Affirming the inerrancy of Scripture is not just a theological detail. It’s a declaration of trust in God’s character and God’s promises. Inerrancy assures us that what God said, he meant, and what he promised, he will fulfill. The unbreakable Word of God is our unshakable foundation. On this rock we will not be moved.

Are there errors, inaccuracies, and mistakes in the Bible? Can we trust everything the text affirms, or is it riddled with missteps, ethical flaws, and antiquated morality? Jesus said, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).^[1] Was he wrong? Can Scripture err?

Nowadays, many think so. A surprising number of Christians—including pastors and influential theologians—reject Scripture’s complete accuracy, reliability, and veracity. Simply put, the Bible is not inerrant, they say. It is not without error.

The question of Scripture’s accuracy and reliability hinges on the answer to a single question: “What kind of book is the Bible?” The Bible is either a book written by men about God, or it’s a book authored (ultimately) by God and given to men. Those are the alternatives. If the former, it’s prone to all the errors, flaws, and misguided opinions that humans are prone to. If the latter, then that changes everything.

What Is Inerrancy?

Simply put, inerrancy means “without error.” If the Bible is inerrant, it cannot be wrong in anything its authors intended to communicate.^[2] More formally, biblical inerrancy is the view that the Bible, in its original manuscripts, is without fault or flaw in any and all of its teachings because God’s Spirit is its author. Thus, Scripture tells the truth in everything it asserts, whether in doctrine, history, science, geography, or morality. One author put it this way:

The Bible is a trustworthy communication by Spirit-guided interpreters and is true in all it intends to teach. Its statements convey what is factual given its literary conventions; its record is faithful and reliable. This includes all its individual parts as well as its overall message.^[3]

Note the reference in this definition to “literary conventions” and to “Spirit-guided interpreters.”

Since truth is communicated in different ways with different types of writing, genre and grammar matter. The standard methods for interpreting accurately, then, will vary with the kind of material being read. Poetry, for example, does not convey the same kinds of facts as historical narrative. Proverbs do not deliver airtight promises, but rather generalizations about how life works. Apocalyptic literature uses exotic imagery to convey theological truth.

The Spirit also aids in our understanding. In my view, the Spirit does not provide the meaning of the text, strictly speaking. The words and the grammar do that. Even a non-Christian can get the basic meaning simply by paying attention to the language, the sentence structure, and the context. The Spirit conveys the significance of the meaning, not the meaning itself. A non-believer can discover that the text teaches, for example, the deity of Christ, yet he is unmoved. The Christian sees the same teaching in the same text and worships.

A Word of Warning

The question of biblical inerrancy is an in-house discussion among Christians who are already convinced the Bible is God’s Word in some sense. It’s not a good idea to grapple with skeptics on this issue. Here’s why.

Trying to persuade outsiders that the Bible makes no mistakes in anything it asserts often triggers from the skeptic an avalanche of alleged contradictions. If the believer cannot convincingly meet that challenge—and few can—he’ll be stonewalled, unable to move forward with a more vital concern: a clear, persuasive proclamation of the gospel. Even a single apparent discrepancy raised by a naysayer can be enough to short-circuit that process, potentially undermining any further attempt to reason with him from Scripture.

The early Christians did not engage this way. Before the New Testament was even assembled, Peter, Paul, and the others made no claims of authority for either their speaking or their writing when doing evangelism. They made no appeals to inerrant texts in order to entice listeners to take their words seriously.^[4]

The disciples’ message was simple. Jesus the Messiah was crucified and raised from the dead as a fact of history—“to which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32). He died and rose again for a reason: rescue. Trust in him, and be saved from damnation. Ignore him, and face the wrath of God.^[5] That was it.

In the same way, when we are pressed about the text, our reponse with outsiders should focus on its historical reliability, not its divine inspiration.

Does Inerrancy Matter?

Does it matter if every word of Scripture is flawless? After all, the libraries of the world overflow with tomes that are written by mere humans yet provide reliable truth about every issue under the sun. None need be perfect on every point to get important things right.

When it comes to the Bible, the simple answer is yes, inerrancy matters. When the issue is spiritual truth with eternal consequences, communicated to us by God himself, every detail matters.

Though the church at large has never formally affirmed inerrancy, from a practical perspective inerrancy was presumed as a necessity for all orthodox theology. Every theological doctrine that the church did formalize was based on its absolute confidence that God had spoken with complete authority through his Word. Without that confidence, the Bible’s entire theological framework loses integrity. Inerrancy protects the church in a number of ways.

First, inerrancy guarantees we have a trustworthy, authoritative revelation to help us follow God in every area of our lives.

If a GPS is unreliable, it won’t help a hiker navigate in the wild. In the same way, if Scripture contains errors, we can’t trust it to pilot us safely though the personal quagmires and theological tangles we encounter in life. Because God is perfect, though, his Word is perfect, too—a dependable source of truth to light our path and restore our souls (John 17:17; Ps. 119:105; Ps. 19:7).

Inerrancy guarantees we have a reliable foundation for all biblical teachings on salvation, theology, and morality. If Scripture is flawed, any doctrine can be reinterpreted in light of human reasoning or conveniently dismissed. Inerrancy, on the other hand, gives us confidence to follow Scripture wherever it leads us in all areas of life. Inerrancy, then, is the lighthouse that gives consistent guidance, keeping us from drifting into error and grounding us in the unwavering truth of God’s Word.

Second, inerrancy guarantees the truth of certain facts of history that are essential elements of God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

The call of Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) and the Exodus were chief redemptive acts in the history of the ancient Hebrews. In the New Testament, the historical truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a sine qua non of Christian theology. If the record of those events is unreliable, then the foundations for biblical faith crumble. Paul even said that if the resurrection of Christ were not a fact of history, our faith would be worthless, we would still be in our sins, and Christians should be pitied (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).

Third, inerrancy guards us against relativism.

In a world of shifting values and subjective standards, Scripture provides an unchanging benchmark for truth (Isa. 40:8; Matt. 24:35). When culture challenges biblical teaching, inerrancy anchors us firmly and confidently in Scripture’s enduring authority. If the Bible had errors, it could not provide that confidence. It might contain objective truth, like many books do, but it would not be the immutable standard of objective truth. Instead, subjective and shifting human opinion—relativism—would be the standard, not God’s self-revelation.

Finally, inerrancy provides a solid foundation for a safe, satisfying, and durable relationship with God.

A dependable text means we can trust the promises of God regardless of what life throws our way. Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), and, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). In Hebrews 13:5, God assures us, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” Because God’s Word is completely trustworthy, we have the assurance that God will cause every difficulty to work for our good as he uses each hardship to conform us to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29).

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