Friends, I'm going to read one additional text, and this will be the text that I will
be preaching on this morning.
It comes from 2 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 16.
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to
Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.
And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in
your hearts.
Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.
But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Well, let me say again, good morning.
I'm delighted that we can be here.
I'm delighted that we can spend some time talking about this very mysterious encounter that we
call the transfiguration and the implications of it.
This morning in the lectionary readings, we're actually going to be focusing on this reading
that you just heard from 2 Peter chapter 1, where Peter, who was a witness of the transfiguration,
talks about how that transformed his understanding of Jesus, of the word of Jesus, and all of the
words of Scripture.
So in a nutshell, we're going to be talking about spiritual authority as it comes to us through
the Scripture, so the authority of Scripture.
And I know that for some of us, the moment I say the word authority, that is a trigger
word.
That in general, we as a culture, and some of us for very good reason, we resist the idea
of authority.
We live in a culture that is very, very, very resistant to the idea of any authority in
our lives.
You know, we live in a culture that very much values something that has come to be known
as expressive individualism.
The right that we perceive ourselves to have to be true to ourselves, the fundamental right
we have to pursue what we desire above all else.
The idea that anyone or anything would presume to have the authority to tell us how to live
our lives, to tell us anything about who we are, is anathema.
So this morning, we're going to be talking about knowing that that's the context, the authority
of Scripture and how that works out in our lives.
And my hope is that over the course of the next few minutes, that we come to see not only
that Scripture has authority, but that that authority is actually good news, that it's
actually tremendously good news over and above what we might believe about authority and
its place in our lives.
So we're going to see that the best life, the most liberated, the most free life is actually
found under the authority of Scripture.
So we're going to answer three questions this morning as we look at the text.
Scriptural authority, why do we need it?
Why do we need it?
Where does it come from?
And then how does it work out in our lives?
Let's pray.
Lord, you have made yourself known.
You're a God who spoke all existence into being.
Lord, you spoke and there was light.
You spoke and there was land and sea.
You spoke and we came to be.
And now we pray that you would speak again.
Just as you at one time created all things, we pray that you would recreate us.
That you would breathe new life into us.
That you would remake us according to your word, Lord.
We pray that so that we would benefit, become more fully human.
We pray that so that you would be glorified.
We pray this in your son's holy name.
Amen.
So first of all, when it comes to biblical authority, scriptural authority, and our reaction may be this, why do we need it?
Why would it matter?
The reality is everyone lives under some form of authority.
Everyone answers to someone or something in their lives.
In traditional cultures, authority tends to rest with your family or your ancestors and the traditions that have been passed down to you.
Some of you may have come out of a more traditional culture, an Eastern culture where family and tradition matter most.
And you are strongly expected to honor the ways of your people, to be faithful to the traditions that have been passed down to you, to honor the ways of your family.
You live under the authority of family and tradition.
Everything else is meant to be subordinate to that in your life.
And if you break that, if you break from the traditions of your family, that's seen as heretical.
You're bringing dishonor to your family.
But, you know, most of us didn't grow up in a culture like that.
Most of us come from a more postmodern Western culture, which is in many ways the very opposite of what I just described.
If you think of a lot of the movies that we love, a lot of the stories that get told again and again in our society through books and movies and music,
the postmodern hero's journey is the person, the individual who has the courage to break from family tradition,
to break from mores and taboos, to break from the way things have always been done, and to forge their own new path.
To look within and to discern what is true for them, and then to have the courage to follow it out regardless of what it might cost them.
And we watch these stories, we read these stories, we absorb these stories, and it feels right to us because that's the authority that we are used to,
the authority of one's inner life, the authority of one's inner voice.
And so we love to think of ourselves as courageous heroes who forge our own path in the name of being free.
So people say, I am my own authority.
No one can tell me what to believe or how to live or who I am.
The question that I want to ask with all due respect is, how's that working out for you?
How's that working out for us as a society?
Are we truly as free as we believe ourselves to be?
I would suggest, number one, that I don't believe that we, and I'm including myself in this, are nearly as emotionally free as we might think we are.
When you say that you're your own authority, when you say that you want to be true to yourself and no one else,
how do you then go about deciding how to live?
How do you navigate your day-to-day life?
Life.
Most people end up following their feelings.
When we say, look within, what are you really, you're following how you feel.
You're following your desires somewhere.
So let's say we live that way for a while.
Where does that lead us?
Where do we end up?
Right?
What you find is that if you live that way for any amount of time,
if you're following those inner feelings and inclinations and desires,
they begin to lead you into certain things that start to take on greater and greater importance.
You start to come to depend on certain things.
Certain things start to be elevated until they start to become ultimate in your life.
You start to find things that you cannot live without or that you don't want to live without,
that life isn't worth living without.
Those things, in other words, start to become your master.
You start to live under the authority of these things.
Right?
So if you find yourself unable to stop eating the food that you know is unhealthy for you
and you're unable to force yourself consistently to eat the food that you know is healthy for you,
then perhaps food or certain kinds of food are becoming your master.
And you're not as free as you like to think to eat in ways that will allow you to live a healthy, fulfilled life
or to see your children graduate from high school.
Right?
If you can't stop losing your temper despite your best efforts,
you snap and you say hurtful things to the people that you love,
perhaps anger is beginning to be your master.
If you can't stop conforming to what other people expect of you,
if you can't say no when you really should say no,
if you can't have direct conflict with people but instead you go along to get along,
perhaps approval is starting to be your master.
If you can't stop working and put down your laptop and put down your smartphone for at least a few hours
or even maybe a whole day out of a seven-day week,
if you're working nights and weekends consistently,
maybe your career is starting to be your master.
If you can't stop hating the other political party and seeing them as subhuman,
right,
if you're filled with existential dread over the coming election,
maybe politics is starting to be your master.
If you can't stop scrolling on your smartphone,
then maybe dopamine is becoming your master.
You see the point I'm trying to make?
Live following those inner inclinations for any amount of time
and you will begin to find yourself seeding ground.
You won't be as free as you think you are.
One female writer put it this way,
whatever controls us is our Lord.
The person who seeks power is controlled by power.
The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by acceptance.
We do not control ourselves, she says.
We're controlled by the Lord of our lives.
So if we allow that inner world of feelings to lead us,
we will very quickly find ourselves
not free but actually something like a slave.
So we're not as emotionally free as we like to think.
I would also suggest, with all due respect,
that we're not as intellectually free as we like to think.
The unfortunate news is most of us are almost entirely defined
by the culture in which we live.
If you ask the average Westerner today,
what is life about?
You would probably hear something like what we've said,
that life is about being true to ourselves.
Life is about not letting any outside voice
like family or religion or social norms
tell you who you are, look within.
The thing we need to understand is
that would have sounded absurd to somebody
who was alive 500 years ago.
If you said that back then,
people would think that you were crazy.
Probably 100 to 200 years from now,
that idea will sound utterly absurd.
But in this particular cultural moment,
it seems to be the common sense answer
that everybody would say.
The thing that we need to understand is
these ideas themselves are the product
of certain influential thinkers who came before us,
who brought us to this particular moment in which we live.
People like Rousseau,
people like Darwin,
people like Sigmund Freud or Nietzsche
or Michel Foucault,
these European philosophers by and large
who brought about a certain movement,
a certain paradigm shift
that then got fed to us
in all kinds of cultural sound bites
until we absorbed it
and it became the common sense way to think.
To put a finer point on it,
if you say that you desire to be authentic
and true to yourself,
meaning you only want to live by the things
that authentically come from within you
and not any outside forces,
if that is your vision of life,
then that is itself inauthentic.
Right?
You've already failed at the task
because those ideas didn't come from within you.
They were fed to you from the outside.
In other words,
you're living your life according to the teachings
of a bunch of old, dead European white men.
I'm not sure you're being true to anything
inside yourself.
Right?
So what we need
is to recognize
that everyone lives under the authority
of someone or something.
And so the question is not
whether to live under the authority
of someone or something.
It's which authority
should I put myself under?
What is an authority
that will actually allow me
to be what I was created to be?
Allow me to live the life
that I was made to live?
To, in other words,
be truly free.
And this is what we see
in the Scriptures.
Every other source of authority
that we could talk about
comes from within the human condition.
It is a human-generated authority
and it has all of the limitations
that come with being human.
So they are all imperfect,
broken forms of authority.
This is why we have
so many abuses of authority
in our society.
But what we see here
is that the Scriptures
are utterly different.
So where does this authority come from
if it doesn't come from us?
2 Peter 1.
Peter says that the Scriptures
are utterly unique.
Unlike any other source
of authority out there,
and this is for at least two reasons.
Number one, he says
the Scriptures were written,
the New Testament in particular,
by eyewitnesses
of the Son of God.
When he says,
we did not follow
cleverly devised myths,
he's talking the we
is referring to Peter
and the other apostles.
We did not follow
cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says,
but we were eyewitnesses
of his majesty.
He's referring to himself
and the other authors
of the New Testament,
and he's referring to the fact
that the books
of the New Testament
were written by people
who either witnessed
Jesus,
his death,
his resurrection,
personally.
These are people
who knew Jesus,
who saw it happen,
and who wrote it down.
Or in some cases,
they were people
who recorded
all of the eyewitness accounts
they could.
They gathered them together
and wrote down
all of these accounts
as well as they could.
He's saying,
these are not things
that we heard,
these are not myths
that were handed down to us.
I saw with my own eyes
what I'm,
I'm just writing down
what I saw.
And he specifically references
the transfiguration,
which is very appropriate
for today,
which he personally witnessed,
where Jesus takes
three of his disciples,
Peter, James, and John,
up on a mountain,
and there Jesus
is transfigured,
and it is as though
for a moment
the veil is pulled back.
The veil is pulled back,
and they're allowed
for just a moment
to see Jesus
in his glory.
He becomes radiant,
and Elijah and Moses
appear standing
on either side of him,
and God speaks and says,
this is my beloved son.
Listen to him.
In other words,
he has authority.
Peter's saying,
this is not a myth.
We saw and heard
for ourselves
these things
that we're telling you.
And then number two,
the second reason
why the Scriptures
have authority
is that the Scriptures,
all of the Scriptures,
New and Old Testament,
were inspired
by the Holy Spirit.
He goes on
as though immediately,
it's as though
he's aware
of a possible objection
where people say,
okay, well,
you're eyewitnesses,
and you wrote
the New Testament,
great,
but what about
the Old Testament?
Does that mean
that the Jewish Scriptures
are rubbish,
and we should only
pay attention
to your letters?
And Peter says,
no.
No prophecy in Scripture
comes from
someone's own interpretation.
He's talking about
the prophets,
the Old Testament writers.
For no prophecy
was ever produced
by the will of man,
but men spoke from God
as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit.
And I love this.
It's referring to
what we commonly talk about
as the doctrine
of divine inspiration.
And there are a lot of people
who think of divine inspiration
in a kind of wooden way.
This idea that God
sort of is coming along
and He's like,
you know,
I've got something
I really want to say.
You.
Take this down.
And that the person
sort of is taken over
and all of a sudden
they just start writing
like a human word processor.
And then when God's done,
He says,
all right,
and they're kind of released
and then they kind of
go about their life.
That's not how it works at all.
It's much more human
to be totally honest.
Peter gives us
this wonderful way
of thinking about it.
Human beings
as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit.
The same word carried along
shows up in Acts chapter 27.
Paul and his companions
are in a boat
and they're in a boat
and they have in mind
the direction they want to go
and they're like,
let's go that way.
But there's a strong wind
and the wind blows them that way.
They have in mind
they want to go here
but the wind says
you're going to go this way.
And Paul says,
or Peter says,
this is how you can think
about the writing
of the scriptures.
Human authors
are like people in a boat.
Right?
They have their life.
They have their personality.
They have their personal agendas.
They have all of the things
that make them human beings.
And they have in mind
when they sit down
to write that letter
a direction
that they want to go.
And they put up their sail,
so to speak.
Right?
They're putting pen to papyrus.
But the Spirit of God
carries them along
in the direction
that God wants them to go.
And sets the true course
of their writing.
And what we see
is this incredible interplay
between the human
and the divine.
You have human beings
genuinely speaking
their own words
in ways that reflect
their family,
their culture,
their education,
their environment,
their personality quirks,
their temperament.
But the words
they use also
are just those words
that God wanted them
to use.
We talked about this
in our adult Sunday school
class this morning,
how even between
the gospel writers
you can see
vast differences.
The Greek
that Mark uses
is very abrupt.
It's very basic.
It's very immediately
this happened
and then immediately
this happened
and it's immediately
this happened.
Mark is very to the point.
He's very action oriented.
He doesn't have time
to waste with details.
He's just like this
and then this
and then boom.
That's Mark.
Luke is the most
educated writer
in the New Testament.
Incredibly highly educated
form of Greek
that he's using.
It's a completely different,
it's a completely
different experience.
Right?
Both fully human,
both working within
the limits
of their education,
both with their own
agendas and audiences.
Very different in form.
Both carried along
by the Holy Spirit.
Right?
In other words,
the Bible is just like Jesus.
It is fully human
and it is fully divine.
And we get into trouble
if we forget
either one of those things.
Right?
If we start to forget
that the Bible
is fully human
when there are differences,
say when there are
chronological differences
between one gospel
and another
and we say,
well did this happen
in the early
in Jesus' ministry
or later,
if you have a very
literal wooden
understanding of
divine inspiration,
you see something like that
and your faith starts
to fall apart.
Well this must not be inspired,
there's a contradiction here.
But if you understand
that these are fully
human writers
and that this author
may be very concerned
with chronological accuracy
and this author
isn't at all concerned
with chronology
because he's writing
thematically,
he loves the metaphors
and the imagery
and the double meanings,
you begin to say,
oh well these are just
two very different
human beings.
Just like I'm very different
from other people.
Likewise,
if we forget
the divine element,
it can be very easy
when we come across
a place in Scripture
that is troubling
or unsettling
or challenging
just to write it off
and say,
well this probably
wasn't even Paul
who wrote this.
I'm not even gonna.
It tends to be Paul
who angers people.
That's why I'm using
that example.
Well Paul clearly
just didn't write this
so we're just gonna
ignore that.
No, what he's saying
is every word
of Scripture
was written
as the prophets,
as the writers
were carried along
by the Holy Spirit.
Every word.
Not just the red letters.
All the letters.
So this is a source
of authority
that comes from
outside all human cultures
so it's not limited
by our bias.
It's not limited
by our blind spots.
It's not limited
by the particular
cultural moment
in which it was written
and yet it's been written
by a chorus
of human voices
so it's fully accessible
and understandable.
It's written by humans
for humans
which is incredible
but it's not limited
by humans.
And because this
unlike other sources
of authority
comes from outside us,
from outside the human condition,
from God himself,
it's meant to have
the final word
over all earthly forms
of authority.
Right?
So some other sources
of authority
might be tradition
as we said.
Might be science
and reason.
Might be your feelings
in your personal experiences.
All of these carry
certain amount of authority
and we should pay attention
to all of them.
But the scriptures
according to this
are meant to have
the final word
over all of these
other sources of authority
and thank God for that.
That is good news.
Why?
Well, we see examples
all through history
why this is good news.
When tradition,
when tradition dictated
in the Roman world
that life was about
personal power
and glory
and that if you were
poor or destitute
you were probably
getting what you deserved.
The scriptures
called people
to love
and to care
for the poor
and the vulnerable.
The scriptures
compelled people
in the subsequent centuries
to build hospitals
and orphanages.
It transformed
the western imagination
and how we think
about the poor
and the vulnerable.
That would not be
our first instinct
in this century
had it not been
for the authority
of the scriptures
2,000 years ago
overruling human tradition
and saying
this is the way
to be a human being.
It wouldn't have happened.
When science,
when science
during the enlightenment
created a hierarchy,
a racial taxonomy
that said
certain races
are evolutionarily
superior
over other races
and so it is beneficial
for those subhuman races
to have masters
and when
well-known scientists
were speaking
from the position
of science
and saying
this is what we've determined
through our scientific rigor,
the scripture said
no.
Every human being
is created
in the image of God
and therefore
no human being
can be the property
of another.
You know,
the first person
in history
that we know of
to directly challenge
slavery as an institution
was Gregory of Nyssa
in the fourth century.
He's looking at slavery
which is universally practiced.
He's looking at the scriptures.
He's looking at slavery
and he's looking at the scriptures
and he's saying
this doesn't add up
and he's choosing
to allow the scriptures
to have authority
over that institution.
So I say this
to say now
let's get a little personal.
In our lives
when society
is telling me
that I should be defined
by my feelings,
by my sexual desires,
by my inner inclinations,
that I should follow that
over and above
everything else,
the scriptures say
beloved,
no.
You're meant to be defined
by so much more
than that.
You've been created
by the God
of the universe.
He's made you
as an image
of His glory.
He's poured His Spirit
into you.
His desire for you
is that in everything you do
you bring glory to Him.
What greater purpose
could there be?
And I have a choice.
Which authority
do I allow
to be my ultimate authority
in telling me
who I am
or why I'm here?
Right?
So it's good news
that the scriptures
have authority.
Now how does this work out
in our lives?
What does it actually mean?
Peter says in verse 19,
the scriptures are like
a lamp illuminating
the darkness.
We live in a world
of darkness.
It's more than just
there's no light.
It means we can't think
our way out of our own problems.
Right?
Our thinking
has been darkened.
We can't get out
of this on our own.
We don't know
up from down,
right from left
on our own.
We need an orientation.
We need something
to show us
the way things really are.
That's what light does.
It shows you
the way things really are.
So God has given us
a lamp to live by.
Without it
we would be engulfed
in darkness.
So Peter's saying
the whole course
of our lives
needs to be governed
by scripture.
Every step we take
we want to make sure
that we are
allowing the scriptures
to illuminate the path.
Right?
One step at a time.
But how does that work?
Right?
Because here's the thing.
The Bible is not just
a list of things
to do and not do.
It's not just a list of
you know,
do this,
don't do that,
do this,
don't do that.
The Bible isn't
a list of doctrines.
Believe this,
don't believe that,
believe it.
Most of the Bible
comes to us
in the form of stories.
So how do you live
under the authority
of a story?
You go to the Ten Commandments
and you're like,
that's reasonably clear.
Some of the writings
of Paul,
pretty clear.
He exhorts us
to do this
and not to do that.
But how do you live
under the authority
of a parable?
How do you live
under the authority
of the book of Judges?
Have you ever read that book?
How do you live
under the authority
of that story?
So what do we do?
Right?
There are people
like the late
Rachel Held Evans
who write books
you know,
about living
by every word
of the Bible
and they sort of
take the Bible
and they draw out
all the rules they can
and they're funny
to read, right?
I think it's like
a year of biblical womanhood
I think.
And it's a fun read
because she sort of
takes this very
wooden approach
and so,
you know,
when Proverbs 31
says that
a woman's husband
is respected
at the city gate,
she goes out
to the highway
next to the entrance
to her town
and she holds up
a sign that says
Dan is awesome.
That's her husband's name
and it's funny
but obviously
that's not what
that passage means,
right?
She's taking a very
literal approach to it.
So how do we actually
do this?
Most of the time
what we do
is not too far
from what Evans did,
right?
We take these stories
and we extract
from them rules
or principles
to live by
and honestly,
preachers are among
the worst of sinners
when it comes to this.
It makes for a good sermon
to just say,
you know,
here's the application,
da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da,
right?
We extract it out.
But here's the problem
with that.
It's not that it's
totally wrong
but here's what
N.T. Wright says,
the New Testament scholar.
He says,
that whole approach
implies that we have somehow
that God has given us
the wrong kind of book
and it's like our job
to turn it into
the right kind of book.
It's like,
thanks God,
we'll take it from here
and we sort of turn it
into something
that we can actually use
and Wright says,
you know,
that's actually
a low view of Scripture.
A high view of Scripture
would ask,
how does someone
live under the authority
of a story?
How do we take the book
as it has been given to us
recognizing that there are
a lot of little stories
and they all make up
one big story
that goes from Genesis
to Revelation
and how do we live
under that story?
And so Wright goes on
to give us
this beautiful image.
He says,
imagine finding
an unfinished
Shakespearean play
and deciding
that you want
to perform it.
The script gives us
the first four acts.
The fifth act
is missing
and so it would be
up to us
if we want to perform
this play
to figure out
how to live out
and perform
that fifth
and final act.
And he says,
you know,
in order to do that
it's going to require
a couple of things,
continuity
and improvisation.
You have to
immerse yourself
so deeply
in those first four acts
that they just become
second nature to you.
You have to study
every word
until you're just
immersed in it,
until you can
channel it,
speak it effortlessly,
you're a part
of the story,
you're living in it.
And once you have
that continuity
then you would
have to improvise
because the fifth act
has not been written.
You would truly
have to improvise
but in a way
that maintains
continuity
with everything
that came before it.
And he says,
that's what we have
with the scriptures.
It's as though God
has given us
this four act play.
Right?
Act one,
creation.
Act two,
the fall.
Act three,
the story of Israel.
And all that they
were called to do
and all that they
failed to do.
Act four,
Jesus,
the true Israel
coming to do
what Israel
never could have
done for the world,
to bring God's
blessing to the nations.
And then we have
act five,
scene one.
The resurrected Jesus
commissions the church,
fills the church
with the Holy Spirit
fulfilling all of
those Old Testament
promises,
ascends to the throne
in heaven
and says,
now is the age
of the church
to go and to be
the hands and feet
of Christ filled
with the Holy Spirit
preaching and teaching
the gospel,
bringing healing
to the nations.
But it hasn't been
written.
Or more accurately,
it's being written
right now.
How do we do that?
Continuity
and improvisation.
We immerse ourselves
in the scriptures.
We have all the way up
through act five,
scene one.
And then we have
a little preview
of how it's going to end
all the way over here
in Revelation.
Revelation.
Somehow,
between here and there,
all of the heavens
and the earth
will be joined together.
Everything will be
made new.
There will be
no more tears.
There will be
no more death
or suffering
or injustice.
The King of the universe
himself will come
and dwell in the midst
of his people.
There will not even
be a need for lights
because the glory
of the Lord
will illuminate it all.
So somehow here
in the midst
of all of this
suffering and uncertainty
and injustice
and struggle
and strife,
somehow we get
from here to there.
So we know
where it's going.
So what does this
look like in here?
That's how we
immerse ourselves
in the story
of scripture
so that we can live
under the authority
of scripture.
And we say,
well, how could we
possibly do that?
And I think
if Peter were here,
he would say,
just as the Holy Spirit
carried the authors
along as they
wrote the scriptures,
so you should trust
that the Holy Spirit
will carry you along
as you seek to live out
the authority of scripture.
Final question
as we come to a close.
As we consider
all of this,
why in the world
would any sane person
allow an ancient book
written thousands
of years ago
to have the true
final say
over every aspect
of our lives?
And verse 19
shows us
there's only really
one reason
why you would be
crazy enough
to do that.
And that's
if you are someone
in whose heart
the morning star
is rising.
The morning star
is a reference
to Venus,
you know,
because when you
could see Venus
in the ancient world,
Venus was a sign
that dawn
was not far off.
You see Venus
and you knew
dawn was coming.
Peter's using this
as a metaphor
for Jesus Christ
rising in the hearts
of his people.
Right?
We don't believe
in Jesus
because of the Bible.
We believe in the Bible
because of Jesus.
And we've encountered
Jesus
and we see
the reality
of the resurrection.
We recognize
he's the most important person
who has ever lived
that when he gives
his life for us
that that kind of love
cannot be found
anywhere else
and we give ourselves
to him.
And then we say,
well,
how do I live
the way Jesus
calls me to live?
And the plain truth is
no one held
a higher view
of Scripture
than Jesus himself.
In the wilderness
when Jesus
is being tempted
by the devil,
he responds
by quoting
from the Scriptures,
Deuteronomy 8.
You know,
man does not live
by bread alone
but by every word
that comes
from the mouth
of the Lord.
He viewed all Scripture
as coming
from the mouth
of the Lord.
You know,
Jesus knew
the Scriptures
by heart.
He quoted
the Scriptures
throughout his
entire ministry
and there are
so many places
where he says
this needs to happen
in order that
the Scriptures
might be fulfilled.
If this doesn't happen
then how could
the Scriptures
be fulfilled?
That was his
chief concern.
His words
as he hung there
dying on the cross
were not simply
his words
in the moment.
He's quoting Scripture.
Scripture.
So this is how
Jesus viewed the Bible
and the hard truth is
if we don't like that
then we need to
take it up with him.
Because saying
that you believe
in and follow Jesus
but then rejecting
the authority
of Scripture
that's not possible.
So Jesus himself
tells us why Scripture
is such good news.
He says this in John 8,
If you abide in my word
you are truly my disciples
and you will know
the truth
and the truth
will set you free.
Don't make the mistake
of thinking
that if you go out
and try to be
your own authority
you're going to be free.
You're not.
Jesus is telling us
this is how to be free.
God's authority
has the power
to set us free
to be who we were
created to be.
Let's pray.
Lord we thank you
for your word
and Lord
may this not simply be
a few ideas
to consider.
I pray that your Holy Spirit
would press this
radically
and deeply
into our souls.
Lord we
we are crying out
and longing
for liberation.
We know that's why
you have come.
You've come to set us free.
Lord that we might
no longer submit
to the yoke of slavery
but rather
as Paul says
by becoming slaves
to Christ
we might find
in that
our true freedom
to live
as truly human
people
in the world
for your glory.
We pray this
in your son's
holy name.
Amen.