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Inspiration looked different for various Scriptures.

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you” (Jeremiah 30:2).

Christians believe the Bible is the Word of God, but we also acknowledge the role of human authors like Moses, King David, the Apostle Paul, and many others. How is the Bible both the Word of God and the product of human authors?

If we look carefully at Scripture, we can see that God used various ways to inspire Scripture. He wrote the Ten Commandments himself on tablets of stone. Other times, he dictated a prophecy or declaration which the human author was instructed to write down, verbatim. When King Jehoiakim destroyed the first copy of a prophecy from Jeremiah, God laughed at the rebellious king and reinspired it, telling Jeremiah to write it down again!

Most Scripture, however, was not dictated by God. Instead, God used the intellect, vocabulary, and reasoning of the human author, but the Holy Spirit superintended the process to ensure the final product was free of error and communicated exactly what God wanted it to. So for instance, historical books like Genesis, 1 Samuel, and the Gospel of John accurately convey what happened at various points in history, and Paul’s epistles give accurate teaching regarding how believers can live a life that is pleasing to God.

Sometimes, God even used the research skills of authors to compile preexisting records and testimony into a final product that is Scripture, even if the preexisting records were not. We can see this in 1 Chronicles where the compiler notes, “Now the records are ancient” (1 Chronicles 4:22).

The psalms are clearly the outpouring of the heart of the psalmist, but God ensured that they are a model of how believers can worship and commune with God in a variety of good and bad circumstances.

If God had wanted to, he could have dictated all of Scripture without using human authors. But just as he chooses to use believers to spread the gospel message to those who have not yet heard, he also chose to use human authors to compose and preserve his Word.

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-study/scripture-its-from-god/

Men will behave one way if they truly believe they were created by a God of infinite love who, nevertheless, holds them accountable for their attitudes, secret thoughts, and deeds on Earth and will either punish or reward them eternally after death. They will behave another way altogether if they think they were formed by blind forces that are impersonal and cannot judge, and that when they are dead, that is the end.

Court ruling kills atheist group’s lawsuit seeking to restrict college students’ religious rights

A federal court recently ended a four-year-old court battle waged by an atheist advocacy group seeking to reverse a Trump-era regulation barring universities from restricting students groups’ religious freedoms on college campuses.

The U.S. District Court for the District Court of Columbia on Jan. 15 ruled in favor of Trump’s 2020 “Free Inquiry Rule,” which allows student groups to have leaders who reflect the organization’s beliefs.

The Secular Student Alliance had sued Biden’s Department of Education in 2021 seeking to overturn the rule, arguing it is discriminatory.

“The rule gives religious student clubs the absolute right to use religion to discriminate while still receiving official university recognition and funding,” the alliance previously stated.

The court tossed the lawsuit after the education department admitted it had no plans for “publication of a final rule prior to the change in presidential administration on January 20, 2025.”

“We have a sense of freedom now, as if the wind is at our back,” said Corey Miller, president of Ratio Christi, a nationwide Christian campus apologetics ministry that had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the rule with the assistance of Alliance Defending Freedom.

“We can now have confidence that we’ll be treated fairly, inclusively, at the universities, which were largely started by Christians and for Christ,” Miller told The College Fix via email. “All we are asking for is equal freedom under the law. Sometimes we have to give continuing education to university administrators and remind them what the law of the land is.”

https://www.thecollegefix.com/court-ruling-kills-atheist-groups-lawsuit-seeking-to-restrict-college-students-religious-rights/

There are two extremes that the Church must continually face; either of which could prove fatal. Like driving down a road while punching in phone numbers on a cell phone it is easy to lose one’s concentration and veer off the center of the road. I almost hit the curb the other day doing that very thing.

The first extreme is for churches to start criticizing one another. There is no perfect church and we must remember Jesus’ prayer for unity that they all be one. If there was a perfect church it would not be perfect if we joined it. So, to argue about worship styles, music, how often we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or just how last day events are going to work out I think is hurtful to the church at large.

The other extreme that many Christians have fallen into is that we just mind our own business. We really don’t care what the church down the road teaches. After all, who are we to judge? Our job is to preach the truth and not worry about others. Right? This attitude of non-involvement allows false teachers to pull thousands, yes, millions, into cult and quasi-cult organizations which compromise the gospel which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Therefore, on the one hand we must be careful not to condemn other churches which have a different style of worship and differences in other peripheral beliefs, yet on the other hand, Scripture is clear that we must confront false teachers who compromise the basic fundamental of Christianity—the gospel of Christ.

If you compare the book of Galatians to Paul’s other books, it will become immediately evident that Paul considered the Galatian problem to be of greater magnitude than any other problem he addressed in any of his letters.

First, we note that there are no words of endearment. If one compares, for example, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we find that he addresses the Corinthians as “sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling” (1 Cor:1:2Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our LORD, both theirs and ours:
See All...). Paul goes on to commend them saying, “you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge (1 Cor:1:5That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
See All...). “you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor:1:7So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
See All..., 8). However we know that the church in Corinth was not very “saintly” in their behavior. There were factions, with jealousy and strife (1 Cor. 4). There was “immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife” (1 Cor. 5). The Corinthians were taking one another to court (1 Cor. 6). There was false teaching about marriage (1 Cor. 6) and the list goes on and on.

Yet Paul could call them “saints in Christ Jesus!” Why? Because the problem of the Corinthians was one of behavior, immaturity and misunderstanding and not a blatant compromise of the gospel. When writing to the Galatians, however, there are no words of assurance or endearment. There is no mention of “saints” anywhere in the book of Galatians. There are terms of endearment in all of Paul’s other letters but not here. Why?—Because of the magnitude of the problem! We can justly conclude that for Paul the problem is Galatia was much worse than the situation in Corinth.

Paul comes right to the point and tells the Galatians that they are teaching a false gospel. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal:1:6I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
See All...,7).

The Greek makes it very clear that the “gospel” the Galatian false teachers were promoting was a gospel of a totally different kind from the true gospel of Christ. Paul goes on in the strongest language to condemn anyone who would teach this false gospel. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” (Gal:1:8But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
See All..., 9)

Paul, why such strong, condemning language? Why?—Because of the magnitude of the problem!

—Dale Ratzlaff (1936–2024, Former Adventist Pastor and Founder, Life Assurance Ministries, for former Adventists).

[TBC: For the full article, here is the link:] https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2025/01/16/do-adventists-preach-another-gospel/