The Inspiration of Scripture and How To Teach the Bible

By W.E. Vine

"The Scriptures are the voice of God to the soul of man," said W.E. Vine, and therefore they are, in the words of the apostle Paul, "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness."
This little book is an explanation and exposition of that statement by combining three works of W.E. Vine. .
First, "The Divine Inspiration of the Bible" explains and gives evidence for the inspiration of the Bible. The Scriptures are God-breathed, and so "by whatever media that Word reaches men, whether in the original autographs or in faithful copies or in the resultant texts, or in a faithful translation, it is in reality God's own voice to our souls." W.E. Vine points out the importance of this doctrine because "to lose certainty here is to be exposed to every wind of doctrine." To lose confidence in the unchanging authority of God's Word opens up the possibility of relying on the ever-changing authority of human opinions.
The author explains the doctrine of inspiration and what it means. He then gives evidences in Scripture for inspiration by looking at key passages in both the Old and New Testaments and reviews objections to the doctrine and various misunderstandings. For instance, is the Bible inspired when it quotes the mistaken arguments of Job's friends or the falsehoods of Peter when he denied Jesus? The author also shows the effects of the Bible, which has "won the souls and molded the lives of millions."
Second, "The Scriptures and How to Use Them" looks at those who teach the Bible—their responsibilities and their qualifications. It also examines "guiding principles" of teaching the Word of God. Vine challenges those who are called to "the holy and solemn yet blessed work of teaching" to "give ourselves to teaching by speaking—in the words of the apostle Peter—"as it were oracles of God: . . . that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, Whose is the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
Third, "Bible Predictions and the Critics" shows how Higher Criticism attempts to minimize the Bible's own testimony of its supernatural character, particularly when it comes to the predictive prophecies of the Bible. A.S. Peake's Commentary on the Bible is represented as a moderate example of Higher Criticism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912149445

Book preview

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Contents

Publisher’s Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE

The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

Preface

Author’s Foreword

Chapter One: Preliminary Considerations

Chapter Two: Evidences In Scripture

Chapter Three: Some Objections

Chapter Four: The Effects

Bible Predictions and the Critics

Introduction

Bible Predictions and the Critics

HOW TO TEACH THE BIBLE

Foreword

The Scriptures and How to Use Them

W. E. Vine: The Theologian

Other Books By W.E. Vine

Copyright

Publisher’s Preface

‘‘Qualified in Many Fields, Narrow in None"

Undoubtedly William Edwy Vine was qualified in many fields. As well as being a theologian and a man of outstanding academic intellect, he had a heart for all humanity that made him a master of communication.

Born in 1873, at the time when C. H. Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, and F. B. Meyer were enjoying popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, Vine was brought up in a boarding school owned by and governed by his father, who was its headmaster. This was a major contribution to his interest in teaching. At the age of 17 he was a teacher at his father’s school while attending the University College of Wales in preparation for his London University M.A. in classics.

At the age of twenty-six he spent an Easter vacation at the home of a godly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Baxendale, where he met their daughter Phoebe; a few years later, they married. It was a marriage made in heaven. They had five children: Helen, Christine, Edward (O.B.E.), Winifred, and Jeanette. During the time of their engagement, Vine’s reputation as a clear Bible expositor was growing, and before long he accepted the joint headmastership of the school with his father. In 1904, after his father died, his brother Theodore became joint headmaster with him.

It was during this time, in conjunction with Mr. C. F. Hogg, that he produced three classic works: commentaries on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, followed by Galatians. These display the full scope of Vine’s scholarship.

While Vine was teaching in the school, preparing for his M.A. and writing in-depth commentaries, he also developed a lifetime habit of teaching classes in New Testament Greek grammar. This laid the foundation for his classic work, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, and later, An Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words. More than three million copies were sold worldwide, and they are available today in Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, published by Thomas Nelson Publishers. His scholarship and clarity of expression is as relevant today as when first published.

A Bridge Builder between Missionaries Overseas and Local Churches at Home

When Vine was in his early thirties he felt God calling him to accept an invitation to share in the responsibility of a missionary work called Echoes of Service, a project that is still strong today as Echoes International. At the time of Vine’s appointment, Echoes of Service linked 600 missionaries overseas with independent churches known as The Open Brethren. He continued this work for forty years.

This responsibility inevitably meant writing tens of thousands of letters between local churches and the missionaries overseas. Many of the letters—beside being of a practical nature—involved answering theological questions. Because of the vastness of the work, the monthly magazine called Echoes of Service was one of the many means of linking overseas missionaries with the Christians and churches at home. This magazine gave news that would stimulate prayer and support for the missionaries as well as Bible teachings. At the time of W.E. Vine’s death the magazine’s circulation had nearly doubled. He also wrote regular articles for other magazines, and many of his written works grew out of these articles, including his famous Dictionaries.

Vine also did much traveling, especially to annual missionary conferences. He was well-suited to public teaching and stimulating missionary enterprises.

A Bridge Builder between Theologians and Pastors and Bible Teachers

Spurgeon, Moody, and Meyer were devotional preachers and teachers who appealed to the heart and conscience, but at the time the Bible was under attack by a new wave of critics. There were qualified theologians who were able to combat this criticism; however, many did not have Vine’s common touch. He was a theologian who understood the current academic issues but could communicate in a popular way without wasting words. Many writers in the early twentieth century were known for the number of words they used and the weight of the books they produced. To have a writer who could be simple, direct, theologically sound, and yet practical, was most welcome.

A Bridge Builder between Traditional Bible Translations and New Ones

Professor F. F. Bruce’s article introducing Vine as a theologian underscores that W.E. Vine was as familiar with the Greek manuscripts that formed the basis of the King James Version as he was with the manuscripts that were used in translating the American Revised Version and, later, the New International Version. This means that no matter which translation you use for personal study, you will find Vine’s scholarship applicable.

Expository Commentaries. Vine applies a microscopic approach to expository teaching—a word approach that takes into consideration every reference to that word in the Bible as well as its use in contemporary and classic Greek. Vine’s verse-by-verse exposition reveals a depth of understanding that commentaries many times their size fail to give. He explains the meaning of the key words in each verse and links them with the complete passage.

Analytical Outlines. The high standard of Vine’s analytical outlines are skeletons to which you can add your own Bible studies, or you can use them to form the base for group studies or sermons.

Prophetic Exposition. While many will agree with Vine’s insight into the value and meaning of prophecy, we have to realize that prophecy is a subject with varied interpretations. However, even if your own beliefs are different from Vine’s, you will appreciate his openness to God’s truth and his sense of excitement in seeing God’s prophetic will revealed. He is not an extremist, but he conveys a genuine love for the prophetic teaching of Scripture.

A Bridge Builder between Mind and Heart

Concerning the man himself, I have come to know more of him through knowing two of his daughters as well as from the local church that he and his wife attended for so many years. Many of the members still remember the Vines and their hospitality, humor, hard work, and commitment to the Word of God and missionary enterprise. The writings of W. E. Vine come from the finest intellect in combination with a devoted missionary heart, truly a rare combination.

As F.F. Bruce said, The Scriptures’ chief function is to bear witness of Christ, and the chief end of their study and exegesis is to increase our inward knowledge of Him, under the illumination of the Spirit of God. Mr. Vine, in all his study and writing, would not be content with any lower aim than this, for himself and for his readers alike.

Robert Hicks

Bath, England

W.E. Vine (left) and Phoebe (second from right) and four of their five children.

Acknowledgements

We initially prepared this ebook with two sections – one on the inspiration of Scripture, a booklet by W.E. Vine called The Divine Inspiration of the Bible , and one on how to teach the Bible, a booklet called The Scriptures and How to Use Them .

In The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, W.E. Vine footnoted Bible Predictions and the Critics, which he had written, published in 1922 by Chas. J. Thynne, in London. As far as we could discover, this book is available in only a handful of libraries and only one in the United States.

We gratefully acknowledge the Turpin Library at Dallas Theological Seminary and Debbie Hunn for making this book available for inclusion in this ebook.

List Of Abbreviations

THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE

The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

Preface

I gladly accede to the request of my dear friend, the author of this book, that I should write a few introductory words.

I have carefully read what he has written, and while his aim has not been to produce anything that is new upon the important subject with which it deals, one is thankful to have in a portable form this help to the understanding of the truth of inspiration.

It is satisfactory to find that he views inspiration as attaching not to the oral expressions before they were recorded, still less to any subsequent oral or written rendering of the autographs, but to the autographs themselves. To quote the words of the late Dr. H. C. C. Moule in connection with the Gospels: This record God has given His Son. Such faith leaves unanswered and without the least anxiety very many questions on which strictly literary investigation may quite legitimately enter. It does not tell of itself in what language, Aramaic or Greek, the words were actually uttered. It does not even assure me that precisely those syllables, no less, no more, nor otherwise in any detail, came as sounds from His lips, but it does assure me that in the record as it stands we have a report revised by the ever blessed Speaker. Yes, it is the Scriptures, the writings, as originally given and (insofar as is the case) as presented to us in the resultant texts that are God-breathed. To lose certainty here is to be exposed to every wind of doctrine. But having settled this question in our hearts, then we can go on and say that by whatever media that Word reaches men, whether in the original autographs or in faithful copies or in the resultant texts, or in a faithful translation, it is in reality, God’s own voice to our souls.

In connection with the remarks of the author on the wondrous how of inspiration, I may further quote Dr. Moule: He who chose the writers of the Holy Scriptures, many men, scattered over many ages, used them each in his surroundings and in his character, yet so as to harmonize them all in the Book which, while many, is one. He used them with the sovereign skill of Deity. And that skillful use meant that He used their whole being which He had made, and their whole circumstances, which He had ordered. They were indeed His amanuenses; nay, I fear not to say they were His pens. But He is such that He can manipulate as His facile implement no mere piece of mechanism which, however subtle and powerful, is mechanism still and can never truly cause anything; He can take a human personality, made in His own image, pregnant, formative, causative, in all its living thought, sensibility and will, and can throw it freely upon its task of thinking and expression—and behold, the product will be His; His matter, His thought, His exposition, His Word, ‘living and abiding forever.’

May God bless this effort to reaffirm the truth!

W. R. LEWIS

Bath, England

Author’s Foreword

The subject of the following pages is one upon which the writer has been asked to give addresses on various occasions during several years. While the effect has been to deepen his conviction as to his inability to handle so profound a subject at all adequately, he has ventured to hope that the presentation, in a simple form, of what he believes to be the truth may prove of service to some of the household of the faith in these days of apostasy from it. The pretentious claims made by Higher Critics, based upon the means of arousing a still more careful spirit of inquiry on the part of many whom they call traditionalists into the internal evidences of Holy Scripture as to the character of its Inspiration. In the writer’s own case the result has been a strong confirmation of his faith in the integrity, authenticity, and divine and plenary Inspiration of the writings which comprise the Bible. There are many eminent scholars today who have weighed the Higher Critical theories in the balances and have found them wanting, and this, not because of the influence of their own preconceived ideas, or a blind adherence to traditional views, but as the result of a careful and unbiased sifting of the evidences. Present-day theorists of the Higher Critical schools have become traditionalists after their own order. No matter how thoroughly recent discovery and scholarship disprove one after another the statements and suppositions advanced by the Higher Critics of former generations, these are still put forward by their successors.

The following pages have not been written, however, with the aim of attacking the critical position; they constitute an earnest attempt to set forth the result of careful study, in the hope that God may use them for His glory in the spiritual profit of the reader. Invaluable help has been rendered during the preparation of the book by two of the author’s colleagues in editorial and expository work, to whom he is greatly indebted, Mr. W. R. Lewis, of Bath, and Mr. C. F. Hogg, of London, each of whom kindly went through the manuscript, making useful suggestions.

CHAPTER ONE

Preliminary Considerations

To discuss the subject of Inspiration at all exhaustively would necessitate the devotion of more space than we can give to the connected subject of divine revelation. It is true that the question whether we have a revelation from God lies behind any discussion regarding divine inspiration. But this involves a consideration of the various ways in which God has revealed Himself. There is, for instance, the revelation He has given of His power and His Godhead through nature. Then there are the various means intimated in the Bible through which He has made personal communications to man. This brings in the question whether the Bible consists of a revelation of the mind of God. But the following pages have not been written with a view to proving this, nor shall we here discuss the contingent problem of the relationship of Inspiration to Revelation. There are, however, not a few Christians, who, while believing in the fact of the divine inspiration of the Bible, are yet in some amount of perplexity as to what this means, and to what extent it is true. That such may receive some help from these chapters is the writer’s earnest desire. The subject is one of the utmost importance today when the views of what is known as Modernism are being advanced on every hand. The Bible has been the most widely and thoroughly discussed Book in the world, and this is true to a greater extent today perhaps than at any time in the past. The activities of the Higher Critics have had this beneficial effect, that devout students of Scripture have been led thereby to consider more carefully the authenticity, integrity, and divine authority of the books which compose the Volume, and to examine more thoroughly the whole question of the Inspiration of its contents.

It will be necessary to notice some of the theories which have been advanced regarding the subject, bearing in mind that inspiration is impossible of explanation by any theory. Inspiration is a doctrine taught in Scripture; whatever theories may be held about it. The supernatural acts of God do not admit of human analysis. It is no more possible to describe exactly how the divine action described by the word God-breathed took place than it is to explain any other miracle recorded in the Bible. The appeal of the