Other examples are prophets speaking all the words of the Lord and God putting words in a prophet’s mouth. Amos said that you are compelled to prophesy when God speaks to you, and Jeremiah was commanded to stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s house and tell the people everything God commanded him to tell without omitting anything.243 Jeremiah did not want to be a prophet because he was only a youth who didn’t know how to speak, but God touched his mouth and put words in his mouth (Jeremiah 1:4–11). He was beaten and put in the stocks (20:1–4), threatened with death (26:8,11,24), imprisoned (32: 2, 37:15), and dumped in a miry cistern to die because of his unwelcome prophecies, but which he escaped from (Chapter 38). Some writers were moved to speak by the Holy Spirit such as David, as God’s word was on his tongue.

This idea is well summed up by Peter when he said that scripture came from God through the Holy Spirit of God and not through the will of man. Paul summed up the Old Testament by saying that all scripture and its prophecies are inspired by God,246 where the Greek word for “inspired” means “God-breathed.” Jesus believed the Old Testament to be the indestructible Word of God and used the same phrase, “The Word of God”, when referring to certain Old Testament passages. In fact Jesus charged the Pharisees with replacing the commandments of God with their own tradition so that they were guilty of invalidating the Word of God.

For Jesus the scriptures were fully authoritative and therefore couldn’t be broken. In the New Testament Paul referred to his message as the word of God and it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Peter refers to Paul’s writing as “scripture.” Jesus promised inspiration to his disciples as the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth and help them to remember what Jesus had told them.