For almost a decade we’ve been going through the same thing after Christmas, but this year I decided we’re going to take a break. We’re going to continue on in Matthew – though not today – and when we get done with Matthew we might revisit our vision statement. But I would encourage you to take one of the brochures and look at it, just to see what the vision statement is. It might actually be something we can do in a bible study; to discuss those things more thoroughly and find out more about what the Lord wants from this place; this specific body of believers. So I encourage you to get one and look at it and maybe pray about that and see.
But today what I want to talk to you about is just the Scripture itself.
And I want you, like always at the start of the year, to read through the Bible the whole year. I can’t express enough how valuable and important that is to do. And to do it year after year after year. I get it; I understand the limits of time and some people’s struggle with reading itself — not just the Scripture, but reading any book at all. And so, listen to it. Do whatever it takes to get through the Scripture. I encourage you to do it.
Cherri, last year, found something called The Bible Project. She had already used that site for some other things, but realized they had a Bible reading plan. There are a lot of tools out there that can aide you in this, but I really encourage you to do it. It’s so important.
I was looking this morning at some statistical stuff: Nine out of ten households in the US have a Bible; and the average is three Bibles. So, some households have seven, some have one; but the average is three. Before I gave my life to the Lord, I had one at the head of my bed. Never read it, never opened it, never looked at it. But it was there. So it’s a part, maybe, of who we are and in almost any home you can find a Bible, somewhere.
One in five people have read through the Bible cover to cover. This kind of surprised me. I didn’t realize it would be that high. Eleven percent of those have done it one time. So only nine percent of the people have actually read through the Bible multiple times in their life. Fifty-three percent of the people in the USA have read little.
And then I got to Christian statistics. Of evangelicals, 49 percent read every day. That’s a pretty good number, but that’s awfully low when you think about what the Word is and how valuable it is. Of the people who read it, 17 percent were Catholic, 36 percent were Protestant.
In the Evangelical world, of which we are a part, we do seriously believe the Scripture is important even though we may look at it from different angles. Some of you may not see it as a perfect book, but you still see it as a book to be treasured and taken care of. Nonetheless, I encourage you by the grace of God to start reading through the Bible. It takes only three chapters a day (with four chapters for around 40 days) to get through it in a year.
And what I do every year –I have done something different for the last couple years and I’m going back to my old way – is to start in Genesis and read two chapters; then one chapter in Proverbs (and I end up going through Proverbs, Ecclesiastis, Song of Solomon, and Job) and then I read one chapter in the New Testament. Usually I actually read two chapters in the New Testament because I read through it at least two or three times a year.
And I don’t say that to brag, but to impress upon you how important I think it is that we all do it. I encourage you to do it. It’s so valuable to stay in the Word.
Every one of us has a set of beliefs that we have formed through our life from somewhere. And I know you may think to yourself, ‘These are my own beliefs that came from just me.’ They did not. They did not. They came from something you read, heard, or someone you knew. We tend to lay the Scripture aside sometimes and we let those other things work their way through us and we don’t actually get to the place where we’re willing to be changed because our own ideas and views become the high ideals, rather than letting the Scripture be the thing that forms us.
And I understand, as we’ve talked in Bible study and Sunday school, the Scripture can be misread, or simply interpreted differently. Someone can read a passage of Scripture and then another person can read that same passage and get something completely different. And then the person who is in the middle, who really wants the Word of God to be powerful, looks at that and thinks, ‘Man, you can put anything you want to hear in this.’ So the temptation then is to set the Scripture aside. And I would say to you: Instead of setting it aside, read it more! Press into it to find the truth. Because there are two things that lead us into truth. The first is the Holy Spirit, and the second is the Word of God. It’s a precious tool that the Lord has given us.
Timothy says it contains everything that pertains to life and godliness. [2 Peter 1:3] By the way, when people were asked what they thought of that verse, only around 30 percent declared it to be true. In my mind, everything important – that which pertains to life and godliness – is there. Will it teach you how to cook a hamburger? How to fish? Of course it won’t. It won’t teach you how to do heart surgery. That isn’t what it’s there for. Everything that is valuable, in a spiritual sense, comes from the Word of God. I believe there are 26 countries that have made the Scripture illegal in varying degrees, from punishments by fines and confiscation, to imprisonment and death. Like in North Korea; if you get caught with a single page of Scripture in North Korea, it could cost you your life. And that alone speaks something to the spiritual impact of the Scripture. For instance, I have no fear of somebody reading the Koran. If somebody wanted to read it, I have one upstairs in my office; I would let you read it. Because it’s not the truth. And so for somebody to read it, to me, is not valuable. But the Scripture is valuable because you’re going to take it and the Sprit of God is going to touch it. And so, when I think about countries like North Korea — they don’t want certain things to interfere with their atheism. They know that atheism is not able to stand on its own, so they insist that nothing come against it. The church has been guilty of that numerous times in her history – of refusing to allow certain opposing things. And I’ve never gone down that road; I think, ‘No, let’s put them side by side,’ and if you honestly want truth, there’s not a person in the world (who is sincerely searching) who, after reading the Scripture, will not come to the conclusion that Jesus is who He said He was. And I believe that with all my heart.
So, don’t forsake the Scripture just because it can be confusing or because it can be a book that can cause dissent.
I noticed in one of the studies they pointed out that between 1941 and 2009, the percentage of people who were reading Scripture was very consistent. It always hovered around 48 percent of the people. But since then it has started to go down quickly. Between 2009 and 2015, there was a huge drop in the number of people who actually read the Scripture, period. And honestly I think its just because the Scripture is the most assailed book in the world. Christianity is the most assailed religion in the world.
Just the other day I ran across a show on the history channel. In 2009 this man announced that he had the holding place of the bones of James; and there was an inscription on it that read, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” And this man had actually had it for a while before he made the announcement. He was arrested over this, for forgery, because they insisted that the words, “brother of Jesus” were forged onto this thing. After six years of a trial, they finally said they didn’t believe it was a forgery after all. He was assailed by Israel, because the Jews didn’t want it to be known; and the Catholic Church did not want that to be known, because they insist that Jesus did not have any brothers. And when he got through the trial part and was acquitted, the opposition went on to the idea that if James’ bones were in this thing, then Jesus’ bones were too. (Because that’s how families did burial back then) And therefore, they could say that at one time that thing had the bones of Jesus. Think about that, you guys. That would happen with no other religion but Christianity. Nobody takes those kinds of extremes to fight against other religions. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism – people do not fight like that against those religions.
So anyway, the Bible is the one Book we have. We do have the living Word of God dwelling inside of us, which assists us and causes us to look for truth, but the Spirit of God, in His great wisdom, has chosen to trust the Word of God to be the thing in which we would actually understand truth. In other words, you may get an idea in your head about Jesus Christ, and it has to flow through the Book before it has validity.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
“The word is very near you…” (Deut 30:14)
“He sent his word and healed them” (Ps 107:20)
“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your word.” (Ps 119:9)
“Forever O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.” (Ps 119:89)
“Your word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path.” (Ps 119:105)
“Every word of God is tested.” (Prov 30:5)
“Whatever word I speak will be performed” (Ez 12:25)
“The word of God is not imprisoned” (2 Tim 2:9)
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12)
The Scripture pronounces that it is the Book we need to model and hinge our lives around. In Amos 8:11:
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “
”When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of the Lord.
“People will stagger from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,
But they will not find it.”
So, God even pronounces a prophetic word that this Book we call the Scripture — the idea of God speaking to a people in a personal, dynamic way – that He is actually going to make that difficult and people will struggle to hear Him at all. Throughout history various people have declared, “this is that time” and just like many prophetic passages of Scripture, I think they’re right, yet there will continue to come other times of this kind of drought. I think someday there will be a time in which the Word of God really will be hidden from people in the sense that the world itself will be so disturbed and opposed to Christianity that finding a Bible or hearing it spoken of is going to be rare. So I mentioned to you all before the idea of making sure – especially kids and young adults; you’re in the prime of your memorization ability – to memorize large blocks of the Scripture; it is going to be so valuable to you. Especially if there comes a time when the Scripture is difficult to get, even in America. In our minds we think there’s no way that could possibly happen, but it has happened in many countries in which it wasn’t always that way. We just don’t know what lies ahead of us; but we do know it’s not going to be pro-Christ. Not from the world.
John, at least ten times, appeals to the Scripture saying, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” NT Wright and many other scholars make a point that Jesus was actually nourished on the Old Testament; it was the thing that sustained Him. We think of Jesus as being someone who came into the world bringing a New Covenant, and putting the Old behind Him. And there is truth in that, but at the same time, Christ Himself consistently went back to the Old Testament – that well from which He had imbibed His entire life. He found comfort in it; to the very end of His life, when His last words were part of Psalm 22. He consistently rested upon what the Scripture said about who He was and what His job was.
One of the passages I ran across is in Galatians 3:8 says, “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’” Think about what this is saying: The Scripture, as a living entity, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. This Scripture itself preached the gospel to Abraham saying “all the nations will be blessed in you.” What an amazing thing to think about! The Scripture, in and of itself, has life. It is a living entity; able to proclaim the gospel to Abraham long before the gospel came to the world. And how valuable it is to grab hold of those kinds of things to encourage us.
2 Timothy 3:16 says “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness…” and Rom 15:4, “…through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Just a few quick things on the canon itself: Some of you maybe have looked at the canon and how it came to be — rather the New Testament and how it came to be, how it was formed. And if you have, you probably were disturbed by it. Most likely because God, in His wisdom, has always allowed men to be the ones He used to form things. And men come with all kinds of sin issues. And so, in the world of “canon formation,” they fought with one another, they called each other names, and they bickered and did all kinds of ugly things to one another to try to get into the canon the things each man thought were important. And so, again, we read those kinds of things and dismiss its power because sinful man laid hands on it. But is this really man’s thing? Or is God wise enough to use fallen man to procure this Book; which, in its entirety, forms a single message: Jesus is on His way.
It was written over a 1,500-year span, through 40 generations. It has more than 40 authors; kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, etc. They all embody various aspects of their culture and life. It was written in three different continents and in different times; in three languages. And yet, it’s harmonious in its message of God’s redemption of man. Especially as you read it over and over, you will see more and more of this central message being realized in the Scripture, both Old and New Testaments.
The word canon itself means “a standard or a measuring rod.” It has come to mean in our culture, “an officially accepted list of books” Of course, somebody was asked about this long ago (probably one of the old saints) and he said, “Canonicity is determined or fixed authoritatively by God. It is merely discovered by men.”
God had Paul, for instance, write Philippians, which eventually became part of our canon. We know for sure that Paul wrote other books that no longer exist; they are gone from history. But the books that God intended to remain in history and be put in the Bible – those made it through.
And by the way, this is how they decided what belonged in the canon: they had a five-point test.
First of all, is it authoritative (is there anything in this book in which it could be said, “thus saith the Lord”)?
Secondly, is there a prophetic element (was it written by a man of God)? Because there was no one outside of the church who wrote a book that was included.
Thirdly, is it authentic? This is crucial. They had a rule of thumb that went, “If in doubt, throw it out.” If the men could not find agreement, it was gone. But that didn’t mean only the books that caused no disagreement came in. Martin Luther, for instance, didn’t like the book of James, and not really Hebrews either. He didn’t want James to be in his Bible, but He put it in there when he translated it, because he trusted the validity of the canon as it had already been compiled.
Fourth, is it dynamic (does it have the life-transforming power of God in it)?
Lastly, was it received, collected, read, and used?
[By the way, the idea of someone being a “theologian” is fairly new. If you go back to Turtilian, or some of the old saints back in the 300s, 200s, 100s – those men would not have considered themselves theologians at all. They would have considered themselves to be Bible teachers. A theologian can be a Bible critic; many theologians discount the entire Word of God as being invalid. So, back then, they considered themselves to be Bible teachers. They loved the Word of God and believed it to actually be His inspired message to us, so they took those things and ran with it.]
There are 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 10,000 Latin vulgates, which would be early versions of the Old Testament. Basically the church has 24,000 manuscripts (or partial manuscripts) of the Scripture. Nothing – nothing – comes close to that. If we’re going to get technical, the second place document is the Iliad by Homer. It has 653 surviving manuscripts. That is incredible! As a matter of fact, the Iliad’s (of which nobody questions) first complete preserved text is from the 13th century, and the earliest copy of any part of it was made 500 years after Homer died. And yet we accept as fact that Homer wrote it. With the Scripture, on the other hand, the earliest copy that we have is only 25 years after its original time. And so the Scripture has an overwhelming amount of evidence that purports it to be the Word of God that we believe it is.
This morning during worship, I remembered this document, so I went upstairs to my office and found it. I’m going to read two things from it.
Years ago I had asked Joel Barrere to write out a more thorough statement of beliefs for our church than we currently had. He did, and I sent back some corrections, and then they ended up moving and everything kind of fell apart. We were going to actually use this as our church’s statement of beliefs, but it is long, so we went with a shorter version. Concerning the Bible, this is what Joel Barrere wrote – this is good. (And if you remember Joel, you’ll definitely hear him in this):
THE BIBLE is the living, inspired word of God, in both Old and New Testaments. We find the Old Testament affirmed through the witness of Jesus Christ Himself, as well as His apostles, by their constant references to them, along with the affirming statement, "All Scripture is God-breathed". [2 Timothy 3:16] We find the New Testament affirmed through the Lord Jesus, who assured that the Spirit of Truth would come and guide the disciples into all truth, and remind them of all things He had said to them, even continuing to teach them the rest of the things He had to say to them but that they could not yet bear. Only the Apostle Paul and Luke, of all the New Testament writers, were not among the original apostles; but, their testimony is confirmed through the absolute rigid consistency of their message with all of the other New Testament writers and the Lord Jesus' teachings; as well as Peter's affirmation of Paul and his writings, and the fact that Luke was Paul's close companion for a large part of his ministry and was attested to be faithful.
Here is the part I really want you all to hear:
Perhaps more persuasive than any intellectual line of justification for the authenticity of the Bible is the ongoing witness of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Truth – to its life-giving, edifying, life-changing power. We know that anyone who will approach it with child-like faith in its veracity and trustworthiness with will find it "God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness" [2 Timothy 3:16], making the man of God "adequate, equipped for every good work" [2 Timothy 3:17]. It will also produce for its sincere readers an unshakable love for it and its contents, causing them to cry with David, "How sweet are your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." [Psalm 119:103] Therefore we esteem all the precepts right concerning everything and say also with David, "Your word is very pure; therefore, your servant loves it." [Psalm 119:140]
And the second thing I wanted to read, which has a little bit to do with the Scripture but more along the lines of what Cherri talked about today regarding the body:
Thirdly, Brethren of any doctrinal position are welcome in our church body, and will be welcomed without reference to these matters. Sometimes the missing factor in our quest for truth is fellowship, and the sharpening of one another that occurs only in that context. We do not wish to convey the idea that any of us have arrived, but if we are seeking the Lord, we will arrive at the truth in every matter in time. May we arrive at it together. If God is willing, we will do just that.
We are in a quest for truth. Most all of you in this room, in some way, are coming to church with a quest for truth. You want to know more about Christianity or Christ or the church or fellowship, or heaven or hell or something. You want to consider thoroughly because you understand that your life is but a breath. Some understand this more than others, but you know that you only have so many years on this earth and you don’t want to waste it. You want the generations after you to be blessed through your life. All of you have this in you to some degree; otherwise, I don’t think you would be here. Because in this church, we’re not normal. You don’t stumble in here and stay in here without having a sincere love of the truth. So, by the grace of God we understand that this hunger we have will be met. Jesus promises this. If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled. If you seek Him, you will find Him. You will find Him. Jesus is there; to present Himself in whatever way you’re willing to receive Him at that moment in time, understanding that as you grow in the Lord, you will gain more insight into who He is.
Somebody recently said that the older they get, the less they know. I agree wholeheartedly. This is true about spiritual things, or anything. But at the same time, the older we get, the more we hope we are settled into the great mercy that God has given us. And in the Word of God He provides us a testament of not only what He has done, but how He did it and why, and what will happen because of it. So we, as saints of the Living God, have an opportunity to open the Scripture and learn to find Christ in it. And the first time you open the Old Testament you may struggle to find Jesus in it. You might struggle with the things it says, but the more you read and put it in the context of the New Covenant --who man is; who God is; who the Holy Spirit is and how the world is coming into shape – it begins to make sense in ways you’d never have believed before. And the New Testament, of course, speaks to us of Jesus full-on, all the time. From cover to cover, Old the New, I find Christ in everything in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament it is explicit, not implied. And I encourage you, by the grace of God, to open up your Bibles and read them.
Let this be a year that the Lord can speak to you in a unique and powerful way.
And I’ll tell you what; I read a lot of stuff outside the Scripture, but over the years I’ve learned to not trust anything that doesn’t speak from the Scripture. And I’m not saying that everything that doesn’t speak from the Scripture is wrong, but I will say that I can’t put my trust in those kinds of messages, and I have to consider more thoroughly what that man or woman has to say and how it relates to Scripture. Indeed, the Scripture will often say those very things a philosopher might say, but in a much more powerful way.
I just encourage you by the grace of God; you don’t have to put away your other books, but make sure this Book is first and foremost. When you get up and make a decision to open the Word every day, you may be super bored from time to time. Distracted. Mad. Discouraged. Frustrated. You may have trouble reading it for weeks at a time. But please don’t stop reading. Read the words – that’s your job. The Holy Spirit’s job is to make those words powerful within you. You can’t do that. Just put the Word in your mouth and heart and mind and let the Holy Spirit take those words and pronounce things you did not even know you knew; from the Scripture itself.