The Bible

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Transcript:

So last Sunday night, I gave you the introduction to our series on the Baptist Faith and Message, where we’re going to spend the next several weeks looking over some of the most fundamental doctrines that unite our church. And we looked at some of the reasons why churches and groups of churches adopt doctrinal statements. That includes the desire to explain what we believe and the desire to correct misconceptions.

and the doctrinal statement that our church has adopted is the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which was drafted in the year 2000 by the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, tonight, as we begin our study of Baptist doctrine, we’re going to look at 2 Timothy chapter 3 because the Baptist Faith and Message starts out by discussing the scriptures. Even though God existed before the Bible did, we start there in our study of our doctrine because our understanding of God has to begin with the Bible.

God revealed his existence to man through nature. Romans 1. 20 says, For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.

So nature shows us his existence, but there’s a wide gap in between knowing that he exists and really knowing him. So wide gap between those. And he is so far beyond our understanding that we can only really know him from what he tells us.

If we want to know him, he tells us who he is in the Bible. Now he showed himself also through Jesus Christ, but he gave us all these explanations of himself and his character in the Bible. So the Bible is where we find our understanding of God and our knowledge of his truth.

And so it has to be at the very root of our beliefs. Tonight we’re going to consider how the Bible informs our understanding of everything around us. And if you haven’t already turned there with me, turn with me to 2 Timothy 3, verses 13 through 17.

That passage says, But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou and the things which thou hast learned and been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Now, Paul was writing to Timothy, who was a young pastor in Ephesus, and he was reminding him of the importance of the scriptures. We know that Timothy grew up learning the scriptures because verse 15 says that he knew them from a child. And earlier on in this book, in 2 Timothy 1.

5, Paul discussed Timothy’s mother and grandmother who had raised him in the faith. he was taught the Old Testament scriptures, especially as they apply to Jesus Christ. And Paul was writing to this young man because of the world that he lived in, which wasn’t too different from ours. Anyone who tries to, just like in Timothy’s day, anyone who tries to follow Jesus Christ faces an uphill battle, don’t we?

We face an uphill battle because the way of the world is rebellion against God. The world will lead us astray from him if we give it the opportunity. And so in verse 13, Paul warned about this when he wrote, evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

The city of Ephesus was built on a foundation of idolatry. Specifically, they worshipped the moon goddess Diana. And Christianity undermined the cult of Diana.

So many there were opposed to the church. They were openly hostile toward the church there. And those who profited from the cult of Diana wanted to keep people ensnared in idolatry, and they wanted to weaken the church’s faith in Christ because all these people coming to worship Diana was good for business.

So the city of Ephesus, the world around Timothy, had a vested interest in keeping people away from God’s truth. And the world’s hostility toward the gospel is nothing new. It wasn’t even new in Timothy’s day.

The world has been in rebellion against God since the Garden of Eden. I think we know that. And knowing that these false teachers and pagan influences would trouble Timothy and his church, Paul offered him a solution.

And it was the same solution that Jesus used when he was tempted in the wilderness. We read about this a couple Sunday nights ago, that we should flee to the word of God for refuge. When we’re tempted and when we’re troubled, we should go to the word of God for refuge.

And then in verse 14, Paul wrote, but continue thou in the things which thou has learned and been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them. What were the things that Timothy had learned? Verse 15 tells us that Paul was referring to the scriptures.

Paul was reminding Timothy that when things are uncertain and out of control, when the world seems gripped by chaos, when everyone around us seems to have rejected God, we can turn to the word of God for refuge. And Paul reassured Timothy that in the scriptures he would find salvation, or he would find the way to salvation. Verse 15 says, From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

We can find refuge in the scriptures because God’s word will always point us to the truth and to salvation. How does it always do that? How does it always point us to truth and salvation?

It’s because the scriptures always point to Jesus Christ. no matter how chaotic the world is, no matter how the truth gets twisted or distorted by the culture, we can use the Bible as our compass to find our way. And you know, just like the needle of a compass always points north, the scriptures always point us to the true north of Jesus Christ. They always point us back to him. So Paul told Timothy to take refuge in the scriptures, and that command in verse 14 is central to our whole understanding of the Bible and why we have the Bible.

Our faith, folks, our faith does not change just because the culture changes. It doesn’t change just because the world has grown up. It doesn’t change just because people don’t want the truth to be true anymore.

When it comes to the truth of scripture, Paul said, continue, continue. There’s an old hymn that says, how firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent work. And I think that’s absolutely right.

God’s word is our foundation. It’s our foundation. And the main point of a foundation is that it stays put, right?

It’s not supposed to move. I grew up in Tornado Alley, and I’ve seen more than my fair share of houses demolished. I’ve never seen a firm foundation, though, that was broken up by a tornado.

I’ve seen plenty of houses, though, that were moved off of that firm foundation. And see, what happens is when a house no longer continues on its foundation, it’s destroyed. It’s usually a total loss.

At that point, you can’t save the house. we’re the same way we’re the same way we’re called to continue on in God’s word just like Timothy was to make it our foundation and continue on it we shouldn’t try to change God’s word with the times just because that’s more comfortable for us God’s word this is something that sounds like it’s directed at the world but it’s also something we need to hear as well God’s word is true whether we’re comfortable with it or not. Hey, I’ve been a Christian for, oh goodness, over 25 years.

I lose count sometimes. And still, there are some things in God’s word that I think, I wish it didn’t say that. It interferes with how I want to act or react sometimes.

You know what? God’s word is true, whether I’m comfortable with it or not. And I feel sorry for churches that have bought into the philosophy.

I feel sorry for churches that bought into the philosophy that God’s truth changes. Because when we decide to no longer continue on the foundation of God’s word, we’ll find out sooner or later that the house can’t stand when it’s taken off its foundation. As Paul told Timothy to continue, he explained why.

Not only did the scriptures point to Jesus and the salvation he offers, but Paul said that God’s word is trustworthy. It’s entirely trustworthy. It’s trustworthy because it was inspired by God.

Look at verse 16. It says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

People get confused about what inspiration means. Great art is sometimes called inspired. I love Van Gogh’s paintings.

And it’s easy to think of him being inspired. You know, he could go out to a field of sunflowers or he could look at the night sky. And he was inspired by those things in the sense that he got a flash of an idea beyond his eyes, and beyond what his eyes saw at the moment, and he ran with it.

But that’s not what the Bible means when it says inspiration. When it says all scripture is given by inspiration of God, the Greek word that’s translated as inspiration is theonoustos. Theos means God, and neo means to breathe or to blow.

So inspiration means that God breathed out the scriptures. He breathed out the scriptures. The Bible doesn’t just contain God’s word.

It doesn’t just point to God’s word. It is God’s word. That’s what that word means.

It is God’s word. Just like I’m breathing out every word that I’m saying to you tonight, God breathed out every word that is found in the scripture. Now, God used the personalities.

He used the writing styles. He used the skills of the writers in the process. I don’t entirely understand how he did that, but he worked it out so that the individuality of the human writers shone through in what they were writing, but he is still the author of every single word.

And because it’s God’s word, because it’s God’s word, it’s trustworthy and it’s good for us. Paul told Timothy that it’s profitable. Verse 16 says that scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.

Then verse 17 adds that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. profitable. That word profitable means that it’s good for us.

And Paul explained some of the ways that it benefits us. When he said that it was profitable for doctrine, doctrine means teaching. And the Bible, you know what, that covers all the areas of teaching that we’re going to look at in this series on the Baptist faith and message.

Doctrine means our understanding of God and his truth. So Paul was telling Timothy that the scriptures are excellent for helping us to Understand God and his truth. If you want to know more about God, if you want to know more about God, don’t just listen to your feelings or what you think God might be like.

Don’t listen to what popular culture tells you God should be like. Go to the Bible and see for yourself who he really is. The scriptures, Paul said, are profitable for doctrine.

They’re also profitable for reproof. Reproof means pointing out where our beliefs are wrong. Sometimes we need somebody to tell us when our beliefs are wrong, right?

We need somebody to tell us when we’re wrong. Is it just me or have any of the other men in the room had an idea before? And then your wife told you 56 reasons why it was a bad idea.

Any of the other men fess up to that? That happens to me all the time. You’re not married.

Did I do it anyway? Sometimes. Which time?

This happens on a daily basis. happens all the time. And I can say from experience, it’s annoying in the moment.

It’s annoying when it happens. But Charla saves me from catastrophe on a regular basis, all right? Because I’ll have an idea that I think is great and brilliant, and she’ll point out to me why it’s a bad idea.

When I’m building something or fixing something and I haven’t thought it all the way through, I need some reproof, all right? I need somebody to tell me, hey, that’s a bad idea. And she reproofs me.

Reproof tells us when our thinking is wrong. And when our thinking about God or his will is out in left field. The Bible can reprove us and sort of bring us back to reality.

Paul said that scriptures are profitable for correction. And that means God’s word corrects us. It confronts us when we sin, not when our ideas are wrong, but when our actions are wrong.

Many of you have had children. I’m sure you corrected them a lot. This takes on a special significance tonight.

When we do wrong, we need to be corrected. When my children get out of line, I correct them unless I’m in the middle of teaching at the time. I correct them.

Discipline. Discipline cannot be just about punishment. Discipline is also about teaching and about taking the opportunity to point out what’s wrong and correct the behavior.

Say, what should you do next time? Okay, God’s Word does that with us. It corrects us.

It points out how our words, our actions, our thoughts, our attitudes, how all those things can be disobedient to God, and it calls those things out for the sin that they are. The scriptures are profitable for instruction and righteousness as well. That means teaching us the right way to live as Christians in order to glorify God with our lives.

We need to be shown the right way as a parent. Again, it’s not enough for me to deal with my kids always from a reactive position where I’m waiting for them to mess up so I can correct them. It’s not enough just to tell them the sins that they need to avoid.

I also have to tell them what they should do. I have to teach them. And scripture does that for us too.

It doesn’t just show us where we’re wrong. It tells us what the right way actually is, what we ought to be doing. And if you belong to Jesus and you want to follow him, the Bible tells you how.

That’s what instruction in righteousness is. And Paul said it was profitable for that. And that brings us around to Paul’s last point in the passage.

The scriptures are profitable for leading us to spiritual maturity. Paul wrote in verse 17 that God gave us the scriptures that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works. That word perfect in the Bible, that rarely ever means sinless, like we would think of.

Somebody who doesn’t make mistakes. The way we would use it when we say nobody’s perfect. Usually what the word perfect means is complete.

And what it’s describing here, somebody who is complete, somebody who doesn’t lack anything, it’s describing spiritual maturity. So if we want to pursue spiritual maturity, if we want to grow to be more like Jesus Christ or to be equipped for the works that God has given us to do, then it’s vital that we turn to the Bible and see what he says there. And as the Holy Spirit works in us to sanctify us and to bring us to spiritual maturity, he uses the scriptures to teach us.

The scriptures are profitable for our spiritual growth. The ideas that Paul expressed in this passage, in these five verses, they’re echoed in the Baptist faith and message. We don’t just pull these things out of thin air.

And so when we read our doctrinal statement, it points to the place that scriptures occupy in our spiritual development or the place that they should occupy. I’ve given you booklets with the Baptist faith and message in it so that you can kind of familiarize yourself with what it says. if you’ve never read it before.

You can read What Our Church Believes, and I hope that you’ll tuck it away in your Bible and keep it there so that you can refer back to it as we go through this series. Tonight, I want us to look at section one, which talks about the scriptures. You’re going to find that on page seven.

Page seven. It says, The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine inspiration.

It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter. Therefore, all scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us and therefore is and will remain to the end of the world the true center of Christian union and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.

All scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is himself the focus of divine revelation. So when we break this section down, when we break it down a little further, we see how it lines up with what Paul told Timothy. It says here at the beginning, the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of himself to man.

It’s a perfect treasure of divine instruction. We believe that God’s word is inspired, exactly like Paul said. We believe that it’s inspired.

The scriptures were breathed out by God. He used men to write everything down, but these were his words. These weren’t human words.

These were his words. He was revealing himself to us so that we could know him. And if you want to know him, there’s no better place to go than to the scriptures.

There’s no better place to look than the Bible if we want to know God. Then it says, it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter. So we believe that God’s word is inerrant.

I believe that God’s word is inerrant. People shy away from that word sometimes because it’s controversial, or it can be controversial. But I think inerrancy is misunderstood. I think the whole debate has been misunderstood.

I don’t know of anybody who thinks that all the Bible versions we have today are exactly the same. They’re not. I don’t know anyone who thinks that all the ancient Greek and Hebrew manuscripts are exactly the same.

The manuscripts that we get all of our translations from, they’re not exactly the same. There are a lot of variants among all those copies. There’s a ton of them among these ancient copies.

You’ve got misspellings. You’ve got omitted words. You’ve got things like that.

But anytime you have human beings copying a text, especially a huge text, they’re going to make a lot of mistakes. That’s just part of it. But the original manuscripts written by God, I’m sorry, written by the men who were inspired by God, those manuscripts were entirely without error.

But you might wonder how we know then what those said. You take all the ancient manuscripts and you put them together and you take out the obvious spelling errors and you take out the things of that nature, you’re going to find that they’re so often in agreement that there’s very little doubt what the originals actually said. I mean, there’s almost no doubt what the originals said.

And Ron Rhodes teaches at Dallas Theological Seminary, and I like what he wrote about this. He wrote, ultimately, only 50 variants have any real significance, and even then, no doctrine of the Christian faith or any moral commandment is affected by them. So here’s the bottom line.

Here’s the bottom line on this subject of inerrancy as far as I’m concerned. Anything God said about spiritual or doctrinal matters is true. I think we can all agree on that.

We should be able to. I also think anything that God said about historical or scientific matters is also true. And I believe that our Bibles reliably, assuming you’re not using some off-the-wall translation that’s been made up by a cult, okay, our Bibles reliably transmit what he said.

God authored the Bible, God authored the Bible to be totally true so that we could know him and so that we could find salvation in Jesus Christ. And then the Baptist faith and message says, therefore, scripture is totally true and trustworthy. God’s word is reliable. It’s reliable because God said it, you know, it’s true.

And today’s Bibles, as I said, are reliable presentations of what the writers put on paper or vellum or papyrus, whatever they happen to use. We have a mountain of manuscript evidence going back to within a generation of the individual writings. So we can tell, we can look at all these and we can tell that God’s word has not been tampered with over time.

And anybody who’s going to tell you, well, God’s word has been changed over time, either is lying to you or best case scenario, they’re just ignorant of the mountain of manuscript evidence that we have. There is no evidence that God’s word has been changed over time and there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. And so if God’s word says it, I believe we can trust it.

And then it says it reveals the principles by which God judges us and therefore is and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union. So we believe that God’s word is sufficient. We don’t need another book of scripture to tell us anything about God.

We don’t need a third Testament. Here’s my problem. Are there things that we would like to know?

Yeah, there’s all sorts of stuff I’d like to know. Are there things we’d like to know that the Bible doesn’t tell us. Absolutely.

We had a good conversation about this Wednesday night, looking at the story of Simon the Magician in, what is it, Acts chapter 8, and questioning, was he saved or was he not? And depending on how you interpret the tone of voice through reading it, you can make an argument either way. And we came down at the end of it with no clearer conclusion than when we started.

And I still have no idea whether Simon was saved or not. You can make the argument either way. So would I like to know?

Absolutely. I want to know. I’m curious.

Did I need to know? Apparently not, or God would have made it clearer. And one of the folks in that study said, well, the purpose of that is to show us that we can’t really know the heart of somebody else.

You just preach the gospel and let God deal with it. I think that’s what we’re supposed to take from that story. One of the things we’re supposed to take from that story.

So are the things that we’d know that the Bible doesn’t tell us absolutely they are. But everything that we need to know for salvation or for godly living, everything that God thought was essential, we know from the Bible. We don’t need anything else to tell us about God.

The Bible tells us what God’s standards are, and the Bible is the entire basis of our Christian faith. We don’t need another book, so we believe God’s word is sufficient. Then it says the scriptures are the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.

We believe that God’s word is authoritative. We believe God’s word has authority. That means when the Bible speaks, it speaks with God’s authority.

God is speaking and we need to listen. If God’s speaking, we need to listen. And when it mentions human conduct, okay, it’s saying if I’m doing something wrong, the scriptures are profitable for correction.

They’re going to point out where I’m wrong. The We don’t get a vote on the definition. God defines sin.

The Bible tells us how. When it talks about creeds and religious opinions, it means the Bible is the standard we use to judge our beliefs. If our beliefs individually or corporately, meaning you as a person or us as a whole church, if our beliefs conflict with the Bible, our beliefs are wrong and we need to disregard them.

And to persist in disagreement with the Bible is to refuse to accept what God has said. It’s just that simple. It’s God’s word and it sets the standard for what we believe.

The preacher doesn’t set the standard. The vote of the church doesn’t set the standard. This booklet doesn’t set the standard.

God speaking through his word sets the standard. Then it says all scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is himself the focus of divine revelation. God’s word points us to Jesus.

If you really want to understand the Bible, start looking for Jesus. He’s there throughout because it was designed to point people to him. Take the Old Testament sacrifices for an example.

It used to confuse me why the sacrifices were needed in the first place since they couldn’t actually save anybody. I couldn’t figure that out. If they can’t save anybody, then animal sacrifice really seems like a crazy thing to do.

Maybe I’m alone in that, but that’s how I think about it. But in the midst of that confusion, you start looking for Jesus in the text. Start looking for Jesus.

And then you’ll realize that the sacrifices were there because they were supposed to point people to Jesus. They were there to condition the people to understand that the innocent died to pay for the sins of the guilty. They were there to give the Jewish people a frame of reference in order to understand, in order to realize that Jesus didn’t die on the cross as a punishment for his actions, but that he could die on the cross as a punishment for ours.

It was supposed to give them some frame of reference so that some of them would understand. If we look at them in context, the scriptures point to Jesus repeatedly. Now, as Baptists, we believe the Bible should be at the center of everything.

Not because there’s something magical about this physical book. Not because there’s something magical about the words written on the page. We don’t worship the Bible, as I’ve heard some denominations claim, even some Baptists claim that if we believe in inerrancy, we worship the Bible.

We don’t worship the Bible. We worship the God who speaks through the Bible. and we emphasize the Bible because it’s his word and he speaks to us on every page.

Why wouldn’t we listen to that? Why wouldn’t we emphasize that? So what does this issue have to do with you?

Because I don’t want this just to be a theology lesson as we go through this series. I want to give you some real world application that you can take and use in your week. What does this issue have to do with you?

I’d like to, because of what we’ve looked at tonight, I’d like to issue two challenges to you as we close tonight. First of all, as individuals, speaking to each person who’s going to leave this room tonight and head out and live in the world this week, as individuals, you need to be in this book. If you’re a Christian, you need to be in this book every day.

And I know it sounds like a cliche for the pastor to tell you, oh, just read your Bible every day. But I’m not telling you to read your Bible so that it’s something you can check off of your list and feel like you’re a super good Christian, you’re super spiritual. I’m telling you to read your Bible because I want you to hear from God. I want you to hear from God.

God has things to tell us, but week after week, Christians leave their Bibles closed and wonder why God doesn’t speak to them. In these 66 books, you have a wealth of information from God where he has spoken truth that applies to every situation that you face in life. Now, has he written specifically about everything you’re going to face tomorrow?

No, but there’s truth in there and there are principles in there that apply to every situation. God will still speak to you through his word. So get into your Bible.

It may be hard, but persevere in studying it. Persevere in reading it. You will never run out of things to discover.

If you want to know him and you want to know his will, get into his word. You’ll never run out of things to discover. Because you can look at a passage 30 times and on the 30th time still see something that you’ve never seen there before.

Not necessarily a new truth or a new interpretation, but a new way to apply his truth to your circumstances. If you’re not already reading your Bible, my challenge to you is to read your Bible on your own every day. Start with just five minutes if you’re not doing anything else.

Start with even five minutes. And I can just about guarantee you that pretty soon you’re going to be hungry for more. You’re going to want more.

You’re going to think, what about this? It says this, what about this? And you’re going to be hooked if you just commit to do it.

Start with five minutes a day, if nothing else. But whatever you do, don’t just sit there with God’s word closed and gathering dust, sitting on your shelf, and wonder why he’s not speaking to you. He has already spoken, and in front of you, you have his word right there.

My second challenge is to the church as a whole. We need to make sure that we treat the Bible in reality the way we say we do in our doctrinal statement. That makes sense?

If we believe these things, we actually need to act like it. Keep the Bible at the center of what we do. We need to make sure that the Bible is being proclaimed and that it’s front and center in our ministry.

If any pastor or preacher at this church, whether it’s me or somebody who comes after me, if they start preaching something other than God’s word, remove him, okay? If it’s me, if it’s somebody else, remove them if they’re not preaching God’s word. If personal opinions or popular culture or political correctness, any of that, if they’re being preached instead of the Bible, put a stop to it and don’t wait because the Bible’s just far too important.

folks the word of God the word of God that points people to Jesus needs to have center stage in this pulpit now and as long as God keeps this church around as a lighthouse in the community the word of God should be at the center of our preaching should be at the center of our classes our small groups our activities our ministries everything we do our beliefs should be consistent with the word of God the stands that we take should be consistent with the word of God the things that we value and the way we treat each other, they should be consistent with God’s word. If they’re not, if anything that we say or do or believe is not consistent with God’s word, we need to change.

If our church, if Trinity wants to be a clear voice for the truth, if it wants to be a voice crying in the wilderness and pointing people to Jesus Christ, then we have got to remain committed to the Word of God above everything else and at all costs.

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