The term ‘inerrant’ simply means ‘without errors’. It means that whatever scripture says, it says truthfully. It’s never false.

I hope we can see that this matters hugely. We need to know that the Bible we read is a reliable source of information for the things that we believe. Otherwise we may as well read the horoscopes or the self help paperbacks and believe them as gospel!

The inerrancy of the scriptures means that the Bible as originally written, under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, does not affirm anything that’s contrary to fact. But there are some important caveats to that assertion that prevent us from having too stringent a view of what we’re claiming.

a. The Bible can be without error and yet descriptions can be imprecise

The Bible writers were human and so they used human language to communicate. Human language employs figures of speech, poetry, similes and metaphor. Don’t press me to define the differences! But  expressions like ‘the sun sets’ though not strictly accurate from a scientific perspective are nevertheless true from a human perspective. Only a pedant would set a standard so high to exclude the use of these figures of speech from the Bible.

b. The Bible can be without error and yet the numbers can be approximations

In communication we’re never far away from using an approximation to make a point. If someone asked how many people were at Revive we might say ‘500’. Everyone knows that’s a ball park figure. We know that if there were exactly 480 people or 520 people we’ve not been misled. If there were 700 then our statement would be false. The limits of truthfulness are dependent on the degree of precision implied by the speaker and expected by the original hearers. This means that the biblical authors can make imprecise statements and they’re still true. If I say that it’s a little under a mile from my study to church it’s vague and imprecise but it’s also inerrant. There is nothing untrue about it. It doesn’t affirm anything contrary to fact.

c. The Bible can be without error and yet the statements can be representative

The convention of quoting the words of someone else varies depending on the context we’re in. If we’re writing a scholarly academic price we’re expected to quote someone’s words verbatim. But in everyday speech and writing, as long as we represent the substance of what someone said, no one bats an eyelid. At the time of the New Testament an accurate citation of another person needed only to include correct representation of the content of what the other person said. So long as the content wasn’t false the statement was accepted to be free from error.

d. The Bible can be without error and yet the construction can be ungrammatical

When has education and familiarity with the rules of grammar ever been an indicator of the truthfulness of what’s written? Some of the biggest lies will have been written in the finest English! There are parts of the Bible where the Greek is shocking but a statement can still ignore the grammatical rules and still be true. Otherwise we need to say that no one in the West Country ever says anything true!

Almost predictably there are objections raised against what I’ve suggested here.

Some say that inerrancy applies only to doctrine and ethics because that’s what the Bible is primarily about. That’s a true summary of the main purpose of the Bible but it’s not the total purpose of the Bible. The Bible has other purposes than instructing us about faith and practice. It’s better to say that the whole purpose of the Bible is to say everything it says on whatever subject it addresses. And so whatever the Bible asserts it asserts truthfully.

Some say that inerrancy is inaccurate because it’s too precise a term and raises expectations of absolute scientific exactness. But the term has been used for years in theological discussion with the understanding of the conventions of human speech. There’s no need to ditch it as long as we explain what we mean by it.

Some say that inerrancy is misleading because we have no inerrant manuscripts. It is true that we do not have any of the original manuscripts, known as autographs, since these have either been lost or perished. We only have copies of copies of what was originally written by the biblical authors. We can be 99% certain of what the originals said and in the very few instances where we’re not, which are indicated in the footnotes of our Bibles, no point of Christian doctrine is affected.

Some say that inerrancy underplays human involvement because for a piece of writing to be truly human must necessarily involve error. But though the Bible is fully human it is also fully divine. The human writers were sinners but this didn’t prevent them from being mouthpieces for God. They were uniquely superintended by the action of God through His Spirit in all factors influencing their message. But we’re talking about people in whom God was at work by His Spirit. This doesn’t mean that we need to be committed to a dictation view of inspiration as though God bypassed human personality.

The implication of all this is that we can trust what we find in God’s word. He has not misled us. He does not lie. Bet your life on what you read in the book bound by a publisher and fished out of the amazon.