Churches break apart. Marriages shatter. Governments fracture. Friendships splinter. But the Scriptures cannot be broken (Jn. 10:35). This means they cannot fail. They cannot be incorrect. In every affirmation they make, the Scriptures are inerrant (without mistakes) and infallible (incapable of error).
This should not be difficult for Christians to accept, since God hates lying (Pr. 14:5; 19:22; Ps. 63:11; Ac. 5:3; 1 Jn. 2:21) and is himself incapable of lying or deceiving (Pr. 30:6-7; Num. 23:19; Ps. 89:35; Heb. 6:18).
Just as in the Word one sees perfection within the human and divine natures, so within God’s Word one sees flawlessness. Jesus believed in inerrancy, confirming its veracity by quoting the Old Testament and affirming that Scripture could never pass away (Mt. 5:18).
Inerrancy is not an ivory tower doctrine for eggheads, a belief secluded from any real-world relevance. This article of faith wears running shoes, or in this case, a suit and a tie. Here are four ways inerrancy improves preaching.
1. Inerrancy Gives Confidence in Other Doctrines
Once one abandons inerrancy, other doctrinal errors soon follow. It’s rare to hear of a journey from liberalism and an errant Bible to orthodoxy—the move is usually a one-way highway in the opposite direction. Conversely, inerrantists believe everything in the Bible, even if it’s politically incorrect. Inerrantists laughed at the Piltdown Man long before it became a hoax.
2. Inerrancy Keeps God as the Highest Authority
Inerrantists believe God is the highest authority and the only sufficient witness to himself. The supreme authority must be self-authenticating because it is impossible to get confirmation from a higher authority. Thus, the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true.
But what about the charge of circular reasoning? Here’s what John Frame says. “It is impossible to avoid circularity of a sort when one is arguing on behalf of an ultimate criterion. One may not argue for one ultimate criterion by appealing to another. And the argument over scriptural authority is precisely an argument over ultimate criterion!”
In other words, everyone uses a form of circular reasoning for ultimate claims—including atheists. They say: “It makes sense to me that God doesn’t exist”. Why? “Because it’s reasonable.” Taa-da! Circular reasoning.
3. Inerrancy Makes the Preacher Work Hard
The Scriptures are infallible but our interpretations aren’t. Preachers labor to discern the meaning of the passage, demanding a study full of sanctified sweat–not the sweat of worry (“I hope this passage is true”) but the sweat of sobriety (“I pray I get this passage right”).
Even the best theologians have failed on this point. Luther misinterpreted the doctrine of justification in the book of James over against the same doctrine in Galatians. Both books are without error, but Luther’s interpretation was not.
This means that when we find an apparent discrepancy in Scripture, we shouldn’t take the easy way out as the liberals do. “I found an error,” they say. Rather, preachers should break their backs to show that apparent contradictions are not really contradictions at all.
4. Inerrancy Frees Our Conscience
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the physician-turned-preacher, followed the common practice of doctors by explaining what something was not before defining what it was. We’ll do that here.
Inerrancy does not demand exact quotations, like Jesus’ words on the cross referencing the Old Testament. Inerrancy doesn’t demand exact verbal agreement on parallel accounts. Job’s account of creation, for example, and that of Genesis are not exactly the same because the genre and the author’s purpose are different. Inerrancy doesn’t demand complete uniformity, like Saul’s different descriptions of his conversion accounts.
Inerrancy allows for figures of speech, like hyperbole and metaphors. Inerrancy doesn’t demand precise scientific language, like vantage point observations of the moon being larger than the stars (Gn. 1:16) or the sun rising and going down (Ecc. 1:5). Feinberg once said that almost any statement is capable of greater precision.
In sum, because inerrancy bolsters our faith in other doctrines, keeps God as the supreme authority, forces us to locate the right meaning, and frees our conscience, it will help us to preach boldly the unsearchable riches of God’s holy Word.