“We … thank God continuously for this, that if you acquired the phrase of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not because the phrase of males however as what it truly is, the phrase of God, which is at work in you believers.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
Commentary from the sermon “Accepting God’s Phrase” by Alistair Begg.
“What Paul is claiming right here for his personal phrases is divine authority. What he’s saying right here is that ‘we advised you concerning the Outdated Testomony Scriptures, after which we spoke to you. And once we spoke to you, the message that you just heard from us you acquired as it’s—the very phrase of God. …’ He says, ‘We don’t carry the phrase of man’—logon anthrōpōn—‘however we dropped at you logon theou. We introduced you the phrase of God. We introduced you theological phrases,’ in case you like. And the testimony is that they acquired it because the very phrase of God.
“It is a reminder, simply in passing, of what we perceive as the twin authorship of Scripture. As a result of any person may learn this and say, ‘Nicely, that sounds unusual to me. In any case, absolutely it was Paul’s phrases. He mentioned that he was the one who was instructing them; subsequently, the phrases have been popping out of his mouth, although they’re now written down.’ The phrases of Isaiah have been the phrases of Isaiah. They weren’t the phrases of Micah. They weren’t the phrases of Jeremiah. They definitely weren’t the phrases of John. They have been his phrases. So who wrote Isaiah? Isaiah. Who wrote Isaiah? God. ‘You imply God and Isaiah wrote Isaiah collectively?’ Sure. … When God needed the e book of Isaiah written, He raised up an Isaiah. When God needed the Pauline Epistles written, He raised up a Paul. And Paul speaks the very phrase of God, and the folks obtain it. They don’t simply say, ‘We don’t must take heed to this.’ They obtain it as it’s: ‘the [very] phrase of God.’
“And Peter clarifies it when he says among the issues in Paul’s writings are ‘exhausting to know’ (2 Peter 3:16 NIV). However he says the best way through which this complete factor works is that males have been moved by God. The ‘prophecy of Scripture’ by no means ‘took place by the prophet’s personal interpretation. For prophecy by no means had its origin within the will of man, however males spoke from God as they have been carried alongside by the Holy Spirit’ (2 Peter 1:20–21 NIV 1984). That doesn’t imply that they mentioned sure issues, after which God breathed life into these issues that they mentioned, however it’s that as God breathed out, He breathed out by way of the very instrumentation of those that have been the authors of His Phrase and of Scripture—and that’s true in each the Outdated Testomony and the New Testomony.”
