Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Revelation, Part 4.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

In our lessons, we've been thinking about how God reveals himself in special ways to mankind, through his living word, his son, Jesus Christ,

through his written word in Holy Scripture, and then through particular revelations made to

individuals, such as dreams, visions, and so forth.

Now, the principal way in which we know God's word today is through the Holy Scripture.

Few of us are beneficiaries of particular revelations, and Jesus Christ is now ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father.

So we are relying upon God's revelation in Holy Scripture as His Word to us.

And this then brings us to the question of the inspiration of scripture.

The scriptures are inspired of God.

2 Timothy 316 is the Locus Classicus for this teaching.

2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable

for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Now, notice what is said here about the inspiration of Scripture.

It is the Scripture itself that is inspired by God. And the word here means God breathed.

Inspiration is not primarily a property of the authors of Scripture. It's a property of the text itself. Very often people will think, well, the authors of Scripture were inspired by God to write

what they did.

But that's not, in fact, what 2. Timothy 316 says.

It's not that the authors of Scripture were inspired.

It's rather that the end product is inspired. What they wrote, the text,

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