If This Is True: Can We Trust The Bible

May 21st, 2023/Casey Middle School

Pray:

Title: Can We Trust The Bible?

The Goal:

To the skeptic, my hope is that after today you realize that the bible is no ordinary piece of historical literature, but that it is divinely inspired and holds the keys to the understanding of God, humanity, and the meaning of life.

To the believer that already accepts the Scriptures as authoritative, my hope is that you learn something new today that better equips you to both read and apply God’s Word in your personal life and share His Word with others.

Passage: 2 Timothy 3:14-17 CSB

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Main Points:

1. VALIDATION - “All Scripture is inspired by God”

   1. The universal belief of the church, up until the last couple centuries, has been that the bible is authoritative, infallible, and inerrant. We’ll define these terms in just a moment.

   2. What does the bible say about its own inspiration and authority?

      1. Paul - “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:16

      2. Peter - “No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” - 2 Peter 1:20-21

         1. Peter recognizes Paul’s writings as Scripture shortly after His death, as they were already recognized as Scripture by the church “just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures. - 2 Peter 3:15-16 3. Jesus - “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished.” - Matthew 5:17-18

         2. It was God given, down to the littlest detail. Jesus submitted to the Scripture because they declared the Father’s will.

         3. Question: “If you do not believe Jesus on this subject, then why would you believe anything else He has to say?” - David Campbell 4. Jesus - “If he called those to whom the word of God came ‘gods’—and the Scripture cannot be broken—” - John 10:35

         4. Matthew 4, Jesus responds to the enemy using Scripture to respond to the enemy trying to question and twist the Word of God.

            3. The Holy Spirit brought Jesus’ Teaching To Mind
               1. ““I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.” - John 14:25-26
               2. ““When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father —the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me.” - John 15:26
               3. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.” - John 16:13

         5. This is not talking about us today, He was referring to the apostles writing Scriptures, which happened.

         6. The Holy Spirit guarantees the preservation of the Scriptures. - David Campbell 4. The Apostles regarded their teaching as authoritative and binding
         7. “This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the word of God” - 1 Thessalonians 2:13

         8. “For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” - 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

            4. Testimony of the Church
               1. The early church held a high view of Scripture.
               2. Early church

         9. First century, Clement of Rome recognized Scripture as the “utterances of the Holy Spirit.”

         10. Second century, Athenagoras of Athens said “The Holy Spirit used the biblical writers as His instruments, like a flute player blows a flute.”
         11. Second century, Irenaeus, “The Scriptures are divine, they are perfect, they are uttered by God.”
         12. Second century, Clement of Alexandria “all Scripture spoke by the mouth of the Lord.”
         13. Third century, Origen described the old and new testament as divine and authored by God
         14. Fourth century, Athanasius described the Scriptures as sacred and inspired for defense of the truth.
         15. Jerome, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”
         16. Fifth century, Augustine described the Scriptures as written by the pen of the Spirit, and said that not one of its human authors erred in any respect in its wording. 3. Medieval Church 4. Reformation Church - Martin Luther and John Calvin held to the infallible and inerrant Word of God. 5. Post-Reformation Church - Formula of Concord (1577), Belgic Confession, John Wesley, Council of Trent, Pope Pius X, Lutheran, Arminian, Methodist, and Reformed.
             5. How we Got the Bible:

      3. Canon comes from the Greek word “kanon”, meaning a rule or a standard. It refers to the collection of the 27 books of the new testament and the 39 books of the old testament.

      4. The canon did not come about in some meeting of men and women that decided that these books are to be the completed bible, but rather, the core of these books was received as authoritative from the time of their writing, the rest were recognized over time, and all were carefully preserved as divine Scriptures till our current day.

         6. 3 Main Divisions in the Old Testament

      5. The Law

         1. Recognized as having divine authority when first received by God and recorded in His presence.

         2. All Scriptures point to the Law as having authority and being divinely inspired. 2. The Prophets

         3. There was universal agreement around 400 BC that the prophecy and inspiration had ceased.

         4. The first translation of the bible was the third century BC when it was translated into Greek. 3. The Writings

         5. Josephus, a jewish historian writing about AD 95 (Against Apion 1.8), says the Jewish Scriptures were a fixed set of 22 books that no one had dared add to or change. Meaning, all of the OT as we know it was already universally accepted as authoritative Scriptures at the time of Jesus. Even established 300 years prior to that, and possibly much further than that.

            7. Our view of Scripture determines our value of Scripture.
               1. If you believe that the Bible is a book of rules, then you probably wouldn’t place it very high on your priority list.
               2. If you believe the Bible has errors and can not be trusted, then you are probably not going to apply much of its principles.
               3. If you believe that the Bible is not relevant for today, then you're more likely going to turn to more current self help books over the Word of God.
               4. Question: It all really comes down to one question: Is the Bible the Word of God? If the answer is no, then it’s just another book. In your view it may have some good teachings that could improve your life, but it’s still just a book nonetheless. But if the answer is yes, then there’s nothing greater we could do with our lives than read, study, and know the Word of God.
            8. 40 different authors, on 3 different continents, in 3 different languages, at different eras of time, independently of one another, over the span of 1500 years, to write 66 books, all with perfect harmony, about 1 man, 1 messiah that would come to save the world.
            9. The Manuscripts

   3. Dead Sea Scrolls

      1. The Dead Sea Scrolls took our manuscripts from 900AD back to as early as about 250 BC. Beginning in 1947, more than 900 manuscripts were found in 11 caves of the barren hills. About 220 are Bible scrolls, with every Old Testament book except Esther represented.
      2. Between radiocarbon dating and the analysis of the language, dates back to approximately 250 years before Christ.

      3. The Isaiah scroll matches our text about 95 percent word for word, with mostly minor spelling and grammatical changes.

         11. Prophecy

      4. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies.

      5. If you want to look deeper at the probability of all of these prophecies being fulfilled in one man look up one estimate, by a man named Peter Stoner in his book “Science Speaks”. Peter Stoner was chairman of the mathematics and astronomy departments at Pasadena City College until 1953 when he moved to Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. There he served as chairman of the science division. It will blow your mind!

         12. New Testament Canon

      6. The records of Jesus and the apostolic writings

      7. The Disciples & Apostles

         1. According to early church tradition, most of the apostles died for the message.
         2. All of the New Testament was written by apostles and their close associates, including siblings of Jesus. 3. Before 140 AD, the letters of Paul and the Gospels were widely circulated around the early church and were received and considered authoritative. 4. 140-180 AD period, Justin Martyr in 150 AD was in agreement with the canon of the NT. 5. After 180 AD, Irenaeus, Muratorian Canon, Tertullian, and Origen. Athanasius in 367. After this the NT canon was widely settled.
            13. #1 Best Seller

      8. Guinness World Records has the Bible as the world’s best selling and most widely distributed book. The number of books sold is impossible to figure, but it is estimated that there have been 5-7 billion copies sold, with 80 million a year being printed as of the 21st century. (Non-fiction book that is…)

2. EXPOSITION - “teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness”

   1. Biblical Framework: Look for the AIM or CIT

      1. Biographical/My profile
      2. Historical/Context of my life
      3. Theological/Anthropology (Know the nature and character of God vs know nature and condition of the world)

      4. Practical/Theoretical (The difference of knowing and growing vs knowing and pondering)

         2. Hermeneutic - interpretation of Scripture
         3. Homiletic - preaching of Scripture

      5. Expositional Preaching, meaning, we exposit the ancient Word of God and present current practical ways we can apply that text in our everyday lives.

         4. How to see the Bible:

      6. Exegesis - extracting from the text

      7. Eisegesis - reading in to the text (I see me instead of Jesus)

      8. Illust: You can see the Word of God using either a magnifying glass or a mirror.

         5. Accountability to the Word

      9. The Holy Spirit

      10. Historical Confessions
      11. The Elders
      12. The church

3. MATURATION - “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

   1. The bible was not given for information, but transformation.

      1. The Bible is not a book of rules, although it does tell us how to live. It’s a beautiful love story of God’s redemptive plan for all humanity.
      2. This is a message of total transformation. Grace changes everything.
         2. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” - Hebrews 4:12 ESV
         3. Not only does the Word of God make us complete, but it equips us for every good work and brings about maturity of our faith.

Big Idea: Reading and studying the Word of God is not just a daily habit, it’s intentionally building a deeper relationship. Intentional and focused time to know God more and listen to what He’s saying to you. Relationship, relationship, relationship.

Walking Points:

1. Read

   1. Start now, start small, and stay faithful.
   2. Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. - Psalm 119:105
   3. The revelation of your words brings light and gives understanding to the inexperienced. - Psalm 119:130

   4. Variety of Bibles and Translations

   5. Memorize

   6. Respond

   7. James 1:22 (NLT) says “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.”

   8. There’s several practical ways you can follow through with obedience, but the one I’ve found to be most helpful is by writing out how you will obey either in the form of a prayer or “I will…” statement.

   9. Repeat

   10. Do it again.

   11. Illust: Working out and wanting gains