One thing that has always fascinated me is that the inspired writers of Scripture often didn’t fully understand that they were writing canonical Scripture. Not only that, these inspired writers, sometimes didn’t even understand the implications of what they were writing. J. I. Packer sums this up well when he shares, “We may not suppose that they always knew they were writing canonical Scripture, even when they consciously wrote with divine authority.”1 Packer also states, “and it is not obvious that the writers…were aware of any directly supernatural prompting at all.”2 God clearly works in mysterious ways but he often uses ordinary men to accomplish, as in this case, an extraordinary task – writing divine Scripture.
When Paul wrote Romans I can say that he wrote it, but I can say also that God wrote it; and be right on both counts. Clearly God was working behind the scenes preparing these men, their whole lives, to be his chosen vessels to pen His sacred Word. While he used their own unique variations in style, language, and vocabulary each writer was molded by God for this divinely inspired task. While it is clear he could have used dictation to give us the Bible he chose not to. His method was first preparing each writer then using his Holy Spirit to move in each man’s heart and mind to speak and write his divine Word. We can only speculate on why God chose this method to give us the Bible. Perhaps, since man is made in the image of God, God wanted to use each writer’s personality to participate in this great undertaking? Also, to let numerous people, over centuries, each write a part of the Bible, and to have each part be in agreement with each other, adds a lot of credibility to the Scriptures.
1 John MacArthur, ed., The Scripture Cannot Be Broken: Twentieth Century Writings on the Doctrine of Inerrancy, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), Page 84
2 John MacArthur, ed., The Scripture Cannot Be Broken: Twentieth Century Writings on the Doctrine of Inerrancy, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), Page 84