I think by now if you haven’t at least heard of Star Wars, you’ve been living under a rock. There are 9 main movies with some other complementary stories like Rogue One, Solo, a cartoon called the Clone Wars and of course the infamous Christmas special. All of them, including the comic books that come out, are seeking to tell one story. Everything is centered around the Force and the Skywalker family.
I bring that up because, if we can understand the concept of a lot of movies and writings aimed at telling a fictional story such as Star Wars, it will help us to understand the putting together of scripture to tell God’s story.
We are wrapping up our Google It series today by talking about “What is the Bible”. The first thing we need to know is that the Bible is not one book, but a collection of books that were written over the course of about 1000 years. There are 66 books that make up our Bible, written by multiple authors, all telling one story. The story of Gods redemption for His creation.
It starts with the Hebrew scriptures known as the Tanakh. Tanakh is an abbreviation for Torah (the first 5 books, known as the law), Nevi’im (the prophets), and Ketuvim (the writings). To the Hebrew people, it was called the Mikra meaning that which is read. There are some differences between the Hebrew bible and the Christian New Testament, but for the most part they are the same. There are some links in the quick notes that can go into more details if you are interested.
There are more than 40 authors of the text we find in the Bible and it is important to know that it was originally written in mostly Hebrew for the Old Testament, and Greek for the New Testament. There is some Aramaic text in both the Old and New Testament, but the majority is Hebrew or Greek.
Both the New Testament and Old Testament started out with the telling of stories to one another in what is called the oral tradition. In the Old Testament, the writings we have start from after the Babylonian captivity with Ezra. He actually formed the Hebrew language that was used to put the scriptures into writing.
The apostles of the New Testament initially told the sayings of Jesus to one another and created songs to remember them. The thinking is that they believed Jesus was coming back soon, so they didn’t take the time to write things down at first, but eyewitnesses of Jesus started to die, the need for preserving eye witness accounts became necessary.
The accounts of Matthew, Mark and John were written by the eyewitnesses of Jesus, His disciples. Then Luke comes like an investigatory, and puts into writing everything that he gathers from interviewing eye witnesses of Jesus’s ministry and then ultimately begins to journey with Paul as churches are established. This is how we get the books of Luke and Acts. We find that in the opening verses of the book of Luke.
Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
The rest of the New Testament are letters written by Paul, which include Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Peter wrote 1 & 2 Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, wrote James, John wrote 1, 2, & 3 John as well as Revelations, and Judas the brother of Jesus, known as Jude wrote Jude. We are not 100% sure who wrote the book of Hebrews.
That’s a brief overview of the Bible, there is a lot to it and you could spend the rest of your life working through all the details of it. It is an amazing collection of work though. The purpose of the Bible is what I want to spend some time on together this morning. Then we will end with a couple of thoughts regarding the trustworthiness of what we have available to us today.
Paul wrote to Timothy a young man he mentored in the faith and left in Ephesus to attend to some of the needs of the church there. He encourages him to continue in the teachings he has received and keep in mind the holy scriptures that he was taught from a child “which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Then he says this:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
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, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
The Bible is the scripture that has been given by God. It says given by inspiration; it could also be said “breathed out by God”. In other words, it was the hand of man that put pen to paper, but it was God who moved them to write what they wrote.
When Paul was writing this letter, he did not have his own writings in mind, however the early church cherished these writings. Paul was taught by Jesus himself, (Galatians 1:12-19), and by the Holy Spirit was able to give application for a lot of the issues facing the early church in how to understand grace, the law, and how to understand the Old Testament in light of the life and work of Jesus.
The purpose of these writings are found right here in Paul’s admonition to Timothy. That those that follow Jesus could be made complete and equipped to do all the good work that Christ has prepared us to do. It is by the scripture that we have doctrine. It is how we are corrected and it is the measure by which we prove whether what we do is according to God or not, that is what reproof means.
The Bible is the living word of God designed to draw us into relationship with Him. It is by the word that our worship is informed. It is by His word that we pattern our life.
Peter had a similar thought that he wrote about.
2 Peter 1:21
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The things we find in scripture, if they were simply the writings of men, we could pick and choose what we like. I’ll take a little bit of that wisdom, some of that inspiration, oh but leave that sin part out, I don’t like that.
That is actually one of the biggest issues when it comes to scripture. Everyone has an opinion on it. Everyone has an interpretation. It is especially difficult because, as we said, the bible wasn’t written originally in a language most of us speak. We are reading a translation.
What all of us should be doing is trying to understand the intent of the writer. Who was he writing to, what were the circumstance, how did culture effect it, are there any colloquialisms or idioms that we need to consider to get the full meaning?
More importantly than anything, we need to be reading with the heart to hear from God. The natural man, the part of a person that is temporary, these bodies that our spirit and soul dwell in, can’t understand the word of God. It is spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14).
In other words, it isn’t simply a matter of reading words on a page, the Spirit of God has to interact with the words and give us meaning. This is why you can’t simply put the word of God on a loud speaker for everyone to hear and then, all of a sudden, whole neighborhoods want to follow Jesus. If that is how it worked, then my plan would be to buy as many ways of just blasting the reading of God’s word and watch revival happen.
We are to have interaction with the Spirit of God as we read. Think of it this way, if praying is our time to speak to God, then if we will be still as we read the word, He will speak back to us. The question then is how do we know if we are right, or who’s right when it comes to understanding the word of God, right?
The first thing we do is interpret scripture with scripture. If you read something and you get an idea from it, then is there anything in scripture that would contradict my thought? If there is, our understanding is off, because the Bible does not contradict itself.
The second thing is to allow God to place a teacher in your life. He has given some a gift in both understanding and communicating what His word says. He has designed His church, the believers grouped together, to help one another. Paul writes about this in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4.
Ephesians 4:11-16
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
This scripture is a good example of going back to the original language to understand. There is a movement of people promoting the 5-fold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The Greek indicates that the words pastors and teachers are connected, meaning that the role of the pastor as teacher.
We are built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets as we read about last week, where Jesus is the cornerstone of that work, then we have people who have been gifted to evangelize and spread the gospel out, then you have pastors who are supposed to feed with knowledge and understanding. (Jeremiah 3:15)
The third thing is to have fellowship with other believers. Talk about the word of God with one another, pray with one another over. We are supposed to speak the truth to one another in love and together we can use the word of God skillfully and with understanding.
By doing so, we will let the plain things be the main things. What I mean by that, is there are some things in scripture that aren’t 100% crystal clear, so why argue and debate over them? The things that truly matter in scripture are 100% clear and we should pay attention to them and live the. We will make those the main things. Everything else we will choose to let be revealed on the other side of this life.
I said to end we would talk about the trustworthiness of the Bible. One of the amazing things about the manuscripts that have been collected and compiled to form the basis of the underlying texts for translation is that for as many copies there are and how spread a part they are, they agree an astounding amount of the time. All of the Greek manuscripts that make up the New Testament, which is the more debated of the two, agree 98% of the time and where there are some differences, it has no impact on doctrine whatsoever.
Having things agree from a copy of a copy in multiple locations speaks to the accuracy and legitimacy of the text for which we derive our Bibles from. It is precisely the number of texts, in different locations that tell us that no one is manipulating or changing the text to suit them.
Compare that with say the Quran. There are two things of note when it comes to the Quran, first it was originally oral just like the Bible. Muhammad would say things in different ways and so would his followers, then he would change it when he chose to. He would institute and new saying and end the old one and instruct his followers to disregard the previous and no longer recite them.
Second, there are multiple Quranic canons, and the one used today was not put together by one the teachers Muhammed named. The one that received approval by the caliphate and became the standard was done so by Caliph Uthman. He burned any manuscript that didn’t agree with what was approved version put together. (From no God but One by Nabeel Aureshi).
The point is the volume of manuscripts and huge separation from one place to another, leads to only one conclusion. We have an extremely reliable transmission of God’s word to us.