There are three great doctrines that drive me as a Greek teacher. I was taught these foundational doctrines when I was a student at Talbot back in the 1970s. They have since become watersheds for me.
The first is revelation. The second is inspiration. And the third is illumination.
Revelation is God revealing his truth to man. Inspiration takes the next step. Inspiration is man's receiving and recording this divine truth in accurate form. If revelation is God making his truth known to us, inspiration is our recording truth so that it becomes graphē -- sacred Scripture. Finally, illumination is our understanding and application of divine truth to everyday life.
Revelation and inspiration have ceased. Illumination hasn't. It goes on and on. Our need as believers is not to find some new source of revelation. God is no longer giving revelation. He has, in fact, given us his word in written form as the Bible. And the Bible is totally without error. No one today has the ability to speak God's truth without error. This includes the most well-meaning teachers. They will make mistakes. But in the Bible we have the sure word of God. We have God's truth stated in written form. It is able to be read and studied and pondered and applied.
This is why, Greek student, you are studying the biblical languages. If there is anything that marks contemporary New Testament scholarship it is its murkiness. In fact, that is the word Peter uses in 2 Pet. 1:19 to describe the lack of clarity that characterized the false teachers and skeptical scoffers of his day. Peter counters them by directing his readers back to the "prophetic word" of God that was confirmed by his own eyewitness experience of the earthly Savior. In place of this prophetic word, the false teachers offered nothing but auchmēros -- an adjective meaning dark gloominess or murkiness. When applied metaphorically, the term evokes an image of truth that has been obscured by deceit and corruption. Only the light of Scripture pierces such gloom.
Certain New Testament scholars today deny the historicity of biblical events, contending that their approach to "genre" supports their gloomy conclusions. They argue that the biblical doctrine of inerrancy needs a facelift that would include the dehistoricization of texts. The unfortunate result is not merely the violation of Scripture but the implementation of unproven categories that negate the historicity of biblical narratives that clearly present themselves as factual. If the Gospels are redemptive history (and they are), they are still real history.
We either believe the claims of Jesus or we don't. What he said about the Scriptures is either false or true. If you think that holding to biblical inerrancy is optional, don't call yourself an evangelical. You are either for him or against him. I know that is brutally frank, but that's the truth. There is no neutrality.