I Corinthians 7:12a, "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord."

Vs. 25a, "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgement."

II Corinthians 8:8a, "I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others."

The preceeding are three of many examples in Scripture where the author identifies his words as his own. This is certainly not to say they did not ever write the exact Words of God as directed by Him, but when they did pen God's uttered Word it was identified, and when they wrote their own words they also were identified.

"Theopneustos," God breathed, #2315, has its singular appearance in Scripture, and for the ensuing 300 years for that matter, in II Timothy 3:16. Any student of Scripture knows a singular word or verse in Scripture is not to be used to form a Theological Doctrine. The extant Scripture at the time of the writing of II Timothy was the Law and Prophets, not the NT.

There is a great difference between the Divine preservation and transmission of ancient materials, and the actual Divine authorship of writings. God spoke the World into being and preserves the World, and the World is evidence of Him, but the World is not His actual Word. He clearly identifies His uttered Words when they occur. Apostle Paul as well, in the above above, identified his own words in Scripture.

It is best to submit to the very self disclosure of God, rather than to just willy nilly jump onto the rhetoric bandwagon of whiteknuckled fundie ideology.

Shelli.

While all words in the Scripture may not be the very words of God... they were ALL inspired by God... including the NT. The apostles were led by the Holy Spirit. The second letter to Timothy is believed to be the last of Paul's writing, and one of the last few written, therefore most of the NT would have been written. There is no reason to believe that God by the Holy Spirit would have inspired Paul to write ALL in 2 Timothy 3:16 and not mean the entire Bible.

Consider also 2 Peter which was written about the same time as 2 Timothy...

2Pe 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

__________________
In Christ,
brother Sonnie

"While all words in the Scripture may not be the very words of God ... they were ALL inspired by God ... including the NT." Where is Scripture that clearly says this while not requiring some sort of "explanation" from humans to make this statement fly?

"The Apostles were led by the Holy Spirit." Do all people who are today "led" by the Holy Spirit speak and write Scripture? Not at all. It is the same with Apostle Paul.

Most of the NT was indeed written by the time II Timothy was penned, but those writings were not canonized. In fact, the Apocryphal writings existed as well. Were they not, then, "scripture" as well? Or, must a circular logic be used to exclude them? If Paul, Peter, and Luke ever penned other correspondence, would it necessarily be "inspired" by God, and necessarly be "scripture?" I think not.

Paul did not call his own writings in II Timothy "scripture." There is plenty of reason to think God would have not directly "inspired" all of the NT writings. I Cor. 7:12, 25 and II Cor. 8:8 are clear examples. Remember, "theopneustos" is used only once in Scripture, and cannot be used to form a Theologic Doctrine by itself.

Be aware, also, that Peter does not call Paul's writings either "inspired" or "scripture." Just because Peter cited Paul does not mean Paul wrote Scripture. Speakers and leaders today in the Church cite each other without calling the citations "scripture."

I caution against the use of circular reasoning to deal with this matter. Circular reasoning is not from God, but is of human contrivance. It is best to stick with the stated facts of Scripture, rather than fall into techniques of human cleverness.

Shelli.

With all due respect, you are using humanly philosophical reasoning and ignoring the Scriptures.

Please do not insinuate that I am trying to be clever with the Scripture, thank you!

The following should clear it up for you...

1Co 2:9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"--
1Co 2:10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
1Co 2:11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
1Co 2:13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.


1Co 14:37 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.


2Pe 1:20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
2Pe 1:21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.


Talk about cleverness...

The Divine revelation is complete and is all we need. There is no need for anymore Scripture to be written. We have everything we need to be complete and perfect. There are NO people today who write Scripture... period.

2Pe 1:3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Jam 1:25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Joh 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
Joh 16:14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Eph 3:1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles--
Eph 3:2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you,
Eph 3:3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.
Eph 3:4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ,
Eph 3:5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.


The only possible way you or anyone could EVER conclude that the NT Scriptures were not completely inspired by God would be if you yanked a ton of inspired Scripture out of the Bible itself. Now, you can twist it, distort it, wrestle with it, dance around it, lay hands on it, anoint it with oil... whatever you so desire to do, but in the end, the Scriptures make is extremely clear that they are every single word inspired of God.

Obviously you do not completely understand the passages in 1 and 2 Cor., therefore you are not rightly dividing the word of God yourself. You must study... we must all continue to study so that we can rightly divide the word and not distort or malign it. Let's consider what Paul wrote:

1Co 7:12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

1Co 7:25 Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.
1Co 7:26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
1Co 7:27 Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
1Co 7:28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.

2Co 8:8 I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love.

First of all, just because the Lord did not ever speak or teach Paul or the apostles something... just because the Lord never commanded what Paul or the apostles spoke or wrote, in no way proves or even implies that what they actually spoke or wrote was not inspired by God. God did not have to speak something to them or command something for them to be inspired by Him to write it down.

It is clear that Paul's reasoning here was not from his own humanly subjective ideas, but rather from God, as evidenced by the numerous "other Scriptures" that people will have to ignore and twist to their own destruction in order to get Paul's comment here and those "other Scriptures" which some even Paul wrote, to contradict each other. Paul would not have been able to know what was sin and what was not sin had it not been for the Scripture and the Holy Spirit inspiration. Paul's righteous reasoning came to him only because of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing him... being inspired by God.

Paul was being respectful to the Lord in making a distinction between the words that Jesus actually spoke to him during His ministry and what he was inspired to teach and write. However, this did not diminish the authority of what he was inspired to teach and write.


Quite the contrary, Peter does in fact imply that Paul's writings are Scripture.

2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

There are two Scriptures referenced here. What is it that the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction? There are some things in "them"... what is "them"? The ignorant and unstable twist "them" (Paul's writings/letters) as well as they do the "other Scriptures".

It doesn't get any clearer, factual and "scriptural" that this that Peter called Paul's writings "Scripture".

1Pe 4:11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Now... uh... how did that go...

It is best to submit to the very self disclosure of God, rather than to just willy nilly jump onto the theoretical humanly philosophical bandwagon of whiteknuckled fundie ideology.

__________________
In Christ,
brother Sonnie

we do not write scripture with holy spirit today, we interpret it, that is how it is done, God gave us what we need to know about the future in the book, prophets of today understand it,

the holy spirit convicts of sin, righteousness and judgement to come.

You are correct that we do not write scripture today. Jude 1:3 tells us that the faith has been delivered (past tense) once (won't be duplicated) for all. However, there are no prophets today. Prophecy is listed as one of the miraculous gifts. 1 Corinthians 13. The only way for man to receive miraculous gifts was by the direct laying on of hands of the apostles. Simon understood this and wanted to purchase that gift. Acts 8:14-19. The apostles died centuries ago. Therefore, all miraculous gifts have ceased., as predicted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.

__________________
--Laura

O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Jeremiah 10:23 (NKJV)

Let us all understand one thing...the Word does NOT need to be interpted by anyone today. It has been done for us already. Everything that we need to know and follow is said in the Word of God.

Also, when Paul said, "...not the Lord, but I say..." remember that Christ had said many things to His apostles but there were many things that dealt with the church that Paul and others had to address and it was through the Holy Spirit that Paul and others were able to say these things. So in saying what he said, he only meant that Christ didn't say these things directly but the Holy Spirit made it known through Paul what was to be done. And where did the Holy Spirit get His authority to tell Paul what to say...?? I think we all know that!

And to say something wasn't allowed into or not allowed into Scripture is man's way of dealing with what he wants in the Bible or not. God has put together a wonderful manual for us but how many do not follow the Gospel because they wish to drink, smoke, fornicate, be homosexual and when truth is pointed out and then someone doesn't like it (see my story of faith for a good explanation)?

We are to ONLY follow Scrpture today and we do not interpret nor write it.

__________________
Romans 16:16 1 Thess. 5:17 1 Thess. 5:22 1 Tim. 6:12 2 Tim 2:15