Reality Check 101

Everything that we have figured out so far about what it takes for God to Be God – including His “greatnesses”, personality, and works – points straight to the realization that He naturally reaches out, not only to make Himself known to us, the crown of His creation, but also to be personally involved in His world.  That reaching out could take a lot of forms, but the most long-lasting one would have to be a way to commit everything to writing for the sake of preserving it for a long, long time.

Of all the religious writings in the world that claim to be from God, the most unique one is the Bible. The purpose of this section is to look at that uniqueness and then figure out what it has to do with how God reveals Himself to us.  As we will see, in the practice of knowing God, the Bible is central.  But the honest question has to be: how do we know that the Bible is what it claims to be?  To find some of the answers, we need to take a look at the human side of what that looks like. 

Always remember that God is perfect and does everything perfectly.  That means that if He speaks, either to anyone personally like a prophet or gives someone something to write, whatever the circumstances may be, the end result cannot have any mistakes – and that goes for every single word that is written when He gives it the first time.

But, before that happens, it is a good idea to cover some of the basics about labels.  Labels are important because they kind of package ideas together so that when we are in a discussion or just trying to communicate to someone else, there is no need to re-say everything over and over again.  So, here is information about some labels:

Revelation: This word is used to describe all of the ways that God shows Himself to the world and sometimes in special ways.

Special Revelation: This is God showing Himself through certain events at certain times in certain places communicating to certain people – in some way giving them certain things to say or write down for the sake of future generations. 

Inspiration: God giving His truth in words to specific people for them to be written down.

Illumination: God enabling humans to understand Scripture

There are a few important things to remember about all this. For one thing, there are differences in the way we use the word “revelation”.  In everyday conversation it means that someone realized something they weren’t aware of before or that they were given new information.  But when the word is used about what God does, it describes what happens when He communicates truth on His own to mankind.  This is that “special revelation” above.  Just remember, truth is rare but opinions and experiences that claim to be truth are everywhere. 

Using the word inspiration works out the same way.  It mostly means that we were really moved by something – “That was so inspiring”.  Sometimes  we talk about great human insights or achievements as being inspired.  With God, His work of inspiration is much greater.  For Him, the act of inspiration is the tool for carrying out His special revelation.  That means that His inspiration is, like Himself; always true, without mistakes, and never changes.

So what is the bottom line?  When God does revelation and inspiration, He has purpose and design in them.  He does not, because of who He is, run around putting out unexpected fires or waiting to see what humans will do next.  For Him revelation is holy work because He is holy; whether He does it generally through what He has made or specially through inspiration.  If all this is correct and the Bible claims to be that source, it has to be verified.  That is what the next chapters are all about.