Scripture (Click "scripture" for audio access)
"The Bible"
• 1.19.12 •
Thursday Night Bible Study, Calvary Christian Fellowship
Intro.
- Last week,
looking at the wonderful doctrine of Salvation, I quoted or referenced 18
passages from the Bible. With seven pages of text, those passages comprised
more than half of my message.
- Frankly, I
could have quoted double that amount and only scratched the surface!
- On an average
Thursday or Sunday, our goal as a fellowship is to spend the majority of our
time studying passages from the Bible, to the tune of 35-45 verses at a
setting.
- The Bible is
the center of Calvary Christian Fellowship and is indeed the center of all
Christian life. Let me give you a few facts about the Bible that you hold in
your hands.
- The earliest
chapters were penned in 1500B.C. by Moses, the final chapters written by the
Apostle John in 100A.D.
- In between,
38 different authors penned various books over 1600 years. Some books were
written by Kings, some by peasants, some by doctors and some by fishermen!
- Books were
written during times of war and peace. Some were written at the height of joy
and celebration, while others were written in times of unbelieveable despair.
- Among the 66
books of the bible, there are about 8,000 predictive prophecies, of which 3,268
have been fulfilled, the rest are currently unfulfilled.
- The Bible is
universally accepted as the bestselling book of all time which is fitting
considering that it was the first book ever printed by Gutenberg in 1456 in
Germany.
- Most best
seller lists assume that the Bible is the best selling book and gives the next
best selling book. Really, #1 is actually #2! Here's a staggering quote for
you.
˚
"...as of 2007 approximately 7.5
billion Bibles have been distributed throughout world—with the vast majority
still available for use! And these figures do not include the various digital
versions of the Bible being used today by millions on computers, Blackberries
and iPhones. Currently, the complete Bible has been published in over 450
languages. Consider what this means....With the world’s population approaching
six billion, there is approximately one Bible for every living person on Earth!"[i]
-
That quote deals with the Bible as books and on mobile devices. Think about
other mediums that have been employed to promote the bible, ie, movies, dramas,
etc.
-
Truly, we are talking about a staggering amount of Biblical information in the
world today.
-
Sadly, if 90% of humanity owns a Bible, it's been said that only 20% actually
read it! Some of that can be owned by the fact that there are people who own
Bibles who are not saved.
-
Some have a very difficult time getting through certain books of the Bible and
quit. Some of this has to do with our country's ADHD, which is fueled by a
massive entertainment industry.
-
That all being said, to someone who belongs to Christ finds the Bible
indispensable! Every Christian knows that this book will radically transform
any life that will submit to it!
-
With that as our introduction, we'll begin with what the Bible is. Please turn
to Genesis 1.
Text
• Genesis
1:1-4 : "In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the
waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light." : Two things stand out immediately on the very
first page of scripture. First, take note of where it begins: The Beginning!
- The first
chapter of Genesis involves a period of time devoid of human observation. God
began to create on this planet earth before anything was in place or anyone was
around to view it.
- The Creation
Epic is just one of dozens of stories that take place outside of human
experience, some which occur in heaven, some before Earth was created and some
in the future.
- For example,
Satan's inquiry into the life of Job, (Job
1) Satan's fall, (Ezekiel 28)
the Counsel of the Trinity before Babel (Genesis
11), and any communication about hell or heaven.
- As a result,
the Bible, fundamentally speaking, is revelation from God. He is revealing His
acts, His character and the basis of His requirements for relationship.
- Apart from
the Bible, we would know nothing about any of these essential topics!
- This first
verse reveals to us the power of God over His creation, and the power which
brings things to form where there was once nothing!
- This first
verse reveals to us that God is the one creating, the Spirit of God is hovering
and it's revealed in John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16, that Jesus was
involved in the creation of the world.
- Imagine what
we would "know" if God did not reveal Himself? How could we know
anything about Him? We would have a designed planetary system, but not a person
to attribute it to!
- The system itself
general revelation of God, which speaks clearly (Psalm 19:1) being that design presupposes a designer, but to know
the One who designed it requires "special revelation."
- God is
transcendant, dwelling outside of the system that He created for human beings,
far beyond our ability to comprehend Him.
- Turn over to Isaiah 55. Listen to the words of God
that He speaks in this regard.
• Isaiah
55:8,9 : "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor
are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your
thoughts. " : The revelatory nature of God's Word
opens that door wide for us. One of the first methods of His revealing Himself
is found in Isaiah 55:8 and here in Genesis 1:4: "Then God said."
- The God of
the Bible speaks! He is not silent, but chooses to communicate verbally. In the
case of Genesis 1:4, God issues a
decree and what He desires is accomplished.
- But it is
telling that He speaks and men were recipients of His direct communication! How
does this work? Turn over to II Timothy
3. Paul tells Timothy about the necessity of scripture.
• II
Timothy 3:16,17 : "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that
the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." :
The word "inspiration" is what is important here. It literally
means "God breathed!" The word "scripture" comes from the
word "graphe" meaning, that which is written.
- That which
was written was breathed out by God employing human authors. Let's take a look
at another verse in II Peter 1.
• II
Peter 1:19-21 : "And so we have the prophetic word confirmed,
which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day
dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no
prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came
by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by
the Holy Spirit." :These two sets
of verses speak to the process that scholars call "Verbal Plenary
Inspiration."
˚ "Verbal Plenary Inspiration' means 'God the Holy Spirit so
supernaturally directed the human writers of Scripture that, without waiving
their intelligence, their individuality, their personal feelings, their
literary style, or any other human factor of expression, His Complete and
Coherent Message to mankind was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original
languages of Scripture: the very words bearing the Authority of Divine
Authorship."[ii]
- What you have
in front of you was penned by human beings, but the heart and content of the
message therein finds it's origin in the Divine Being! Scripture is inspired by
God.
- Turn to Jeremiah 1. Jeremiah is worried about
speaking. Here is one good example of God's promise to speak through His
prophets.
• Jeremiah
1:7-9 : "But the Lord said to me: 'Do not say, ‘I am a
youth,’ For you shall go to all to
whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid
of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you,' says the Lord. Then the Lord
put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have
put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and
over the kingdoms, To root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To
build and to plant.'" : Aside from
that which was spoken and then written down, God also wrote things down Himself,
such as the first copy of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 31:18)!
- Whatever God
inspired and had written down through human vehicles, we as Christians today
claim that to be inerrant, in terms of the original documents.
˚ "Inerrancy, or infallibility, means that when all the facts are
known, the Bible, in the original autographs, when properly interpreted, will
prove itself to be without error in all matters that it covers. These include
areas of theology, history, science, and all other disciplines of knowledge."[iii]
Don Stewart
- God is a
communicator and it's obvious that the Bible claims His authorship. How can we
be assured that we have a reliable copy today?
- The Bible
that you hold today is based on copies of original documents. How can we know
that the copies are not wrong? The answer is astounding.
- There are
over 14,000 copies of the Old Testament and there are over 5,000 copies of the
New Testament. That is an overwhelming amount.
- Just by way
of comparison, Tacitus was a popular historian who lived during the New
Testament era. His history, which I will quote from on occasion, has only 20
copies in existence!
- Those copies were
made 1,000 years after he wrote his history. By comparison, the Bible has
20,000 copies, some of those copies date from just about 30 years after Christ!
- We owe much
to the scribes who took extreme measures to copy from scroll to scroll. Jeremiah 8:8 mentions the scribes,
literally the counters, who counted every letter on every scroll!
˚ "Before he began his work
each day, the scribe would test his reed pen by dipping it in ink and writing
the name Amalek, then crossing it out (cf. Deut. 25:19). Then he would say, 'I
am writing the Torah in the name of its sanctity and the name of God in its
sanctity.' The scribe would read a sentence in the manuscript he was copying,
repeat it aloud, and then write it. Each time he came to the name of God, he
would say, 'I am writing the name of God for the holiness of His name.' If he
made an error in writing God's name, he had to destroy the entire sheet of
papyrus or vellum that he was using. After the scribe finished copying a
particular book, he would count all of the words and letters it contained. Then
he checked this tally against the count for the manuscript that he was copying.
He counted the number of times a particular word occurred in the book, and he
noted the middle word and the middle letter in the book, comparing all of these
with his original. By making these careful checks, he hoped to avoid any
scribal errors."[iv]
- Of the 20,000
copies, there is a uniformity that is undeniable! There are so few deviations,
among that size of a group, one can only deduce the authority. Listen to this
quote from Ron Rhodes.
˚ "In the many thousands
of manuscript copies we possess of the New Testament, scholars have discovered
that there are some 150,000 "variants."This may seem like a
staggering figure to the uninformed mind. But to those who study the issue, the
numbers are not so damning as it may initially appear. Indeed, a look at the
hard evidence shows that the New Testament manuscripts are amazingly accurate
and trustworthy. To begin, we must emphasize that out of these 150,000
variants, 99 percent hold virtually no significance whatsoever. Many of these
variants simply involve a missing letter in a word; some involve reversing the
order of two words (such as 'Christ Jesus' instead of 'Jesus Christ'); some may
involve the absence of one or more insignificant words. Really, when all the
facts are put on the table, only about 50 of the variants have any real
significance - and even then, no doctrine of the Christian faith or any moral
commandment is effected by them. For more than ninety-nine percent of the cases
the original text can be reconstructed to a practical certainty. Even in the
few cases where some perplexity remains, this does not impinge on the meaning
of Scripture to the point of clouding a tenet of the faith or a mandate of life."[v]
-
Jesus said, and I'm not sure how one can miss this truth, that He came to
fulfill the law and not one jot or one tittle would pass before all was
fulfilled! (Matthew 5:18)
- Our next
question concerns the scope of that communication. What should the Bible
contain? What do we consider scripture and why?
- Christian
bibles contain the Old Testament and the New Testament. Catholic Bibles include
what is called the Apocrypha. Why are they not the same?
- Turn over to Luke 11. Jesus is in the middle of
rebuking the Pharisees for their hypocrisy.
• Luke
11:47-51 : "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the
prophets, and your fathers killed them. In fact, you bear witness that you
approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build
their tombs. Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets
and apostles, and some of them they
will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets which was shed
from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood
of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the
temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation." : What does this have to do with the Canon?
The stories of Abel and Zechariah cover the Old Testament as we have it today!
Jesus affirms it's authority.
- Additionally,
Jesus affirms certain stories within the Old Testament as having factually
taken place, quoting various scriptures.
- Jesus
believed in the creation epic (Mark
13:19), as well as the historicity of Adam (Matthew 19:4). Jesus believed in Noah's flood (Matthew 24:37-39) and in Jonah's fish! (Matthew 12:40)!
- Jesus
believed in the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness (John 3:14) as well as the manna that
God gave to them during their wandering (John
6:32).
- Jesus quotes
scripture, attributing the quotes to Mosaic authorship (Matthew 8:4, 19:8).
- There are
many more things that we can point to, the last of which I will save for the
next section, but suffice it to say, if there is a better authority than Jesus,
I can't think of who it is!
- As for the
Apocrypha, with the exception of the Book Of Enoch potentially quoted in the
book of Jude, there is no mention
whatsoever, of any book, in any of the New Testament books.
- Old Testament
authority is well documented, but what about the New? For the answer to that
question, turn over to II Peter 3.
Peter is telling the Christians about how they should live.
• II
Peter 3:14-16 : "Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these
things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and
consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved
brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also
in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things
hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own
destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." :
Peter affirms Paul's writing to have the same authority as the Old
Testament, calling Paul's writing scripture! The Apostles brought forth the
testimony given to them by Jesus Himself!
• Hebrews
1:1,2 : "God, who at various times and in various ways
spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has
appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;"
• I
John 1:1-4 : "That which was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and
our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested,
and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which
was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard
we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that
your joy may be full."
: At this point, one might say,
"How can we trust the Apostles?" To that I will simply answer this:
Would you die for a lie?
- Each Apostle
died a martyr's death, some in a very violent way.
- Peter and his
brother Andrew were both crucified, Peter upside down, Andrew on an X.
- John was
marooned on Patmos after surviving being boiled in oil. His brother James was
thrown off of the highest point of the temple, lived and then was beaten to
death.
- Mark was
dragged through Alexandria by horses until he died! Bartholomew was flayed to
death by a whip. Thomas was speared in India, Jude was killed by arrows.
- Barnabas was
stoned and then beheaded. James, Matthias and Paul were all also beheaded! Not
one died of natural causes. Not one died recanting their faith!
- We've looked
at what the Bible is, a revelation of God regarding His character and works,
and we've examined the basis of our trust in the finished product.
- We would be
remiss if we did not now finish with what the point of the Bible is! It's not
enough to know about God. God intends that we know Him through the scriptures,
being led to His Son.
- Turn over to Luke 24. Jesus has risen from death and
is now visiting with two depressed disciples who have not yet believed the
report. How did Jesus encourage them?
• Luke
24:25-27 : "Then He said to them, 'O foolish ones, and
slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?' And
beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself." : The entirety of the Bible is meant to
teach us about Jesus! The Old Testament presents Him in picture, the New
Testament in person.
- The Bible is
meant to lead you to understand, submit to and love Jesus Christ. Then, the
Bible becomes your standard for behavior in this world!
- We have
already looked at II Timothy 3, but
listen again to what the Bible is good for. It's profitable for "doctrine"
that is, what you believe about God.
- For "reproof" or a standard of measurement. The
Bible is to be used for correction, or for restoring something to a straight
standing position.
- Finally, for
the believer, the Bible is useful for instruction in righteousness being the
tutor that God has left us to teach us how to live like He did!
Conclusion
- Tonight, if
you are a new Christian, start reading the Bible beginning in Mark and start
getting to Bible study as often as you can to pick up the rest.
- If you are an
older Christian, make a practice of reading through the Bible at least once a
year and once you have done that, go back and look at major sections or great
chapters.
- The Bible is
our greatest gift from the Lord and our only weapon against the Devil and our
flesh! (Matthew 4:1-11 & Ephesians 6:10-17)
[i] http://www.biblestudy.org/beginner/why-are-there-so-many-bibles-in-the-world.html
[ii] http://www.brainout.net/VPI.htm
[iii] http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/stewart.cfm?ID=421
[iv] http://www.kenscustom.com/bible/authen.html
[v] http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Manuscript.html
"It's impossible to enslave mentally or socially a
bible reading people. The prinicples of the bible are the groundwork of human
freedom."
Horace
Greeley
"The existence of the bible as a book for the people is
the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt
to belittle it is a crime against humanity." Immanuel
Kant
"The Bible has been the Magna carta of the poor and the
oppressed. The human race is not in a position to dispense with it. Thomas
Huxley
"The Bible is no mere book, but its a living creature
with a power that conquers all who oppose it!" Napolean
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