The scripture reading comes from Luke 1 starting at verse 1.
Please follow along on the screen or in your bulletin.
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us,
just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,
it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past,
to write down an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
that you may have certainly concerning the things you have been taught. Amen.
Great, thank you Christina. Nice and short reading.
Well, good morning church. It is so good to see everybody.
I know we've said it many times, but I was just thinking before the service,
coming back together is like coming back for a Chinese New Year reunion meal.
And the difference between this and church online is like eating McDonald's on your own, right?
It's a meal. It'll get you through the day. It's okay. You won't starve.
But that compared to a reunion meal with your family when you've been away for a year is just vastly different.
And so it's so great to see everyone. It's wonderful to see you face to face.
And I want to just come and give everyone a great big hug, but I know that's socially inappropriate.
And so I'll refrain from that, but it's so wonderful to see us all face to face together.
I'm sure these guys will work on the sound.
We are continuing our series called Why Christianity?
I don't know if you've been journeying with us the last couple of weeks.
We've been looking at some of the big questions that confront Christianity.
Things like, isn't it arrogant or exclusive for Christians to say that what they believe is the one true faith?
Or what about evil and suffering? Or what about science and faith?
How do these things come together?
And this morning we're going to continue that.
And we're going to ask the question, how do we make sense of the Bible?
Or why should I trust the Bible?
And it's a really important question because at the heart of Christianity is the person of Jesus Christ.
And what the Bible says, who he was and what he accomplished in his life and in his death.
You see, Christianity is not really an ethical movement.
It's not a bunch of wisdom to tell you just how to live your life, how to improve your life.
At the heart of Christianity is the person of Jesus.
And almost every world religion, you could remove the founder of the religion and the essence of the faith would still stand.
You take Buddha away from Buddhism and his teachings still stand and Buddhism would still stand as a philosophy, as a worldview.
You could take Muhammad out of Islam and Islam would still stand.
But if you remove Jesus Christ, the person of Christ and who he is, who he claimed to be,
and what his life accomplished, Christianity falls flat.
And so in many ways, the Christian faith hinges on what the Bible says, who Christ is, and what he accomplished in his life.
And therefore, the credibility and the reliability of the Bible is a really important thing for us to grapple with.
And so this morning we're going to ask kind of two questions.
One, why should I trust the Bible?
And secondly, how do I make sense of the Bible?
In order to do that, I want us to think about it three ways.
I want us to think about it historically.
I want us to think about it culturally or carefully.
And thirdly, to think about it personally.
Okay.
So let's dive in.
Historically.
Let's think about the Bible historically.
Now, these days, we often hear objections or questions or people saying,
how do we know that what's written in our Bible today is the same thing that was written 2,000 years ago?
A lot has happened 2,000 years ago.
It was originally written in Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek.
It's been translated into Latin.
It's been translated again.
It's been copied many, many, many times over the 2,000 years.
And we don't have any original, original documents.
We don't have the original parchment that Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote on.
So how do we know that what's here is the same thing that was written all those years ago?
And secondly, the question is, how do we know that even if this is the same thing that was originally written,
how do we know that church leaders didn't make stuff up and put it in here?
How do we know that the Jesus of faith, of Christianity, is the same as the Jesus of history?
Maybe Jesus of history was just a good, wise, moral man, a good, wise teacher.
But the church leaders embellished it or put a whole lot of myths and fables and legends in
to prop up Jesus and make him something more than he claimed to be.
So let's think about this.
I want to give, again, three historical things to think about as we think about this objection.
The first one, we can trust the Bible because of the historical data.
I want us to think, firstly, when we consider historical documents,
such as the New Testament or any other historical documents,
that's not a religious exercise.
That's an academic exercise.
And scholars and academics, when looking at the reliability or credibility of a historical document,
use a science called textual criticism.
And again, that's not something in religious departments.
That's just historical departments.
And textual criticism looks at the copies that we have of ancient historical documents
and works out by asking a number of questions how reliable, how accurate are those earliest documents we have
compared to the original document that it was based upon.
And there's a whole lot of questions that they ask, but there's two main questions.
The first one is, how many copies do we have?
If you've got five copies or ten copies or fifteen copies, okay, that's okay.
If you've got a hundred or five hundred or a thousand copies,
well, then it's far more accurate to see where changes have taken place,
where there have been edits, where the original has been corrupted or changed over time.
Okay?
So the first question is, how many copies do we have?
The second question, very important, is how big is the time gap between the copies that we have
and the original that was written?
So if the time gap is a hundred years, that's a good thing.
If the time gap is a thousand years or two thousand years, okay,
then there's more space for changes to take place.
And so you want to know, how many copies do we have?
And what are the earliest copies that we have?
And from those two things, generally, you can work out what did the original document look like or say.
Now, when you apply these criteria to the New Testament documents,
almost all historians will tell us that the New Testament documents pass with flying colors
any questions or tests of historical credibility,
especially when you compare it to other historical documents.
So let me give you a couple of examples, right?
We've all heard of this ancient Greek philosopher called Plato.
Plato, one of the wisest philosophers in the ancient world,
kind of the founder of Western thought.
When you look at the historical evidence for Plato's teachings and his sayings,
we have about 200, 210, actually, official documents that highlight what he said and what he taught.
And those documents range from somewhere around 950 to 1,500 years after his lifetime.
Okay?
So 200 documents, 1,000 to 1,500 years after his lifetime.
Or think of Alexander the Great.
We've all heard of Alexander the Great, the Macedon king,
who conquered kind of the Western world before the Roman Empire conquered the Greek Empire.
And Alexander the Great, one of the great military leaders of the ancient world.
And again, almost everything we know about him comes from two sources,
a man by the name of Plutarch and a man by the name of Arian.
And these were written about 450, 500 years after his death.
Okay?
And all historians will take that as credible documentation that we know about the life of Alexander the Great.
And we could keep on going.
There's hundreds of ancient historians that we could look at.
Julius Caesar and his Gaelic Wars, 50 BC.
He wrote this book called The Gaelic Wars.
And we have about 250 copies of those.
And the surviving copies that we have are written about 1,000 to 1,500 years after the event.
Okay?
So lots of copying took place.
And we've got 200 documents recording the original.
When it comes to the documentation of the New Testament,
the New Testament stands head and shoulders above everything else.
For the four Gospels, we've got five, almost 6,000 Greek documents of the Gospels alone.
And of the New Testament alone, we've got between 20,000 and 30,000 original early documents that are verifiable and accurate.
And those documents were written not 1,500, not 1,000 years, not even 500 years.
Some of those earliest documents we have are from between 30 and 50 years of the events,
of the documents in which they're written.
So for instance, John's Gospel is written somewhere at the latest stage around 90 AD, 95 AD, the very latest.
We've got documents of John's Gospel written from the year 130 AD.
That's 35 years after the original was written.
You compare that to Plato, 1,000 years, 1,500 years.
And not just 200 documents, 20,000 or 30,000 of the New Testament documents.
One historian put it like this.
Simply put, if we reject the authenticity of the New Testament on textual historical grounds,
we'd have to reject every ancient work of antiquity
and declare null and void every piece of historical information
from written sources prior to the beginning of the 2nd millennium AG.
In other words, anything from 1,000 AD onwards, we'd have to say,
listen, we can't trust it.
Who knows?
It's all just guesswork.
And that's not just Western thought.
That's the same for Confucian, same for Confucius, same for Buddha.
All the major thoughts of the world.
Nothing stands out to the historical credibility of the New Testament Gospels.
Okay, so first one is the historical document.
Secondly, think about the eyewitnesses.
When we read the New Testament,
one of the things that you encounter a lot
is all sorts of random names of people and places.
And we often skip over those names, right?
Now, confession time.
How many of us have read Matthew 1 or Luke 3,
all these names, and just turned over the page quickly, right?
There are all these names, and we think,
who put that in there?
Who thought it was a good idea to put this in God's Holy Word, right?
Those names don't make sense to us in the 21st century,
but a lot of them make a lot of sense to the 1st century audience.
And the reason is the Bible wasn't primarily written for a 21st century audience.
It was written as a historical document, largely, for a 1st century audience.
And those names are put there for a very specific reason.
One of the reasons is because many of them were still alive
and were eyewitnesses of the things that were being written in the documents.
So let me give you an example.
In Mark's Gospel, chapter 15, Jesus is going to the cross.
And Mark writes this in his Gospel.
He says, verse 20,
Now we read that and think,
Mark could have just said,
and they compelled a passerby to carry the cross.
But Mark's very specific.
He writes the name of this guy, Simon, from Cyrene,
and his two children.
He's the father of Rufus and Alexander.
Why put that detail in there?
Well, when you consider the fact that Mark's Gospel is written somewhere around 20 to 25 years,
15 even, some historians will say,
after the event took place,
in all likelihood, Rufus and Alexander are still alive
and are possibly part of the Christian community.
They are known to the audience.
In other words, what Mark is doing is he's saying,
there are eyewitnesses that are still alive.
And you can go and test what I'm saying.
Go and ask him if what I'm saying is true.
There are eyewitnesses that could either falsify or verify
what the writers are saying in the New Testament.
And all the New Testament writers do this.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
he writes and he says,
the Gospel which was handed down from others to me,
that Jesus died, that he rose again on the third day,
he appeared to 12,
then he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time,
and then he writes this,
most of whom are still alive.
Why does he say that?
What he's saying is,
I want you to go and verify what I'm saying.
I want you to go check it out.
I want you to go and do the research.
Go and ask those people
if what I'm writing in my epistle is true.
The reason the New Testament writers put all these details in
is because they want us to go and check.
They want us to verify the facts.
First, Justin here works for the DOJ, right?
The prosecutor.
And as any prosecutor or attorney will tell you,
if you want to lie or if you want to make up a story,
make sure there are very few witnesses around
that can contradict you, right?
I'm assuming that's good knowledge, right?
Or think about, we've all watched TV shows,
and someone gets arrested,
and what do the arresting officers all say?
You have the right to remain silent,
anything you say can and will be held against you
in a court of law.
And a good attorney will tell you,
if you ever get arrested,
here's some free advice, okay?
Next time you get arrested,
don't say anything.
I hope you're not going to get arrested anytime soon.
But don't say anything.
Why?
Because anything you say can and will be held against you.
In other words, if you're going to make up something,
if you want to try,
if you're in trouble,
the more details you give,
the more that can be held against you.
Minimize the details that you give.
The New Testament writers do the opposite.
They're trying to get as many eyewitnesses as well as possible,
and they're trying to give as much detail as possible.
Why?
Because they want just to go and verify
what they have to say.
And so, today we come,
and this is going to be very brief,
but we're going to look at Luke chapter 1.
And it's in your bulletin.
And look at it with me.
Look what Luke writes here.
Now, by the way,
Luke was not a disciple of Jesus.
He was a medical doctor and a historian.
And so Luke wasn't an uneducated fisherman
like some of the disciples.
He was a doctor who was used to examining the evidence
and coming up with a diagnosis.
And Luke, it seems like,
he writes this letter to this man called Theophilus.
And it seems like Theophilus was a high-ranking Roman official
because he calls him most excellent Theophilus.
And the only other times in the Bible that that phrase is used
is when addressing a Roman magistrate.
And so, it seems like Theophilus is a high-ranking Roman official.
And it seems like Theophilus has heard about Jesus
and he wants to verify that what he's heard is true.
And so, he commissions this doctor historian called Ruth,
not Ruth, Luke,
to go and verify the data.
And so, look at how Luke begins the beginning of his epistle.
He says,
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile the narrative
of the things that have been accomplished amongst us,
now he's probably talking about Mark's gospel there,
that was written previously.
Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word,
and they've delivered them to us,
it seemed good to me also,
having followed all things closely for some time,
to write an orderly account for you,
most excellent Theophilus,
that you may have certainty
concerning the things that you have been taught.
See what Luke's doing there.
He's saying,
I've gone and I've done the research.
I've gone and interviewed the eyewitnesses.
And I've decided to write this orderly account,
not just based on the other narratives that are out there,
gospel of Mark, etc.
I've done my own research.
I've asked the eyewitnesses,
and I'm writing this account
that you may have certainty,
Theophilus,
about the gospel that you've heard
about the person of Jesus.
Okay, so consider the historical data.
Consider the eyewitnesses.
Thirdly, very quickly,
consider the embarrassing passages.
Many people say,
the Jesus of history
is different to the Jesus of the Bible, right?
They don't correlate,
because the church leaders
put a whole lot of legend and myth
and interesting stuff in there
about miracles,
to make Jesus to be something different
than what he was, right?
And the reason why church leaders would do this
is to bolster their own reputation,
to bolster their own movement,
and to lend credibility to their claim,
their religion that they're starting.
But there's too much stuff in the New Testament
that is just too embarrassing
if you're trying to start a new religion.
There's too much stuff in there
that if you're trying to convince people
to get on board,
if you're making up the story,
you'd rather leave it out.
But there's hundreds of cases,
but just consider a couple of them.
The one is,
Jesus is on the cross.
Think about it.
Jesus is on the cross.
Now, firstly,
no Jew believed
that the Messiah was going to die on the cross.
But anyway,
Jesus ends up on the cross.
But while he's there,
he cries out,
he says,
Father,
why have you forsaken me?
If you're trying to make up a Savior
that's going to save the world,
you probably wouldn't put
that kind of information in there.
Or consider just before the cross,
Jesus is in Gethsemane.
And he's sweating,
his sweat is turned to blood,
and he cries,
he prays his prayer,
and he says,
God,
if there's any way
to take the cross from me,
let it be.
Why is Jesus,
why do you include this stuff
in your religion
about Jesus trying to get out of the cross?
It doesn't make sense,
unless,
unless it really happened.
Or consider the way that
all four of the Gospels
recount that the very first eyewitnesses
to Jesus' resurrection
were women.
Now,
that's not a big deal
in our day and age.
That's perfectly acceptable.
But in the first century,
that was ridiculous.
Women's testimony
was not admissible
in a court of law
because of their low social status.
In fact,
there's one ancient
critic of Christianity
who said this.
He said,
Christianity cannot be true
because their testimony
is based on
hysterical females.
That's how he wrote it.
It's like,
it can't be true.
It's the women,
it's the hysterical females
that were the first witnesses.
Any historian knows
if you try to bolster your claim
that Christianity is true,
the last thing you want to do
is make the first witnesses
to the resurrection
women.
And yet,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
all do that.
Why?
The only credible reason
is because that's exactly
what happened.
And again,
if you consider
the life of the disciples,
the disciples,
these are the guys
that were meant to be
the founders of Christianity,
the religion,
and yet,
when you read the Bible,
they are clumsy,
they are idiotic,
they say dumb things,
they deny Jesus,
they run away,
they abandon Him,
they're fearful,
they're cowards,
they are doubting.
Why would you make
the very people
that are writing the books
look that way
unless,
unless that's what
actually happened?
where am I?
Okay,
so,
remember what Luke says
in his opening paragraph.
He says,
It seemed good to me,
O Theophilus,
having followed all things
closely for some time,
to write an orderly account
that you may have certainty
concerning the things
that you've heard
about the person of Jesus.
Okay,
friends,
here's the point.
There's too much
historical data,
there's too many eyewitnesses,
there's too much
perplexing information
in the New Testament
for it simply to be made up,
for it to be changed
or edited.
The Bible that we have
in our hands,
you can trust it,
it's reliable,
it's credible.
It is what the disciples wrote,
it is what the early church wrote,
and it is reflect accurately
the person of Jesus.
Okay,
you can trust it historically.
Second thing,
culturally.
Let's think about it culturally,
or I put it on the slide carefully.
Now,
one of the questions
that we often arise
when we think about the Bible
is,
okay,
let's just assume
that it is historically
accurate and credible.
Okay,
that what's in the Bible
is what the apostles wrote,
and it is true.
Many people will say,
okay,
but it's still so offensive.
I mean,
there's just so much stuff in there
that is socially repressive,
it's offensive,
it bothers me,
the Bible's sexist,
the Bible says all sorts of stuff
about slavery.
How can I even take it seriously,
even if it is true?
It's just archaic
and out of date.
There's many issues
that we could look at,
right?
We could look at genocide,
we could look at,
does God hate gay people,
gender,
and all these kinds of things.
There's lots of issues
we could talk through.
But Tim Keller,
Dr. Tim Keller,
has really helped me
think through this,
and he's given us
a framework
to think through it.
And this is what he says,
he says that
rather than looking at each issue,
let's think about
the culture and the context
in which it's written.
And there's two handles
that I want us to think about
when we think about
the Bible this way.
The first one is this,
is to consider the possibility
that maybe what you think
it teaches,
at first God,
is not what it actually teaches.
I remember about a year ago
I was having lunch
with a young man,
16, 17 years old,
and he was just throwing
a whole lot of questions
at me about the Bible
and faith and science
and how can you believe it.
And after about half an hour
I said,
hey but just a quick question,
have you actually read
the New Testament?
Have you gone to
the source material?
He said,
no, no, no,
but I read a blog
and the blog told me
that the Bible says this,
right?
There's many things
that we hear,
the Bible says this,
and as you actually examine it
and carefully think about it,
you realize that's maybe
not what the Bible
is saying at all.
Let me give you one example.
When you read
the Old Testament,
especially the first five books
of the Old Testament,
one of the things
that stands out to you
is many of the leaders
of the Old Testament,
the way that they treat women,
right?
You read and you think,
that's just terrible.
Many of them have got
multiple wives,
they've got concubines
on top of that.
They seem to just
treat women as objects
that they can trade
and buy and sell.
And on top of this,
many are the leaders,
people like Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob
and David
and multiple wives
and the treatment of women.
And you think,
how on earth
can God condone that?
How can God encourage that?
How can that be
in any inspired sacred book?
Many years ago,
in the 1980s,
a Jewish scholar
by the name of Robert Alter,
a professor
at Berkeley University,
wrote a book called
The Art of Biblical Narrative.
And what Robert Alter says
in there
is that when you read,
he says,
in the ancient custom,
there were two institutions
that were kind of
universally accepted.
The institution of polygamy,
which means that men
can have as many wives
as they want
and therefore men
have all the power.
Wives just get reduced
to an object.
The men have all the power.
But the second one
is the institution
of primogeniture.
And primogeniture
essentially says
the firstborn son
gets everything.
He gets all the honor,
all the wealth,
all the money,
all the blessing,
and the others,
well, best of luck to them.
And what Robert Alter says
is that
when you read
the Old Testament,
one of the things
you quickly see
is that
in every case
of polygamy,
it always ends
in a train wreck.
It always ends
in a train wreck.
It wrecks the people
physically,
socially,
psychology,
their family,
emotionally,
and worst of all,
spiritually.
And the great example
of this, of course,
is King David.
King David is the greatest king
in the Old Testament,
but his treatment of women
is not great.
He's got a couple of wives,
and one day
he sees this lady
bathing,
and he says,
I want to.
And he treats her
just as an object
to satisfy
his own sexual desires.
And so he pulls her
to the palace,
he arranges for her
husband to get killed,
he sleeps with her,
and then he marries her.
Right?
But as you read
the Old Testament,
one thing you see
is that from that moment on,
David's personal life,
his family,
his kingdom,
his reign,
and in fact,
the entire nation
of Israel
goes absolutely downhill
and never recovers.
And what Robert Alter
tells us
is that
God is never
condoning this.
He's challenging it.
He's saying,
can't you see
that I've designed
for man and woman
to be united,
kept for one another,
and when you mess
with that order,
it never,
ever works out well.
It always
lends in
heartache
and pain
and destruction.
It's always
a wreck.
Secondly,
think of primogeniture.
When you read
the Old Testament,
who does God
always choose?
He always chooses
the one
that nobody else chooses.
He chooses Abel,
not Cain.
He chooses Jacob,
not Esau.
He chooses Isaac,
not Ishmael.
And even though
Leah is the older
sister of Rachel,
Rachel's the beautiful
one that everyone
loves and gets invited
to the parties
and all that.
And God chooses Leah,
the one that's despised
and rejected,
to be the great,
great,
great grandmother
of King David
and ultimately
of the Messiah.
And so Robert Alter
is saying that
when you read this,
at first you think,
that's disgusting.
How can that be
in the Bible?
How can God
condone that?
And he's saying,
God's not condoning it.
He's subverting it,
not supporting it.
Okay,
so consider the fact
that the Bible
might not be teaching
what we first think
it teaches.
The second thing
is this.
Consider the influence
of your own
personal,
cultural bias.
Experts tell us
that almost none of us
can read something
like the Bible
or other ancient scriptures
without our own
cultural bias
influencing the way
that we read it.
We all come to it
from a worldview,
a lens that influences
the way that we see it
and what we think
is right and wrong.
Which means
we all have
unexamined assumptions
that our cultural norms
are correct
and everyone else's
are less than correct.
Right?
And yet,
there are parts
of the world
where other cultures
find our cultural norms
just very troubling.
Let me put it lightly.
Okay?
Does that make sense?
So we all have
our cultural norms.
We think,
this is just normal.
This is the way
the whole world operates.
Everybody thinks like me.
Until you go to another
part of the world
and you realize,
oh, wait,
not everybody thinks like me.
Okay?
We're a very international church.
I'm sure we've all
experienced that.
In my own story,
I don't think I understood
what the Bible really meant
about honoring your family
or about the beauty
of community
until I moved to Hong Kong.
Because Western culture
is just far more individualistic.
We don't honor our family,
we don't honor our parents,
and we're not as
community-orientated
as we are here in Asia.
Right?
And I consider myself an Asian.
So those Westerners
are very different
from us Asians.
Right?
I'm kind of saying
the tongue-in-cheek.
One of the things
that's interesting
is Christianity
in the last 500 years,
and maybe you could argue
even earlier than that,
has largely been influenced
by white Caucasian
Western theology.
Right?
But that's changing.
In the last 50 years or so,
the majority of Christianity
is shifting
from white Caucasian
Western theology
to Africa and Asia
are going to be
the biggest Christian continents
in years to come.
Which is good news
for us, right?
Africa and Asia
are going to be
the most Christian continents
in the next
150, 200 years.
Now one of the amazing
things about the Bible
is that it has the ability
to both confront
and challenge
as well as affirm
and encourage
every culture.
No matter what your culture is,
there's going to be
parts of your culture
that the Bible affirms
and says that's good,
and there's going to be
parts of your culture
that the Bible challenges.
Because all of our cultures
have part of it
that align up
with God's heart
and part of it
that are distinct
from God's heart.
And so the question is
if you're going to take
the Bible seriously,
if you're going to
take it to heart,
no matter what culture
or country you come from,
there's going to be
parts of the Bible
that you think
that doesn't make sense to me.
Why would God allow that?
And there's going to be
other parts that you think
yeah, that makes
complete sense to me.
Tim Keller gives
a great example.
He says,
most Western countries
think that the Bible's
teaching on sexual ethic
is just repressive,
it's archaic,
it's out of date,
and it should just be dismissed.
And yet most Western Christians
love the Bible's teaching
on forgiveness
and mercy
and turning the other cheek,
right?
But if you go to the Middle East,
those two things swap around.
Many people in the Middle East
will think actually
the Bible's teaching
on sexual ethics
is pretty good,
if not a little liberal,
maybe you could tighten it up
a little bit.
And yet the Bible's teaching
on forgiveness
and mercy
is just considered
as weak
and just offensive.
Why would you do that?
That's just less people
getting away with things
unnecessarily.
You see,
there's parts of all
of our culture
that we like,
or parts of all
of our culture
that affirms
what the Bible says,
but the Bible also
challenge every part of us.
And what that means
is that if you're going
to make sense of the Bible,
if you really understand
it for what it's saying,
you can't read it
imperialistically.
You can't read it
from the worldview
that says,
my culture is right
and everything that disagrees
with my culture
must be wrong.
You've got to come
up the Bible and say,
God,
where are you affirming
my culture,
but where are you
challenging it?
Where am I right
and where am I wrong?
And here's the other thing.
If you serve a God
that never challenges you,
never confronts you,
never challenges your culture,
chances are you're worshipping
a made-up God
of our imagination,
a God who we've made
in our own image.
But here's the problem.
That God will never save you.
That God will never deliver you.
That God will never comfort you
in the midst of the storms of life.
That God will never be
an anchor for your soul
when your fear arises
and when the storms come.
A God that is made
in our image
will never be there
to minister
and to comfort us.
You must consider
the Bible culturally.
Okay,
thirdly and finally,
how are we doing?
Are we all right?
Okay,
thank you,
Emily.
Let's consider the Bible
personally.
Personally.
At the end of Luke's gospel,
very famously,
Jesus dies,
he rises from the dead
and he's walking
along this road
between Jerusalem
and the town called Emmaus
and he comes across
two disciples
and the disciples
don't recognize him.
They're not one of the
twelve originally,
they're a bigger
group of disciples.
One's called Cleopas,
we don't know the other name
and Jesus comes up
and says,
hey,
what are you talking about?
And they say,
Jesus of Nazareth,
the man that we had hoped
would save Israel,
but he died on the cross.
And Jesus kind of plays dumb
and he asks them a few more
questions and they say,
who are you?
Where have you been?
Don't you know who Jesus was?
And they're so disappointed,
they say,
we really hoped that he would
deliver Israel,
but he died.
And Jesus says to them,
O slow of heart,
do you not see that
the Christ had to suffer
and die for the sins
of the world?
And then Luke says
that Jesus,
starting with Moses
and all the prophets
explained to them
all the scriptures
concerning himself.
In other words,
Jesus goes through
the whole Old Testament
and he shows them
how the Old Testament
points to the Christ,
Moses.
Don't you see how
Moses is writing,
but he's actually telling you
about the Christ.
Isaiah is writing,
but he's actually telling you
about the Christ.
Jeremiah is writing,
but he's actually telling you
about the Christ.
David.
And he goes through
the whole Old Testament
and shows them
that actually the whole Bible
is all about the Christ,
the one that had to come
and die on the cross.
They go to the village,
they have a meal,
and at the end of the meal,
Jesus leaves them.
And as Jesus leaves them,
suddenly they realize
who it is that they've
been speaking to.
And they turn to one another
and they say this,
Did not our hearts
burn within us
when he opened up to us
the scriptures?
Did not our hearts
burn within us?
And Greek scholars
will tell us
that what that word
burns within us,
what it means
is an uncontrollable longing
to speak to God
or to pray.
In other words,
they're saying,
when Jesus opened up
the scriptures,
didn't you also feel
your heart come alive
in this desire
to know God
and to encounter him
personally?
And what Luke
is telling us here
is that Jesus
was showing them
the scriptures,
but he wasn't just
showing them
that they are
intellectually stimulating.
He wasn't just
showing them
that they are
spiritually enlightening
and rewarding.
He was showing them
that they are
personally inviting.
That when you read
the scriptures,
it's not just,
okay,
that's interesting.
It's an invitation
by the living God
to know him
and to encounter him
and to encounter
his incredible love.
Now,
what does that mean?
Edwin Clowney,
Professor Edwin Clowney,
writes this,
and he says,
there's two ways
that you can read
the Bible.
You can either read it
as if it's all about you
or you can read it
as if it's all about Christ.
So when we read the Bible
as if it's all about us,
we read it as if
it's telling us
what does God
want me to do?
How does God
want me to behave?
What do I need to do
in order to save myself
and get the blessings
of God?
Or,
you can read the Bible
Christocentrically,
which means it's all
about Christ.
And when we do that,
we see that Christ
is at the center.
It's all about him
and what he's done
to rescue us,
to save us,
and to bring us
into relationship
with God.
Either you read it
where you're at the center
and it's a self-help guide
to save yourself,
or where Christ
is at the center
and it's the story
of what God has done
to bring us
into relationship
with him
by Jesus dying
on the cross
that we can know him
and love him.
In fact,
look at verse 21.
The disciples say this.
He says,
we had hoped
that Jesus
would rescue Israel,
but he died
on the cross.
You see what they're doing there?
They're doing the exact thing
we spoke about in point two.
They're reading it
from their own
cultural perspective.
They've read the Bible,
but they haven't understood it.
And Jesus comes
and shows them,
you know what it says,
but you don't know
what it's saying.
And what it's saying
is that I am the Messiah
and I've come to die
on the cross
to rescue you,
to save you.
Friends,
when we read the Bible
Christocentrically,
we discover
that the Scriptures
are not only reliable,
not only relevant,
but they are personally inviting.
Jesus says to us here,
don't you see
all the Scriptures
from Moses
all the way
through the Old Testament
is all about the Christ.
In other words,
what he's saying,
the whole Bible
from beginning to end
is God's great plan
to bring those
that are far from God
and don't know him
back into relationship,
to be included in the family,
to know him
and experience him
and to encounter him.
Chris earlier
in the call to worship
spoke about how
God's Word
is encouraging.
Well,
that's because
Jesus is encouraging.
God's Word
is hopeful.
Well,
that's because
Jesus is hopeful.
God's Word
is enlightening.
That's because
Jesus is enlightening
because the whole Scriptures
are all about
Jesus.
If we read the Bible,
if it's all about us,
what we'll do
is we'll reduce
the Scriptures
to a rule book,
a manual,
a documentation
to tell us how to live.
Friends,
the problem
with a rule book,
with a manual,
with the documentation
how to live
is that,
as we all know,
a rule book
doesn't warm the heart.
A rule book
is never going to
elicit worship
and adoration.
A manual
about how to
make your own way
to heaven
is never going to be there
to rescue you,
to comfort you,
to save you,
or deliver you.
Throughout the New Testament,
we're coming to land now.
Throughout the New Testament,
consider this.
Who does Jesus
reserve His strongest
criticism
and most stinging
rebukes for?
It's not for sinners
and it's not for those
that have failed.
Jesus always
reserves His strongest
rebuke and criticism
for the religious leaders,
those who have spent
their lives
poring over the Scriptures,
studying it,
trying to understand it.
Why does Jesus do it?
Because though they know
what the Bible says
intellectually,
they've missed
what it's all about.
And Jesus,
in John's Gospel,
in chapter 5,
He comes and He says
to religious leaders,
He says this,
You study the Scriptures
diligently
because you think
that in them
you have eternal life,
but you refuse
to come to Me.
See what He's saying?
He's saying the Bible
is not just there
for us to study intellectually.
The Bible is not just
spiritually enlightening.
The Scriptures are there
as a personal invitation
to know and encounter
the living God,
to have our lives
turned around by Him.
Friends,
don't read the Bible
as if it's a book
of instruction.
Don't read it
as if it's some magical book
to give you insight
or wisdom
to how to improve your life,
how to give you wisdom
or some advice
to secure favor with God.
Read it to encounter Jesus,
the living God,
to discover Him
for who He is,
why He came,
why He died on the cross,
but most importantly,
come to God's Word
as an invitation
to encounter Jesus.
Now,
very quickly,
what does that mean practically?
How do you actually do that?
If you're a Christian
here this morning,
I want to ask you
two questions.
Are you getting
into God's Word?
Are you getting
into God's Word?
Are you reading it?
And secondly,
are you reading it
to meet Jesus?
Now,
you say,
how do I do that?
Well,
you've got to read it
worshipfully.
You've got to read
God's Word
and as you do that,
don't just say,
oh,
that's interesting,
I didn't know that before.
You've got to ask,
how am I reading
leading me to worship God?
How's it causing me
to adore Him?
You've got to read it
confessionally.
You've got to see
that what the Word says,
how's it challenging
your own heart
and your own life?
You read something
in the Bible
about being generous
and you confess
and repent.
Say,
God,
actually,
that's not true
of my life.
Help me to be
more generous
than you.
You read something
in the Bible
about community
and you realize
I'm individualistic
and self-orientated.
Say,
God,
I confess,
I repent,
I'm sorry
for my individualism.
I want to be
more like you.
You read something
in the Bible
about God,
I don't need Jesus.
And you say,
God,
actually,
I'm so sorry.
I'm more concerned
about pleasing people,
people liking me
than telling them
the truth.
I'm so sorry,
God,
forgive me.
You've got to read
the Bible worshiply,
you've got to read
the Bible confessionly.
Thirdly,
you've got to read
the Bible joyfully.
You've got to let
the Bible lead you
to the place
of taking joy
and delight
in who God is,
finding your identity
and your security
in Him.
What happens
if you're here this morning
and you're not a Christian?
You're not a follower of Jesus?
Can you get into the Bible?
I want to encourage you
this week,
come to the Bible
and read it.
And as you do that,
pray this very simple prayer.
So Jesus,
I'm not sure
if I believe in you.
I'm not sure
if you're real.
But if you are real,
won't you reveal yourself
to me in the Scriptures?
If you are who you say
you are,
won't you show me
from your Word?
Come and chat to me
afterwards,
come and ask questions
when you're standing here.
I'd love to show you
where to start in the Bible,
how to get in this week.
But this week,
whether you're a Christian
or not a Christian,
get into God's Word
and go and meet Jesus,
encounter Him personally.
Friends,
let's not make the mistake
that so many have made.
You can trust the Bible
historically.
According to any metric you use,
it stands up,
it's credible and reliable.
Come to the Bible
and read it.
Not as you want to impose
your culture upon it,
but as God is what He's saying.
And there you'll discover
the truth of who God is.
But thirdly,
and most importantly,
come to the Bible personally.
Don't just come to learn
some academic information.
Come to meet
the person of Jesus,
the one who died on the cross,
the one whose arms
are stretched out wide,
the one who invites you,
the one who's come
to save and to rescue,
the one who's come
to bring you to His family.
Come and meet Jesus personally
in His Word this week.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus,
thank You so much
for Your Word.
God,
that Your Word
is living and active.
It's alive and real.
It's not just
a historical book,
though it is historically reliable.
It's not just
an interesting book,
though culturally
it is full of interesting things.
God,
Your Word is alive and real.
God,
I pray for us as a church
that we'll be a church
that loves Your Word
and is rooted in Your Word
and anchored in Your Word.
But God,
not arrogantly,
not proudly,
not thinking that
we know better than others.
God,
we want to come to Your Word humbly.
We want to come on our knees.
We want to come
and encounter You,
the living God there.
Jesus,
come and open the eyes
of our hearts
to not just see
and understand the Scriptures,
but to see You there.
We pray these things
in Your great
and gracious name.
Amen.