Beginning of Essay
According to the Random House Dictionary, the word inspire means "to infuse an animating, quickening, or exalting influence into, or to communicate or suggest by a divine influence." This definition indicates, when applied to the scripture, that the stories and w ....

Middle of Essay
.... useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Here Timothy is relating a charge given to him by Paul. As a story that is being told, it can be easily inferred that Paul had confronted opposition to the belief that scripture was in fact inspired by God, and therefore valid. Using literary criticism allows us to stay on the surface of what is being said, and not necessarily have to dig behind it to find the true meaning (we'll leave that to historical criticism) and therefore by looking at the phrase "scripture is God-breathed" we can further say that G ....