished the design of the Spirit in revealing the Spirit's message. This is verbal inspiration!
"The Greek phrase involved in our study is, 'pasa graphe theopneustos kai ophelimos,' literally, and in the order in which the words appear, "Every writing God-breathed and profitable." "Every" or "All" is the Greek word pas. "Scripture" here is graphe, which in the Bible always denotes "inspired writings," namely, of the Old Testament.F3 Jesus applied the term to the inspired writings of the Old Testament Scriptures in general (Matthew 26:54), and of the inspired writings of the Old Testament prophets (Matthew 26:56). From our context of the "Holy Scriptures" mentioned in verse 15, Paul also claims the divine verbal inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures. Furthermore, both Paul and Peter also declare the writings of the New Testament as divine verbally inspired Scripture in exactly the same sense (1 Corinthians 2:12,13; 2 Peter 3:15,16), thus, one could argue our text includes by implication, these also.
Therefore, the word theopneustos clearly affirms that the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is "God inspired," thus it is an inbreathed, verbally inspired, divine document which, as originally given, is absolutely inerrant, infallible and true. Such is the claim which it makes with its opening assertion, "In the beginning God" (Genesis 1:1), to its ending declaration, "I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book" (Revelation 22:18,19). In over 2,000 passages the Scriptures assert the fact that they issued from God. This was avowed by Moses (Exodus 24:4-7); by David (2 Samuel 23:1,2); by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:6-9); by Jesus (a href="/desk/?passage=mt+10:20;+mr+13:11;+joh+17:8&sr=1" target="_blank">Matthew 10:20; Mark 13:11; John 17:8); by the apostles (1 Corinthians 2:13; Galatians 1:11,12; 2 Peter 1:21); and by a host of many others, but for a lack of time and space I must restrain from mentioning. During the New Testament era most of the world spoke Greek and even Jesus and His apostles quoted from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the original Hebrew Old Testament) and designated it as Scripture because the passages they quoted exactly represented the truth of the original text though a translation of that text (compare: Mark 12:36; Romans 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:26,27; Galatians 3:8; 3:22; 4:30; Hebrews 3:7, 8; 9:8; 10:15, 16; etc). Thus, this proves that the "God-breathed" Scriptures in any translation, if taken from a dependable text and accurately translated to reflect fully the "mind of the Spirit," are the infallible, inerrant, all-sufficient, and complete revelation of God to man. Various translations today which fall far short of this standard and cannot qualify as inspired Scripture are translations which espouse the modern speech approach, the dynamic equivalent approach and all paraphrases. These three classifications of translations into any language may be useful as commentaries but they do not preserve the "mind of the Spirit" of God, and are thus, not God's verbally inspired Word.
What is irrefutable is that the Bible is the miraculous Book of sixty-six separate compositions written by God chosen men. Many of them lived in different eras and came from diverse distant places, environments, influences and dialects, yet still produced a Book that is one consistent complete volume of unbroken unity. God's inbreathed 'graphe' has persevered from the beginning and it will endure long after all has departed. "Who wrote it?" The Bible is itself the answer. God said through the prophet Hosea, "I have written for him the great things of My Law, But they were considered a strange thing" (Hosea 8:12). The author is God: "I have written." The proof is the book itself: "the great things" it contains. Its rejection stems from the common treatment it receives: "they were considered a strange thing." Unfortunately, there has always been a universal indifferentism concerning the revelation of God to man, but the words of the prophet Isaiah still rings true today: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah hath spoken" (Isaiah 1:2). Truly, the Bible is The Book of Inspiration! When we read its inspired words, we are in the presence of God, our Creator, sitting before His feet as He is instructing us in the way of righteousness. May we accept it unreservedly and allow it to find expression in our lives.
FOOTNOTES:
F1: John Pickering, LL.D., Comprehensive Lexicon Of The Greek Language Adapted To The Use Of Colleges And Schools In The United States (Boston: Wilkins, Carter, and Company, 1847), pg. 617.
F2: Robert Young, LL.D., Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, reprinted 1979), pg. 517.
F3: Joseph Henry Thayer, D.D., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: American Book Company, 1889), pg. 121.
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Bill Klein has been a pastor, counselor, and educator for the past 41 years. He has had extensive training and education in biblical languages, and has authored a Biblical Greek course.
He is currently serving as Professor of Biblical Greek at Master's Graduate School of Divinity, and president of BTE Ministries - The Bible Translation and Exegesis Institute of America, a non-profit organization located in California that provides Bible study tapes and Greek study materials through their website BTEMinistries.org.