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Three easy steps to start your free trial subscription to Bible Gateway Plus. Create or log in to your Bible Gateway account. Enter your credit card information to ensure uninterrupted service following your free trial. Begin reading God's Word ad-free with instant access to your new online study library. Want more information about Bible Gateway Plus? Barnabas probably not the friend of St. Paul, but a teacher of Alexandria who lived some seventy or eighty years after St.
Cohortatio ad Gen tiles, Cohortatio ad Gentiles, 8. This writer, several of whose works we still possess, was a scholar and thinker of no mean order. He wrote within half a century of St. He in several places gives us his view of the inspiration of the divine writings. Referring to the Old Testament, he speaks of the history which Moses wrote by divine inspiration. Of David and of Isaiah he writes in similar terms propheta Isaias divinitus afflatus a spiritu prophetico.
His view, of the prophetic office is remarkable. This Athenian philosopher, who, while studying the Holy Scriptures with a view of refuting Christianity, was converted by the very writings he was endeavouring to bring into disrepute, writes using the same strange, powerful metaphor which we found in the above quotation from Justin: This famous writer and bishop of the early Church was connected in his early years with Polycarp, the pupil of St. He to choose one out of many passages of his writings on this subject thus writes of the Apostles: All the faithful, it is true, have the Spirit of God; but all are not Apostles.
John; and taught in famous school—as did well-nigh all the early fathers of Christianity—the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripture. The word of God, disregarding the lifeless instruments, the lyre and the harp, reduces to harmony. For these fathers, having been perfected by the Spirit of Prophecy, and worthily honoured by the Word Himself, were brought to an inner harmony like instruments; and having the Word within them to strike the notes, by Him they were moved, and announced that which God wrote.
For they did not speak of their own power, be well assured, nor proclaim that which they wished themselves, but first they were rightly endowed with wisdom by the Word, and afterwards well foretaught of the future by visions, and then, when thus assured, spake that which was revealed to them by God.
De Principiis , i. The Church, while condemning the errors into which the greathearted Origen fell, still reads in every age with reverence and admiration his marvellous and brilliant teaching. It will be well to close this short paper on a great subject with two or three extracts from this famous Alexandrian master, on the subject of inspiration: The same Spirit was present in those of old times as in those who were inspired at the coming of Christ.
Prayer is the most necessary qualification for the understanding of divine things. If, then, we read the Bible with patience, prayer, and faith; if we ever strive after a more perfect knowledge, and yet remain content in some things to know only in part—even as prophets and apostles, saints and angels, attain not to an understanding of all things—our patience will be rewarded, our prayer answered, and our faith increased. Benson, on this passage: But as to what was handed down by authentic tradition, or the facts with which they themselves were thoroughly acquainted, they could, as faithful historians, commit them to writing, and that without any extraordinary inspiration.
And their account, as far as our present copies are exact, may be depended upon as satisfactory and authentic. Is profitable for doctrine — All the great and important doctrines of religion necessary to be known in order to salvation, are there taught, and that more clearly and fully than elsewhere; and with an authority and influence to be found in no other writings. For instruction — Or training and building persons up, in righteousness — Leading them on from one degree of piety and virtue to another, with a progress which will continually advance in proportion to the regard they pay to these divine writings.
For the Spirit of God not only once inspired those who endited them, but continually inspires and supernaturally assists those that read them in humility, simplicity, and faith, with earnest prayer to the Father of lights for a right understanding of them, and for inclination and power to reduce their contents to practice.
Our Lord also, on various occasions, bare testimony to the Jewish Scriptures, and to their connection with the gospel. What then are we to think of those teachers who are at so much pains to disjoin the Christian revelation from the Jewish, as if the latter were not of divine original, and had no connection with the gospel; and, instead of illustrating and confirming the gospel, were rather an encumbrance to it? Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 3: The age of children is the age to learn; and those who would get true learning, must get it out of the Scriptures.
They must not lie by us neglected, seldom or never looked into. The Bible is a sure guide to eternal life. The prophets and apostles did not speak from themselves, but delivered what they received of God, 2Pe 1: It is profitable for all purposes of the Christian life. It is of use to all, for all need to be taught, corrected, and reproved.
There is something in the Scriptures suitable for every case. Oh that we may love our Bibles more, and keep closer to them! We best oppose error by promoting a solid knowledge of the word of truth; and the greatest kindness we can do to children, is to make them early to know the Bible.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible All Scripture - This properly refers to the Old Testament, and should not be applied to any part of the New Testament, unless it can be shown that that part was then written, and was included under the general name of "the Scriptures;" compare 2 Peter 3: But it includes the whole of the Old Testament, and is the solemn testimony of Paul that it was all inspired. If now it can be proved that Paul himself was an inspired man, this settles the question as to the inspiration of the Old Testament.
This word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Thus, God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life Genesis 2: The idea seems to have been, that the life was in the breath, and that an intelligent spirit was communicated with the breath. The expression was used among the Greeks, and a similar one was employed by the Romans.
Clearly the adjectives are so closely connected that as surely as one is a predicate, the other must be so too. First, is it reliable? The Scripture is profitable for ministers to fetch doctrine from, and establish it by; and for hearers to try and prove it by: For correction; for reproof, or correction, or reformation, to reprove us in what we are to be reproved, to correct us in any error, to show us the way to bring us to rights and to reform us. Enter your credit card information to ensure uninterrupted service following your free trial. The First Epistle of Paul to Timothy. Our Lord also, on various occasions, bare testimony to the Jewish Scriptures, and to their connection with the gospel.
Perhaps, however, this is not an expression of Phocylides, but of the pseudo Phocylides. So it is understood by Bloomfield. In regard to the manner of inspiration, and to the various questions which have been started as to its nature, nothing can be learned from the use of this word. It asserts a fact - that the Old Testament was composed under a divine influence, which might be represented by "breathing on one," and so imparting life.
But the language must be figurative; for God does not breathe, though the fair inference is, that those Scriptures are as much the production of God, or are as much to be traced to him, as life is; compare Matthew The question as to the degree of inspiration, and whether it extends to the words of Scripture, and how far the sacred writers were left to the exercise of their own faculties, is foreign to the design of these notes.
All that is necessary to be held is, that the sacred writers were kept from error on those subjects which were matters of their own observation, or which pertained to memory; and that there were truths imparted to them directly by the Spirit of God, which they could never have arrived at by the unaided exercise of their own minds.
Compare the introduction to Isaiah and Job. If "all" Scripture is thus valuable, then we are to esteem no part of the Old Testament as worthless. There is no portion of it, even now, which may not be fitted, in certain circumstances, to furnish us valuable lessons, and, consequently, no part of it which could be spared from the sacred canon. There is no part of the human body which is not useful in its place, and no part of it which can be spared without sensible loss.
For doctrine - For teaching or communicating instruction; compare the notes on 1 Timothy 4: Timothy is the only individual to receive two individual letters from Paul in the New Testament. Second Timothy is traditionally accepted as Paul's final New Testament letter, since it refers to his impending death.
Timothy was from Lystra, in modern-day Turkey. He had a Greek father and Jewish mother. Timothy's mother, Eunice, and grandmother, Lois, were also believers 2 Timothy 1: He was converted to Christianity by Paul 1 Timothy 1: Paul wanted to take Timothy along on his missionary journey, but Timothy was not circumcised. In order to smooth over his participation in these travels, Paul circumcised him, and they traveled together. Timothy is also mentioned as being with Paul during his first Roman imprisonment Colossians 1: In 1 Timothy, Paul wrote to Timothy in Ephesus, where he had left him to serve as leader among the house churches which existed by the mid-AD 60s.
It is unknown whether Timothy ever made this visit.