WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.439 We're starting a new series tonight called believing the scriptures in a secular age. 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:17.600 And I want to read from 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13 as we begin. 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:25.879 So if you want to read with me, that'll be the text that will base our reflection on. 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:39.079 Let's read 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. 00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:44.480 And it says, And we also thank God constantly for this that when you receive the word of 00:00:44.480 --> 00:00:50.439 God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it 00:00:50.439 --> 00:00:58.119 really is the word of God, which is that word in you believers. 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:04.319 Every single one of us in here tonight knows that believing in the Bible as the authority 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:10.239 and rule of life is really hard in the 21st century. 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:14.439 And people all around us in the culture that we live in find it really difficult to accept 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:20.399 the idea that the Bible has a supernatural authority about it. 00:01:20.399 --> 00:01:27.000 And even more that it is the living speech of God that can do things that that can affect 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.359 change in the midst of the heart or in the midst of society. 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:37.519 And so that's what we want to think about in this series is how can we trust the Bible? 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:43.479 So we'll get into real specific issues over the course of this, even considering things 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:49.439 like the Bible and slavery, the Bible and genocide, the Bible and violence as a category 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:55.719 or what to do with Bart Ehrman's claims that there are over 400 technical errors or something 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:56.960 like that. 00:01:56.960 --> 00:02:01.560 So we'll get into some of those details as time goes on and think about those. 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:06.320 But tonight I want to do something more fundamental and ask, what is the Bible? 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:08.120 What is the Bible? 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:10.400 Where does it come from? 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:12.000 Where is its power located? 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:13.879 What does it mean to say it's powerful? 00:02:13.879 --> 00:02:15.120 So what is it? 00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:16.919 Where does it come from? 00:02:16.919 --> 00:02:18.639 What do we mean when we say it's powerful? 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:20.719 It has power. 00:02:20.719 --> 00:02:23.280 So we read from 1 Thessalonians 2.13. 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:27.599 This is a famous text about inspiration. 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:34.159 And Paul says here that when he spoke the gospel and preached to the Thessalonians that 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:37.719 he's thankful to God that they heard it as what it really is. 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:39.080 And what does he say it really is? 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:44.920 He says it really is the Word of God, not the Word of men. 00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:51.920 Now when we define scripture, my favorite simple definition for what the Bible is is 00:02:51.920 --> 00:02:53.920 to say it like this. 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:58.360 The Bible is the Word of God in the words of men. 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:03.160 It's the Word of God in the words of humans. 00:03:03.160 --> 00:03:07.800 And that sounds almost like it's contradicting Paul. 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:14.719 Because Paul says you heard it as the Word of God, not the Word of men. 00:03:14.719 --> 00:03:20.880 But the key is that that little phrase Word of men there is to be thought of as something 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:26.439 like the primary author, the absolute authority. 00:03:26.439 --> 00:03:28.320 There's things that are given by the Word of men. 00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:29.320 They're contingent. 00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:30.680 They're relative. 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:32.800 And there's the Word of God. 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:39.640 What we have in the Bible is what Paul says, the Word of God in the words of human beings. 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:41.480 Both of those things have got to go together. 00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:50.400 Now that means for us that the Bible is written by an author that is beyond space and time, 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:57.160 that is absolute, and written by authors that are contingent within space and time at the 00:03:57.160 --> 00:03:59.760 very same time. 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:07.560 And that means the Bible is like other books because other books are written by human beings. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.439 It can be printed on paper. 00:04:09.439 --> 00:04:11.039 It's like other books. 00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:15.840 And at the same time, it's not like any other book because it has an absolute divine author, 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:19.959 an authorship that stands outside of all space and time, an authorship that comes from the 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:21.680 Creator Himself. 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.800 Now here's the question. 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:30.680 How can this be the Word of God that comes with authority and with power into the human 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:37.480 life if it truly is also the words of human beings? 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:40.800 And the reason that we have to ask that question is because when you think about the authors 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:49.480 of scripture, Moses, David, Paul, these are incredibly sinful men. 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:51.439 They have really bad track records. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:54.560 They were not great people for a lot of their lives. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:55.879 And they continue to sin. 00:04:55.879 --> 00:04:59.480 And even as they wrote the Bible, they were sinners. 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:01.639 And they wrote the Bible as sinners. 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:09.800 And so we've got this, what we say, infallible, authoritative Word of divine power written, 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:13.199 truly written by sinful human speech. 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:15.759 And both of those things come together. 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:19.800 And so that's one of the things that we've got to reckon with when we ask the question, 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:20.800 what's the Bible? 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:22.759 So let me dig into it a little bit. 00:05:22.759 --> 00:05:23.759 What is the Bible? 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:24.759 What is this book? 00:05:24.759 --> 00:05:28.439 We said it's the Word of God in the words of men. 00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:33.520 If you go into the culture, you're going to get three or four typical definitions of what 00:05:33.520 --> 00:05:34.520 the Bible is. 00:05:34.520 --> 00:05:40.519 So if you go to the Academy, Capital A, if you go to a place like New College, for example, 00:05:40.519 --> 00:05:47.199 across the street, or the Modern Religious Academy, the university, the main idea about 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:51.079 the Bible is what we might call simply the naturalistic approach. 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:56.639 And that's that the Bible is a great artifact of human history, something that's really 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:58.599 worthy to be studied. 00:05:58.599 --> 00:06:01.000 But it's not the Word of God in the words of men. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:04.439 It's the words of men exclusively. 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:10.279 And so it's the words of men that were religious people, that they were inspired in some sense 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:11.279 the Word. 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:16.079 But that inspiration comes from something in nature, something from within themselves. 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:21.399 And so it denies the first half of the claim that Paul offers us, the words of God, just 00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:25.879 the words of men, a great document, but merely human. 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:30.759 That's the Academy that that perhaps is one extreme, the naturalist approach. 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:35.639 The opposite, the opposite extreme, for lack of a better term, I'll call it the fundamentalist 00:06:35.639 --> 00:06:36.719 approach. 00:06:36.719 --> 00:06:41.039 The fundamentalist approach goes in the entire opposite direction. 00:06:41.039 --> 00:06:45.519 And it says the Bible is not the words of God and the word of men really. 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:50.000 The Bible is just the Word of God. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:54.799 And you can understand why a person might want to go there and might want to say that 00:06:54.799 --> 00:07:00.479 they're trying to put God at the center of everything, of what the Bible is and what 00:07:00.479 --> 00:07:02.599 the Bible doesn't, where it has power. 00:07:02.599 --> 00:07:05.599 They've got a big view of God's sovereignty. 00:07:05.599 --> 00:07:06.839 And that's exactly what that view is. 00:07:06.839 --> 00:07:13.919 We call it extreme theory, extreme dictation theory, or an extreme authorship theory. 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:21.400 And the idea is that even though perhaps, yes, Paul wrote the letter, what's happening 00:07:21.400 --> 00:07:27.040 in the creation of the Bible is that God is using Paul merely as a machine. 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:31.639 So God is speaking through Paul in a manner that we might call dictation. 00:07:31.639 --> 00:07:34.280 He's using him as a mere vessel. 00:07:34.280 --> 00:07:37.480 Paul's own personality is not involved. 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:40.720 Paul's own context is not involved. 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:44.760 But Paul remembers from what his mom taught him when he was a boy or key phrases or anything 00:07:44.760 --> 00:07:46.800 like that is not involved, not at all. 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:50.520 It's God speaking through him by way of dictation. 00:07:50.520 --> 00:07:56.160 Now it's important to know that Christians for 2,000 years reject that theory of what 00:07:56.160 --> 00:07:57.160 the Bible is. 00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:02.560 We don't believe in a mechanical dictation view of what the Bible is, that it's God working 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:05.160 just through humans as mere vessels. 00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:06.160 Why? 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:12.880 Well, for one, this is the view of several other religions about their own scriptures. 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:19.360 So what other religions view their scriptures in this way? 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:25.640 Islam very famously, the Quran, is complete dictation, a mechanical control over the will 00:08:25.640 --> 00:08:30.160 of Muhammad dictated by an angel. 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:34.120 Another one very famous, the Jehovah's Witness. 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:36.840 Yeah, also the Mormons as well. 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:39.879 So several that complete dictation theory. 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:46.560 So you've got the naturalistic problem you've got on the flip side, the dictation, mechanical 00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:48.560 dictation theory problem. 00:08:48.560 --> 00:08:54.279 And then one other I think that's really common amongst religious people. 00:08:54.279 --> 00:09:02.960 You might find that left leaning, more liberalized Christian denominations is they're going 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:08.320 to talk about how God is the author of scripture, but he's the author of scripture in a really 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:09.820 nuanced way. 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:13.720 And the way he's the author of scripture is that what he's done is he's come into the 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:18.600 lives of the people that wrote the Bible and he's inspired them. 00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:20.879 Inspired in the sense that he guided them. 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:25.600 There were very religious people, but he left everything open. 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:30.680 And so he wanted to give them guidance, but he also wanted them to make their own choices. 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:35.679 And so the Bible really is a book that's an inspired religious document, but can't 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:38.799 word of God in historic sense of the term. 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:44.079 It's a book of religious inspiration of people who were guided by the divine merely by their 00:09:44.079 --> 00:09:46.399 personal relationship to God. 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:51.519 And what that does, now the reason a person might go down that road is because it enables 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:57.159 them to say the Bible is both important for religion. 00:09:57.159 --> 00:10:01.480 It has some level of authority, but at the same time, because God left the human writers 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:07.480 open to kind of do what they wanted to do, it leaves the possibility of saying it's full 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:10.319 of ideological and material errors all over. 00:10:10.319 --> 00:10:14.839 But it's divine in a sense, but it's very, very human. 00:10:14.839 --> 00:10:18.719 And so if you find a material error, if you find an ideological error, you can say, I'm 00:10:18.719 --> 00:10:19.719 okay with that. 00:10:19.719 --> 00:10:23.039 I'm okay with that because I know that God was leaving space. 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:25.679 He was leaving space for the human to make their own decisions. 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:31.679 Okay, and so this is kind of another route that some versions of Christian doctrine on 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:32.679 this have gone. 00:10:32.679 --> 00:10:36.439 Now, the problem, let me just give you the problem with the last one. 00:10:36.439 --> 00:10:41.659 The problem is that the Bible won't let you say that because the Bible claims so much 00:10:41.659 --> 00:10:43.500 more than that. 00:10:43.500 --> 00:10:50.679 So you've got a text like John 1035 where Jesus says, the scriptures cannot be broken. 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:57.039 And in that passage, he uses a Greek verb that has a metaphorical connotation, which 00:10:57.039 --> 00:11:02.519 is the sense of a rope that's been tied together through different strands. 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:09.239 So if you weave a rope together, if you mess around with a fraying rope, that you can pull 00:11:09.239 --> 00:11:11.000 all the strands apart. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:18.240 And so he takes that metaphor and says, scripture cannot be unraveled is the idea. 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:21.600 It's translated broken, I think in the USB. 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:22.600 What's the idea? 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:27.960 The idea there is the Bible is composed of 66 books in English, over a 1500 year period 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:33.039 at least, by tons of different authors, we don't know exactly how many. 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:37.720 And he's saying, yet, it's one thing that cannot be unraveled. 00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:42.360 He's saying you can't treat it as if it's just a multiplicity, a collection of mere 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:44.240 human documents. 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:46.039 That's Jesus's claim. 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:49.240 And so either you've got to take it or you've got to reject it. 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:52.759 You've got to go naturalism or supernaturalism. 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:57.120 That's the only option because of the claims that the Bible makes about itself over and 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:00.799 over and over again, it self authenticates and makes enormous claims. 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.519 And you've got to choose to be with it and for it or against it. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:07.039 It really won't let you do anything else in between. 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:12.439 All right, so what I want to say briefly just about what it is and we've got to hurry. 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:19.680 I probably won't get to everything is that ultimately what you believe the Bible is, 00:12:19.680 --> 00:12:25.760 is entirely based at a more foundational level on what you think about the relationship 00:12:25.760 --> 00:12:27.680 between God and the world. 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:32.080 All right, so what do we as Christians believe about the relationship between God and the 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:33.320 world? 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:41.040 We believe God is the Creator, not the creation, meaning that there are only two things that 00:12:41.039 --> 00:12:43.039 exist. 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:45.799 You're either the Creator or you're a creature. 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:47.759 There's only two types of stuff. 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.799 There's God and there's everything else. 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:52.879 And God is not the everything else. 00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:55.679 He's completely other, completely. 00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:58.480 We don't even share being with God. 00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:00.120 We don't share existence with God. 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:06.120 He's totally other outside of space, outside of time, the Creator, not the creature in 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:08.120 any way. 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:18.519 And secondly, God has chosen to relate to the creaturely world primarily by way of speaking. 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:22.320 When you open the Bible, Genesis one, the very first thing you see God do is that he 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:27.679 relates to creation by creating it how by speech. 00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:33.759 Speech is the quality, that thing by which God wants to relate to the world. 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:40.279 And so we learn that God is a divine communicative agent and that he loves to communicate by 00:13:40.279 --> 00:13:46.080 way of word and that we're created, no surprise. 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:49.799 And one of the very first things we learn that makes us different from the animals is 00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:51.259 that we can speak. 00:13:51.259 --> 00:13:53.960 We have personal communicative agency. 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:58.759 And so God stands wholly separate from the world, yet he connects to the world by way 00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:04.439 of speaking, but then he does it even further by way of covenant. 00:14:04.439 --> 00:14:09.919 And so the primary way that we learn as Christians in the Bible that God relates to us is by 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:14.559 making covenants and covenants are made by speech. 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.200 God declares the covenant. 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:21.240 It's the same thing mimicked in an analogy in the way we make marriage vows. 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:23.159 God does that with us. 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:26.759 And yet at the same time in the covenant ceremonies, we do it back to God. 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:28.360 We speak. 00:14:28.360 --> 00:14:33.639 And so this great divine communicative agent that is God who created the world by speech 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:37.879 made us to be speakers as well in our communication. 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:41.720 And then he decides that the fundamental relationship we're all going to have together 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:48.759 is solidified through speech and maintained by speech, through word, through prayer, through 00:14:48.759 --> 00:14:52.000 covenant relational speaking to one another. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:58.159 When we speak to God, it doesn't impinge upon or change the fact that he is absolutely 00:14:58.159 --> 00:14:59.399 another. 00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:05.279 And when he speaks to us, it doesn't take away at all from from his absolute being. 00:15:05.279 --> 00:15:10.159 And yet at the same time, God in the covenant says, you have choices. 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:15.839 You can you can you have free will you have agency you can obey or not you can be blessed. 00:15:15.839 --> 00:15:18.959 He says to Israel in the covenant or be cursed. 00:15:18.959 --> 00:15:19.959 You can make your vow. 00:15:19.959 --> 00:15:20.959 You can break your vow. 00:15:20.959 --> 00:15:26.639 He gives in the midst of the covenant free agency, free will to human beings. 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:33.600 Now, the same exact thing is happening in a sense, or that's the foundational backdrop, 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:38.799 the covenant to what scripture is the covenant book. 00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:47.360 And in the covenant book, the absolute author speaks absolutely and simultaneously, the 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:52.799 creaturely human sinful author speak at the exact same time. 00:15:52.799 --> 00:16:00.879 We hold in divine mystery that God's absolute purposes are maintained and the human will 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:05.439 is not completely sequestered, that both of those things are possible. 00:16:05.439 --> 00:16:10.079 And that's exactly what's in divine inspiration. 00:16:10.079 --> 00:16:14.759 It's important to say this is maybe something you've not thought about or something that 00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:20.679 you that we tend to think I think wrongly about the humans that wrote the Bible are 00:16:20.679 --> 00:16:23.599 not inspired humans. 00:16:23.599 --> 00:16:27.359 They're not humans, no, not at all. 00:16:27.359 --> 00:16:34.120 Instead what they wrote is inspired by God by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:38.639 And it's important to say that because Paul was not an inspired human. 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:44.519 You know, he didn't when everything that he said over dinner with his buddies was God's 00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:45.519 word. 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:48.759 He did, you know, Isaiah didn't speak God's words all the time. 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:49.759 No, not at all. 00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:55.879 Instead, what they wrote in the light of the presence of the Holy Spirit as the agent 00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:58.759 of inspiration is God's word. 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:05.039 So it's the text, the word of God that's inspired, not the human that's inspired. 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:08.400 And that's fundamental. 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:10.000 God does things by human words. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:15.599 I want to my favorite illustrations to make this clear. 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:16.599 It's imperfect. 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:20.839 It's a little apart at some point, but it works for at least the first few pieces of 00:17:20.839 --> 00:17:22.839 logic. 00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:26.959 You know, if you've got an ambassador to state, you know, the ambassador meets with the prime 00:17:26.959 --> 00:17:27.959 minister. 00:17:27.959 --> 00:17:34.439 And the prime minister says to the ambassador, you know, this is what I want you to communicate 00:17:34.439 --> 00:17:39.039 to the foreign president that you're going to visit. 00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:46.359 The ambassador goes and when he speaks in the right moment, according to the purpose 00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:50.959 that he's been given, he's inspired. 00:17:50.959 --> 00:17:54.879 He speaks the very word of the prime minister. 00:17:54.879 --> 00:17:59.799 And it's not just that he dictates that word identically, right, because the president has 00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:00.799 questions. 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:02.479 You know, the president says, well, what about this? 00:18:02.479 --> 00:18:03.479 Well, what about that? 00:18:03.479 --> 00:18:10.759 Well, the ambassador has the power by inspiration through the deputizing of the prime minister 00:18:10.759 --> 00:18:14.240 to say this is the word of the prime minister. 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:19.640 Now when the ambassador goes to, you know, the hotel bar later that night and has dinner, 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:22.120 he no longer speaks with inspiration. 00:18:22.120 --> 00:18:26.880 He doesn't have the power to say this is what the prime minister says to his waiter, right? 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:28.519 No, not at all. 00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:32.039 And the same thing is happening in inspiration. 00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:36.920 Now before we move on, because we have to move on because we're nearly out of time, 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:43.400 I just want to give a caution here because what we're trying to say is what we have here. 00:18:43.400 --> 00:18:49.280 I listened to once again, Jordan Peterson, the public intellectuals interview with a 00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:51.640 Roman Catholic thinker today. 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:57.360 And he said, Jordan said, if you believe that God really has come into the world and the 00:18:57.360 --> 00:19:01.800 incarnation that the narrow title as he calls it, the world of the spirit, the myth, as 00:19:01.800 --> 00:19:06.880 he likes to say, has entered into the real world, then you ought to be terrified of the 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:10.360 consequences for your own life. 00:19:10.359 --> 00:19:18.439 If you think that this is the divine word of God with absolute authority over all existence, 00:19:18.439 --> 00:19:23.039 that this is the true speech of the living God, then the consequences are terrifying. 00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:27.559 They're terrifying in the sense of they're so big. 00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:29.719 They're so extreme. 00:19:29.719 --> 00:19:30.719 They're so important. 00:19:30.719 --> 00:19:37.399 They're so critical that we have to fight the temptation to get bored with this book. 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:42.080 Now simultaneously what I want to say as we move on, and I'll just be able to make one 00:19:42.080 --> 00:19:50.080 brief point simultaneously, what I want to say is that scripture is the word of God. 00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:54.600 It's so important and it is not God. 00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:59.800 Scripture is the word of God, but scripture, this book is not God. 00:19:59.800 --> 00:20:05.519 And so if the Reformers were upset with the Roman Catholic Church for not taking this 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:12.519 seriously enough, sometimes people would be justified in the evangelical church in times 00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:19.079 and places of saying, you can mistake this for God himself. 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:20.559 This is not the word of God. 00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:21.759 This is not God. 00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:22.759 This is the word of God. 00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:27.119 This is the means by which we know God, by which God has spoken. 00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:32.759 And so even in our tradition, this tradition in the past, there has been times where the 00:20:32.759 --> 00:20:37.079 Bible has been possessed and kissed and different things. 00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:40.839 And those can mean different things and maybe you can make sense of it. 00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:46.799 But ultimately I think that's a mistake because it misses the fact that this is not God. 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:51.599 This is that by which God has spoken so that we may worship and know the true and living 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:52.599 God. 00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:54.359 All right. 00:20:54.359 --> 00:21:01.799 In four minutes, let me say something about why the scripture has power. 00:21:01.799 --> 00:21:05.039 We've already said that the scripture has power. 00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:08.559 It is the word of God because it's inspired. 00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:11.919 And so 2 Timothy 3 16 is the famous text. 00:21:11.919 --> 00:21:14.799 All scriptures breathed out by God. 00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:16.799 That means it's divine. 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:17.799 It has power. 00:21:17.799 --> 00:21:18.799 It has life. 00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:21.599 But let me move on to the second big reason. 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:26.000 If all that we've said so far is true, then the best way to think about scripture and 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:35.480 why it is so powerful is to say that scripture is at the end of the day, Trinitarian discourse. 00:21:35.480 --> 00:21:40.240 And to say that is to say that there is something more going on when you as a Christian read 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:42.880 the Bible than you ever know. 00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:44.440 That's the view. 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:45.440 And here's what it is. 00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:49.880 Here's what the Bible teaches us about what's going on when you read the Bible. 00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:56.320 The father is the speaker of the divine word. 00:21:56.320 --> 00:22:02.880 The son of God is the very content of that speech. 00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:04.360 God, the father speaks. 00:22:04.360 --> 00:22:08.600 He speaks the content that is the son. 00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:14.320 And Luke 24, Jesus tells us that every single word of the Bible is about him. 00:22:14.320 --> 00:22:18.720 And the Holy Spirit is the interpreter of that speech. 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:23.000 There in and through the believer. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:27.240 And so when you read the Bible, the promise of God is that the father speaks. 00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:34.440 He speaks the word, the son, and it is the Holy Spirit that interprets that speech. 00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:39.240 And so when the Bible, we say is rightly preached and proclaimed, it is the Holy Spirit that 00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:40.440 is the primary interpreter. 00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:41.440 Right. 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:47.079 And that means that when we read the Bible rightly, what's happening is a is the Trinitarian 00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:50.279 presence of God at work in the person's life. 00:22:50.279 --> 00:22:52.839 It's Trinitarian discourse. 00:22:52.839 --> 00:22:58.639 And that means that the power of the Bible is all based in God's divine presence. 00:22:58.639 --> 00:23:07.519 It's all about the fact that God is with us as we read and as we receive discourse, discourse, 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:12.720 Trinitarian and discourse, not just Trinitarian words. 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:16.319 So this is just a foray into some of the little little things that we need to deal with when 00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:20.759 we think about the problems we face in believing scripture in the modern world. 00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:29.279 How is it that we can say that all of these words are divine words whenever we know that 00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:31.039 they're not the original? 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:37.879 And in fact, when if I was to bring up Greek Bible or Hebrew Bible and read from it, we 00:23:37.879 --> 00:23:40.679 can say that that is not the original. 00:23:40.679 --> 00:23:45.439 We don't have the original, the autographs, the first copies, the very piece of paper 00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:51.000 that Paul wrote on, the very stone that Moses carved the Ten Commandments into. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:52.000 We don't have that. 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:53.500 How can we say? 00:23:53.500 --> 00:24:00.519 This is precisely why we want to say that the word of God is Trinitarian discourse. 00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:06.799 In the autographs and the originals, every single word was intentioned by the Holy Spirit. 00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:09.920 But we know that this has been translated by a committee. 00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:16.960 We got the ESV here, it was translated by a committee of 13 people, and they've made 00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:19.360 changes to it. 00:24:19.360 --> 00:24:21.600 But it remains the word of God. 00:24:21.600 --> 00:24:23.120 How so? 00:24:23.120 --> 00:24:27.759 And it's because the inspiration of God is not primarily about every little word, every 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:31.120 little jot and tittle, though in the autographs it is that. 00:24:31.120 --> 00:24:36.759 But it's the fact that God by the power of the Spirit has preserved his word as discourse. 00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:38.320 What is discourse? 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:41.679 Discourse is what a sentence means. 00:24:41.679 --> 00:24:44.000 You can change the words. 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:45.559 You can translate it from Hebrew to Greek. 00:24:45.559 --> 00:24:46.960 You can translate it from Greek to English. 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:49.079 You can translate it from English to French. 00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:55.079 And yet the discourse remains, which is the meaning, the intention, the very thing that 00:24:55.079 --> 00:24:57.559 God wants to communicate. 00:24:57.559 --> 00:25:01.240 And that's why we can translate the Bible into thousands of languages across thousands 00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:06.439 of years and call every single copy the word of God. 00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:10.000 Now the last reason, and I'll just have to stop, that we can do that is because Jesus 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:12.160 said we could. 00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:17.720 So in the Gospels, whenever Jesus stands up in the synagogue, he opens the scroll of 00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:22.680 Isaiah, he reads, what's he reading from? 00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:27.320 Jesus reads Isaiah and he says, today this is fulfilled in your hearing, this is the 00:25:27.320 --> 00:25:28.320 word of God. 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:30.039 And what's he reading from? 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:33.440 He's reading from the Old Testament. 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:38.160 He's reading from a copy and he's reading very likely in most instances from a Greek 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:40.440 translation. 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:42.039 And so Jesus is reading a translation. 00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:47.400 He's reading a copy of a copy of a copy and he says, this is the word of God. 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:52.279 And so we've got to either say with Jesus, okay, or not. 00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:53.960 We've got to go with him if we're for him. 00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:57.519 If we believe he rose from the dead, we've got to say, I'm okay with copies of copies 00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:00.039 of copies of copies. 00:26:00.039 --> 00:26:03.720 And there's a lot more we can say about that to bolster that idea. 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:07.639 But the ultimate power of the word of God is that it is indeed Trinitarian discourse 00:26:07.639 --> 00:26:14.000 and that God's very presence is here as we read it and as the people of God gather especially 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:18.319 to read it in particular places like this and on the Lord's day. 00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:23.440 All right, I had a long section on what anerrancy really means, but we'll have to wait for that 00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:24.839 to another day. 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:26.559 That's another important one. 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:29.000 Okay, let's pray together. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.519 The prayer tonight is simply asking God to make his word alive to us. 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:41.880 His word is alive, but in our sinfulness and our dullness, we need help. 00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:46.400 And so we ask that God would make his word alive to us for the presence of the Spirit 00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:48.039 that he would stir us up. 00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:54.359 And at the beginning of the year, maybe an important prayer in your life might be Lord, 00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:58.599 help me to stay committed to the word. 00:26:58.599 --> 00:27:04.919 To reading the Bible, to loving the Bible, to loving it not because it is God, but because 00:27:04.919 --> 00:27:06.679 it is that through which God has spoken. 00:27:06.679 --> 00:27:08.000 It is his divine speech. 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:10.000 All right, so let's pray that prayer together now. 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:16.279 Lord, we ask that you would help us to love your word, that we would feel and know the 00:27:16.279 --> 00:27:22.399 power and presence of the Trion God as we read it, that you Father speak, that the Son, 00:27:22.399 --> 00:27:26.799 you O Christ are the very content of this word and that you Holy Spirit interpret it 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:27.799 for us. 00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:34.519 And so help us to see it rightly, do that work and also Lord, and give us a deep, deep love 00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:35.519 for what you have said. 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:36.519 And we pray this in Christ's name. 00:27:36.519 --> 00:28:00.519 Amen.