What is Inerrancy?

1. The terms Inspiration, Infallibility, and Inerrancy are all related.
   
   
2. Inspiration means “breathed out by God,” “What comes from God Himself” ( 2 Tim. 3:16-17).
   
   
3. Infallibility means “What has divine authority,” “What cannot be broken” (John 10:34-35)
   
   
4. Inerrancy means “What is without error,” “Wholly true”
   • What is inspired is infallible, since inspired means to be breathed out by God, and what is God-breathed cannot be in error
   • What is fallible, since it has divine authority, must also be inerrant—a divinely authoritative error is a contradiction in terms
   • Not everything inerrant is divinely authoritative (a phone book can be without error)
   • Inerrancy is implied in a proper understanding of infallibility, but infallibility does not follow from inerrancy
   • When we speak about the inerrancy (or errorlessness) of the Bible we mean that it is actually and factually correct in whatever it affirms. There are no mistakes or incorrect statements in the Bible. That is to say, whatever the Bible says is true, is true; and whatever the Bible says is false, is false.