Truth Seeking: Bible Teaching

[0:00] hello my name is richard richard brown and i am a member of the church the congregation here at hern hill and it is my pleasure and privilege this morning to be speaking on the next in our series we are a dot dot dot church that's not to do with having a new web presence different the dots indicate a different thing we look at each week this week we are a truth seeking church it's good to speak truth it is good to learn truth it is good to sing truth we sang some truth earlier on that particularly struck home i might look funny but that's all right famously pontius pilate said what is truth if we've got three years of three or four lectures a week and a library full of books we might well be able to come up with some sort of answer to that fortunately that's not the scope of this sermon this morning and i'm hoping that we'll be looking at things in a slightly more practical way these days and i almost got sidetracked for far too long about looking at post-modernism and post-post-modernism and post-truth whereby in the modern world emotional and personal beliefs are becoming more and more important above objective facts hence someone like harry bringing out a book my truth because of his reality and the response the memorable response recollections may vary i'm going to go with a definition of truth that is truth is what is in accordance with facts fact or reality um cover a couple of volunteers please people with relatively good eyesight with or without glasses don't matter which uh just to help me with something i'd like you to come up to the platform please just to do something very briefly so you stand right over there i want you both please uh rob if you could close your eyes please fast worthy gentlemen okay to do this carefully okay i'm going to show you something i want you to look at that i want you to remember something about it okay not saying anything okay please keep your eyes now keep your eyes now i want you to open your eyes and have a look at that remember something about it please i'm going to ask each a question in a second about what you have just seen what did you see and what colour was the star what did you see you saw pink star and yet you saw the same thing with different perspectives thank you very much for making that i don't want to parade parade poor prince harry but you have to look at issues with more than just your own perspective to get the whole truth on something and if you are a truth-seeking person or we are a truth-seeking church we will need to draw on perspectives that are not just our own i'm going to be a bit facetious now and i think the two protagonists who um this might have affected neither of whom are here this week i'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing so ann if you could put the first slide up please anyone remember this question from last week anybody remember the oh remember the there were two answers were given what was the first answer given first answer was tindale and the second answer that was given as actually the true answer was bead i thought i wonder what the real answer is then so i went and had a look here are some more answers for this question was it who wrote the first english bible was it the venerable bead in around 7 30

[4:03] was it william tyndale in about 1535 miles coverdale at about the same time or john wycliffe in between the two bead and before the 16th century anybody want to have a guess now i've made it more complicated yes there is something to do with old modern and um medieval english in there but that's not the main thing that i felt so bead translated the book of john so he was the first person to translate something of the bible into english tyndale was the first to complete the new testament only he went back to the hebrew and greek coverdale did the first complete bible from the german and the latin and wycliffe did the new testament only so sometimes the answer depends on actually asking a fuller question and not just thinking that the question we're faced with has a simple answer the old testament was translated but the point here is that sometimes you ask a question and you get an answer uh right next slide next slide who first translated the complete bible into english from the original text okay that's a good question helen and i had thought about this and i'd forgotten i thought about it could someone please find out and let me know because in the limited time available to me i couldn't find an answer to that okay so please do come back to me if you manage to find out that answer all right where are we sometimes we can't find the truth because we don't ask the question in the right way or we may then require a lot of searching to find the full and most correct answer to our question um right i'm going to do an updated version um of uh something i've done previously before i do that um a number of years ago long long time ago i was a relatively young christian um and i was in conversation with somebody uh about some sort of i can't remember i cannot remember at all the details of what the the christian teaching or doctrine was that we were talking about as one does one as a student but he said something which i didn't think was actually true so i said to him if you can show it to me in the bible then i'll believe it and he couldn't so i knew i didn't have to believe it let's play a version of in the bible not in the bible who wants to be who wants to be a biblionaire okay so first one is moderation in all things is that in the bible yeah hand up if you think yes moderation in all things is in the bible okay don't be don't be shy stick your hand right up in the air no no demerit points here this morning okay who thinks it isn't okay the greek poet hesiod circa 700 bc observe due measure moderation is best in all things was the originator of that phrase god helps those who help themselves a very definite no in this okay more confident now algernon sydney in 1698 in discourses concerning government the love of money is the root of all evil oh got your hands up everyone with your hand up is wrong it is of course the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil but not the bible does not say all evil cleanliness is next to godliness so a bit more not so convinced by this one sir francis bacon uh back in 1605 three wise men no three gifts but we're not told how many wise men or kings were present seven deadly sins

[8:06] shaking your heads or shaking their heads anyone think the seven deadly sins are all mentioned in the bible aha yes thank you you see depends how you pose the question although lust sloth greed gluttony wrath envy and pride are all mentioned in the bible there is not a definitive list in the bible of anything called a deadly sin um and they are not specifically listed together either in any particular place pride comes before a fall who thinks pride comes before a fall is biblical pride comes before something does pride come before a fall do you think that's biblical pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall the lion shall lay down with the lamb the lion shall lie with the lamb who thinks that's a biblical phrase i was very pleased with this one last time i did this that it caught out our pastor at the time the wolf will live with the lamb the lion will do something lie down or make a make a home with the yearling okay the first challenge to all of us is how well do we actually know our bible i won't ask you to stick your hand up how many of you have managed to read from genesis chapter one all the way through to relevation revelation revelation is relevant but revelation the end of revelation every word in between not necessarily in order including chronicles another challenge for us it's important to know what's in the bible but it is sometimes also important to know actually what isn't in the bible we also need to decide what our attitude towards scripture is whether we believe that it is something on which we should hang all our teachings and our practices or whether it is just one part of our decision making about our practices whether the authority of scripture is final or actually we have modern scholarship and the authority of the church through the years to help us decide what is good what is bad what is right what is wrong and certainly modern biblical scholarship can help us in understanding the context of some of these things i can remember years ago again long time ago a preacher giving a sermon and they were talking about the gifts of the spirits and talking about speaking in tongues and the gifts of the spirit and he was saying that you could pick from a commentary that said every christian should speak in tongues and the gifts of the spirit should be manifest every time christians meet together he said or you could pick up a commentary that says the speaking in tongues and the gifts of the spirit finished stopped at the end of the new testament period and any of these manifestations these days are satanic or you could pick up a commentary that had any shade of opinion in between so it can be difficult to decide what is true on our own but it doesn't mean we should try it can be difficult as a group as a church to know what is truth but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try and find out okay so if we take up the position of saying that parts of the bible have got it wrong we cannot then say apart from the bits about jesus sorry let me read that again if we take up the position of saying that parts of the bible got it wrong we cannot then say apart from the bits about jesus there are only three realistic positions we can take believe it in full believe it in parts how do we decide which bits are true which aren't or just believe it is just a lot of stories that could be helpful to us and lots of churches and lots of church government get into all sorts of

[12:11] very difficult questions on deciding the authority of scripture the authority of the church all out of context now that's past the world is different the bible says some things about itself so i know it's a bit of a circular argument um but as for you timothy continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through jesus through faith in jesus christ so at the very least the scriptures are going to lead us towards salvation all scripture is god breathed even the difficult bits even the bits that seem to contradict itself even the bits that say stone and kill people useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of god may be thoroughly equipped for every good work and then the boraean the boraean jews boraean boraean jews they were a more noble character than those in thessalonica obviously so noble they didn't need a letter of their own from paul they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what paul said was true what they didn't do or were not told they did this they might have done but they were not told that they went away and listened to another preacher not told that they went and pick up as many different commentaries as they could find we're told they went back to the scriptures they examined them so then you just flick through and read them see oh is what that person said actually in there it was if it's actually in there is it actually true as well and they read them rebuke to self every day similarly for us if we hear a sermon or if we listen to something online and there are some very good preachers out there some very popular preachers out there who say some very good things but we should not accept what they say uncritically we should look at commentaries because they can be helpful and tell us things that we can't find in the scriptures that helps our understanding we should talk to other people who have greater wisdom and greater experience and maybe have put into practice some of these difficult scriptures that we read there are other types of truth as well there's political truth is a slogan actually a political truth there's public health truth there's educational truth particularly maybe in the matters of personal health and social and sexual education do we seek as christians to determine what is true and discern what is right or just the passing fad of the day do we slot into that because that's the easier way to work do we as individuals maybe shy away from personal truths as well finding out what the truth really is challenges our thinking sometimes our strongly held beliefs we find out we're wrong sometimes we avoid the truth because it requires us to take some action and it's easier not to do something or even more so it challenges us to change a habit sometimes the truth and learning the truth or the discovery of truth involves repentance we realize that something we've been doing is actually wrong sometimes discovering the truth particularly about someone close to us they involve forgiveness sometimes learning the truth about ourselves particularly if it's a physical truth can be hard because it leads to fear about what medical processes or surgeries or treatments

[16:10] I might have to go through the truth is in the bible I believe it the way to salvation through Jesus is found in the bible I believe it Jesus also said a couple of things about truth Jesus says I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me in John chapter 8 verse 32 Jesus says then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free we heard a reading at the beginning Jesus is the word Jesus is the word of truth Jesus and knowing him is the truth that will set us free and just going back Psalm 119 the longest psalm in the book in the Old Testament is all about the law the statues the ways the precepts the decrees that commands the word of God not the word of man scriptures in various places tell us to keep the law to keep the word to follow it to obey it live according to it to meditate on it and to delight in it however hard it is so I would encourage us to read the bible to find out what truth is in it if we don't understand it to find a book or a person that can help us understand it to be like the Bereans when we hear a sermon from up here to check out that what the preacher has said is really true and that all of us can live in the truth so that people can read our lives and look at us and see true lives and see that Jesus is not just a way but the way that Jesus is not just a truth but Jesus is the truth and that Jesus is not a dead old

[18:09] Jewish teacher but that Jesus is the life that we can live together now thank you thank you Richard a lot of truth in that I'd like us now just to spend some time just reflecting on what we've heard to see what it means where we take it from here pray about it just spend a few moments just reflecting just a verse from the first the Thessalonian can't speak now chapter 2 and he says and we also thank God continually because when you receive the word of God which you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word as it actually is the word of God which is indeed at work in you who believe that's the truth so we just pray Father that you will just continue to lead us to believe the truth believe in your word as we read your word thank you Lord Jesus we have a closing song which is again a prayer

[19:15] Jesus be the center gonna know be the master Amen if you don't believe in your word what is where you are he is in your word slash scripture and the third idea