The Liturgy Confesses the Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures

Last month I had the honor of being a Keynote speaker at the Tell the Good News About Jesus conference of the Wyoming District. This past Friday I preached at chapel for our Lutheran High School, where I serve on the Board of Directors. At the conference I mentioned how a little proclamation of the Pastor when he concludes the reading of the Scriptures confesses the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, and its accompanying infallibity and inerrancy- “This is the Word of the Lord”. When the Pastor says that it is a declaration and a confession. He is declaring to the people that what they have heard is truly the Word of the LORD. He is confessing that just as the LORD wrote down HIs Word on tablets of stone at Sinai, so has He caused His Word to be written on paper for our learning today.

The Epistle for Transfiguration (my text for our Lutheran High’s chapel) put it this way “knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 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.” (2 Peter 1:20-21) I told the high school kids that the Bible is not a collection of myths like those of the Greeks, but what is recorded is true and written for their salvation. Now of course there are plenty of men who have said, “This is the Word of the Lord” who didn’t confess the verbal inspiration, infallibilty or inerrancy of the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit. However this doesn’t negate the fact that this is what the faithful pastors and congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church really believe and what they are declaring when they says those words in the Liturgy. Thanks be to God. Let’s keep on believing it, teaching it and confessing it.