Is the Bible Trustworthy?

Intro

Welcome to our first week of our new series “When in Doubt”

You supplied the questions; we will work through the answers together

Together = sermon Q&A to follow; follow QR code or link

Actually, I supplied the first question: “Is the Bible trustworthy?”

Not that this is a current doubt of mine, but an important starting point

I will be pointing to Scripture throughout the rest of the series

Is the Bible trustworthy? Reliable? Really the Word of God?

Let’s explore these questions together

Revelation is Required

The Bible is necessary, because in order to understand who God truly is, revelation is required

Call up 2 volunteers to play “what’s behind the door”

What difference did your opinion make? Your desires make? Your reasoning make?

The only way we can understand what is behind the door is for someone on that side to reveal the truth

God has revealed His character in different ways:

Creation - Look around and you can discover things about the Creator

Experience - God is living and active in your life, and you will learn about Him as you follow Him

Jesus - The direct revelation of God; God-in-flesh

The written Word is required to properly make sense of all other forms of revelation

It allows us to interpret our life experiences and the beauty of Creation

And for everyone who did not personally encounter Jesus (God-in-flesh), we need written accounts to understand what He revealed about God and about us

Revelation is required; the Bible is required

But is the Bible trustworthy? Or is it a convienent, mistake ridden religious text designed to make us believe certain things?

In order to grapple with this question, we will look at 3 claims the church has made about Scripture and see if they hold up

The Bible is Inspired

The church believes that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical authors to write what they did

And what a great number of authors were involved!

Bible = 66 books (39 OT, 27 NT), written over 1,500 years (1,100 OT, 400 year gap, 100 NT)

Incredible internal accountability (multiple authors) coupled with uniformity of message

As opposed to the Quran or Book of Mormon (1 person alone came away with a message from God)

The only way you could receive a cohesive message over a time period like this would be to have the Holy Spirit overseeing the entire process

Yet inspiration should be seen as cooperative as opposed to mechanical

There are instances in which God gives direct words through prophecy (“Thus says the Lord”)

But more often than not, this is human authorship with human creativity, writing styles, stories and experiences coming through… with the Holy Spirit superintending the process

Guiding the authors to write only what was true, guarding against falsehood, protecting the final product

The inspiration of the Holy Spirit included guiding the process of a brand new church properly recognizing which writings were inspired Scripture, and which were not (canonization)

The Christian canon was not formalized until Athanasius (Bishop of Alexandria) listed the accepted inspired documents in a letter in AD 367 (later ratified at different councils)

The early church used 3 criteria to properly recognize inspired documents:

Apostolic authority - Written by apostles or eyewitnesses/followers of apostles

The rule of faith - Was the document in line with basic Christian tradition and teaching?

Usage by the church - Most churches already realized which documents to use

These criteria created (almost unanimous) consensus as to which books ought to be included in canon

The only significant disagreements were over some books that were included; none that were excluded

To believe that Scripture is inspired takes reason and faith

The Bible is Inerrant

The EMC Statement of Faith says, “We believe that the Bible, is the Word of God. It is inspired by God and is without error in all that it teaches. It is the final authority in matters of belief and conduct.”

What does it mean that the Bible is “without error,” or “inerrant?”

“Our doctrine of inerrancy maintains merely that whatever statements the Bible affirms are fully truthful when they are correctly interpreted in terms of their meaning in their cultural setting and the purpose for which they were written.” (Millard Erickson)

The Bible is truthful in all it claims to be truthful; we need to let Scripture speak for itself

Potential issues with inerrancy

Textual issues

Scribal errors

MANY scribes reproduced the biblical documents, and some grammatical errors are there

Over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the NT have been catalogued

Second greatest manuscript testimony = Homer’s Illiad = fewer than 650

Errors are small in nature and easy to find (with so many manuscripts)

“The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure” (Norman Geisler and William Nix)

Questions of authenticity an authorship

The Old Tesament is a product of oral history (passed down word of mouth until eventually being written down and recorded time of Moses -> exile)

The New Testament (much more recent) enjoys almost unrivaled closeness to the events in question

Gospels written between approx. 60 - 90 AD (only 30 year gap from actual events)

Earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written more than 400 years after his death (still considered historically trustworthy)

For authorship, the early church was directly connected to those that wrote the NT

For example, the Gospel of John

Iranaeus (writings) -> Polycarp (69 - 156) -> Apostle John -> Jesus

Historical issues

Problems with dates and chronology (Bible doesn’t claim to be a history textbook)

OT = geneaologies are select; may skip generations; different goal in mind

NT = ancient biographies had different standards than modern biographies

“Ancient biographies not only did not pretend to be comprehensive, they tended to be highly selective, and the principle of arranging material, while broadly chronological, could involve a good deal of topical arrangement of material as well.” (Ben Witherington III)

The case of the centurion asking for healing:

In Matthew 8 he asks Jesus personally, in Luke 7 he sends elders of the Jews on his behalf

In the ancient world, acts carried out by subordinates are attributed to the person himself

Lack of archealogical evidence

An OT example would be the skepticism on the Exodus/Conquest of Canaan

Hazor = capital city in Canaan

Bible claims was destroyed with fire by Johsua during the Conquest (Joshua 11:10-11) and later by Deborah in the time of the judges (Judges 4:23-24) while under King Jabin

What did archaeologists discover? 2 destruction layers that fit those timeframes perfectly

Show picture of the ash layer dated to time of Joshua

Scientific issues (ancient understandings and different goals)

Inaccurate scientific information; based on ancient scientific understandings

Show picture of ancient science along with Cf. Psalm 104:1-9.

The Bible is Illuminated

Spirit continues to work through the Word of God, making it alive and worth reading

We also need to be educated readers of the Word, giving the Bible its own voice

Ground rule #1: The message of the Bible must be understood by the original audience

Ancient (not scientific) understanding; interpretations of Revelation, etc.

Ground rule #2: Genre makes a difference

We need to know if we are reading history, biography, poetry, etc. to know what the passage intends to say

Ground rule #3: Use Scripture to help interpret Scripture

There is good reason to have faith that the Holy Spirit has inspired the biblical authors in creating a unified work that makes unified truth claims

Because it is inspired, inerrant and illuminated, the Bible holds the final word/authority in matter of faith and practice

4 sources of theology/understanding of God:

Scripture

Tradition

Reason

Experience

Can be organized in any order EXCEPT that the Bible must be first

We hold everything else up to Scripture, because revelation is required

And there is good reason to have faith that the revelation we have received is trustworthy