Word based

In some sense our core value of being “Word Based” is a call-back to the Reformation in the 1500s. There, one of the core tenants of the Reformation was the idea of “Sola scriptura” also known as “Scripture alone”. When we’re talking about these things “God’s Word” is basically interchangeable with “Scriptures”, being word based is being scripture based. I’ll flesh this more out in a bit.

The reformation happened in a context where Scripture was not the final standard for what was considered good and right. Instead other things had crowded out God’s word and taken prime place.

There, biblical teaching that had been misplaced or twisted throughout the years before the Reformation. It’s kinda like when you mispronounce a word wrong for ages, and you end up telling others the wrong way to say it.

I used to think a word for coffee was “expresso” for ages! I thought people were mispronouncing and mispelling the word as “espresso”. I would correct people, thinking I was doing them a service, when in fact I was leading them astray in my own misunderstanding. Eventually I learned that it was indeed pronounced “espresso” and coffee lovers everwhere rejoiced! Now, I can help others learn like me, how to correctly pronounce “espresso”.

The thing is, the phenomena works with Christianity too. One person misapproriates something, then they teach someone else, then before you know it, something is widely accepted before it has ever been tested. How many times have you seen something go viral on social media before some smart cookie looks into it it and discovers it was fake to begin with?

When it comes to our life under God, we need something to test ourselves by. We need something, or someone that is reliable, trustworthy and authoritative to guide us.

We need somewhere we can go to ask the big questions and get solid unchanging answers.

We know that the person to ask about these things is God! He is our trustworthy, reliable and authoritative place to go for these answers. But the problem is, I can’t just waltz into the throne room of God and ask him a bunch of questions. Instead God in his kindness and sovereignty has prepared and preserved for us an earthly source of His answers to our greatest questions.

Word of God is Scripture

To understand what “Word Based” means, we must first comprehend what the scriptures are. Now for any Christian in the room, we don’t need to be told what the scriptures are, we take it for granted! We know that we’re talking about the Bible; those 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. But, bear with me a minute, I want to talk about the idea of scripture. Why is it we value these writings so highly?

It’s because it is the word of God!

You see, our God is a speaking God. From the beginning God has been speaking!

Genesis 1:3 ESV

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

God began the world with a word, and he didn’t stop there. The scriptures trace God’s interactions with the human race from there out, following the pattern of seeing what God says, and then noting how the people of God react to it.

Throughout Biblical history there has been also pattern of God speaking and his words being recorded. Even at his own request! We see in Exodus and other places that God asked Moses to write down the information he had received...

Exodus 34:27 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

And to pass it on to the next generation...

Deuteronomy 11:18–19 ESV

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

God expected His words to be collected and treasured; used as a guide and rule.

Scripture is that collection of writings that are God’s Words. They include quotations of stuff God said, oracles that he put on the mouths of prophets, historical narratives of God & His people, letters about Him and even poetry that he inspired.

All of this was written and collected by God through the Holy Spirit. And it contains all we need to know about God. It tells us what we need to know about ourselves. It tells us how we can receive eternal life. It tells us how we ought to live. God has prepared and preserved for us an earthly source of His answers to our greatest questions.

Now God has said things that were not recorded, so in some sense in history God’s Words are more than what is written, and presuambly in heaven even now the Father speaks words that we do not have access to. But the scriptures are all the words from God we do have. This is everything that God has said that he wanted to record for His people. God’s Word is the Scripture.

God’s Word is the Rule of Faith & Practice

Right. So Scripture is the Word of God, so what?

Well, This means that for us, who cannot yet speak face to face with God, Scriptures is the place that we must go for all our answers on God; what we must believe about him and what we must do in response. There is no where else to go for authoritative answers!

But what about the Church, ancient writings or other Christians? Surely they can give answers on these matters? Yes, they can. but only in so far as they are relying on what the scriptures say.

It’s kinda like this; You might want to know my birth date. Now, you can ask me my birthdate, and I can give you an accurate answer. But! I am not the authority on my birthdate. As much as it is dear to me, and part of my life and taught to me from a young age, I am not the arbiter of my birthdate!

Actually, what I need is someone who was there, who witnessed my birth to record down the day I was born and have it certified into a birth certificate. Now, I can refer back to that certificate as the authoritative document that establishes my birthdate. It is the document that the bank wants when I go for a home loan. They couldn’t give two hoots what I say it is, they need the certified record. The passport office too, they need to see my birth certificate as the authority on my birthdate so they can issue a passport.

The thing is with scripture, it is our authoritative document on what we believe, and how we ought to live. We weren’t there on the day, so we needed someone to write it down for us to refer to.

People throughout history can say all kinds about Christian Faith and Practice but unless it matches up with the authoritative document, the Bible, we don’t need to take it seriously.

This is the position the reformers found themselves in. They were not willing to dump the original message in favour of what other people said about Christianity. They wanted the real deal. They wanted the Birth Certificate of Christianity to be the illuminator, not what other people said about the Birth Certificate.

Unsurprisingly, Jesus gives us a fantastic example of what it looked like to use the scriptures as the rule of faith and practice. When he was tempted in the desert, he responded three times “It is written...” and quoted the Old Testament to push back against Satan’s temptations. The scriptures informed how he responded and what he believed.

Jesus also challenged the Pharisees with Scripture. Jesus often used the scripture to show the Pharisees how their religiosity was in fact in opposition to God. They should have been living by the scriptures instead of adding to them and manipulating their meaning.

Another example is when Paul was travelling around on his mission trips, he was preaching the Gospel. One group he went to was the Bareans, and these folks were commended because they wanted to make sure the message they were receiving was the real deal!

Acts 17:11 ESV

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

They went back to their authoritative source to check if what they were being taught was true! And I hope you feel free to do the same even today as I teach you these things. We want the true message of the Gospel to go out faithfully from what God has said, so check that the message preached from this pulpit, and every other pulpit, is inline with the Word of God. Not in an arrogant and haughty matter, thinking that you have it all together, but willing to be humbled under whatever God’s word says.

So if today I started to teach you that the Christian must only ever wear purple clothes, I would expect you to say “That’s odd. It doesn’t sound biblical; let me check what God has to say in the scriptures.” And if you found it there you should start wearing purple clothes straight away, even if you didn’t understand why!

Scripture alone is the rule, guide and standard of Christianity. It is what is binding on this earth. We must obey it as the words from God. It can be trusted where broken and sinful humankind cannot.

(and we do not only obey when we understand)

God’s Word is Clear

Scripture Alone is our rule of faith and practice, but it must also be said that scripture is clear. It’s no good to us if scripture is our binding guide but we can’t understand it!

Sometimes it is said of the Gospel

It is shallow enough for a child to swim in and deep enough for the theologian to flounder.

The message of scripture is understandable, anyone of sound mind should be able to read the Scriptures and come to see the message that Jesus saves sinners through repentance and faith. It is simple enough, and clear enough for even a child taught the scriptures receive faith, like Timothy in the New Testament;

2 Timothy 3:15 ESV

and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Yet, this doesn’t mean it is clear at every point. The essentials of faith and godly living are clear, but there’s other stuff in here that is still confusing people to this day! Yet the complexity, and depth of the scriptures cannot hide the fundamental message away from the ordinary man or woman.

One of the Confessions of Faith that come out of the Reformation puts it this way:

The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition Chapter I. Of the Holy Scripture

VII. All things in scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.q

In Summary, we have asked the question “What does Word Based mean?” and we have established that the scriptures, being the record of God’s word to us, is the ONLY authoritative guide on Christian faith and living, and not only that, it’s essential message is clear.

What does “Word Based” NOT mean?

We’ve seen what Word Based is. So lets briefly look at three ways that this teaching can be misused or misunderstood.

What does “Scripture Alone” not mean?

Scripture reading is necessary for Salvation

Sometimes, protestant Christians are accused of worshiping the Bible because we hold the scriptures in such high regard. This is not true of course, but we take it pretty seriously! SO much so that we lay upon ourselves the burden to read it every day, and we feel like bad Christians when we neglect it, probably because we recognize it’s usually an issue of the heart and we know our own guilt.

The scriptures are precious to us, and we study them here in church, in our homes, at Discipleship Group, and some of us are even crazy enough to give up our regular jobs to to it all the time.

But as much as we love and treasure the Scriptures as the Words from God to us, we know that the scriptures are both not necessary for salvation and the are not salvation itself.

Jesus said to the Jews;

John 5:39–40 ESV

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Jesus is clearly pointing out that it is not the scriptures themselves that save, rather they were pointing to the one who actually did the saving! The scriptures illuminate Jesus, and give us the words of Jesus, but it is actually Jesus the God-man who is our salvation, not the book.

It’s also worth noting that reading the scriptures is not a precursor to salvation nor do you need to keep reading them to stay saved. God does not set barriers of literacy and a Bible translation in your own language.

The great thing is that salvation is open to all who repent and believe the Gospel, whether you read it in the scriptures, or whether you heard the scriptures being read, or whether you heard someone else explain the message in their own words like we often do in preaching. There are also countless examples in scripture of people who come to faith without reading a word of scripture.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of GOd. We do need to hear God’s word to be saved and grow in faith, but that does not require literacy.

Treasure God’s words recorded in scripture, and share them, but don’t equate them with salvation itself. God’s word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path to Salvation.

God’s Word is our only Authority.

Now, even though the scriptures are our only binding rule on earth, we still submit to our earthly authorities; like government, spiritual leaders and family leaders.

The Scriptures themselves remind us of our obligation to submit to those in authority over us. The understanding that we obey the scriptures as God’s instruction to us, should not leave any doubt that we ought to submit to our earthly leaders. God calls us to submit to government, spiritual leaders and family leaders. Sometimes that will be hard, and even counter cultural for us Aussies, but unless we are being called to go against scripture or leave God’s word behind, we follow our earthly authorities in so far as they have authority from God.

Feel free to come and chat about this further, because submitting to authority is a real hard one for us, for men and women of any age. It can be helpful to think it through with someone else.

Anyway, don’t use the excuse of God’s authority through His word to avoid earthly authorities; you still need to pay your taxes, honor your mother an father, etc. even though the overarching submission is to God.

God’s Word is a Universal Textbook.

This one I think needs to be said. When we say Word Based, we don’t mean Scripture alone is the guide and authority on every topic. Or to put it another way Scripture is not a life manual, or a science textbook or a recipe book.

For instance, in many of the OT narratives we are given a summary of the battles that are fought. Scripture is not designed or authoritative on battle tactics for armies - even though it discusses these topics, the Bible is not seeking to instruct us on these things. Rather the scripture is our rule on Faith and Holy living. What we should believe, and how we should live. It shows how has God acted in history, and what he has said.

What we believe and how we live will affect all areas of our life, and it will speak to specific situations, like taking a bribe as a Judge. But, the Bible does not set out to be a “how to” on every thing it speaks about.

For instance, The Scriptures are not a diet book. Even though the scriptures speak about the eating habits of various prophets, we don’t need to follow their example, unless of course it is a command like Paul’s; “Don’t eat or drink something that causes your brother to sin.”

Scripture is not a life manual, so please don’t treat it like one. Scripture is not a guide on how to spend all your money (though it will speak to that) or even a parenting manual (again, though it will speak authoritatively to parenting).

The scriptures are fundamentally about Jesus. Word Based doesn’t mean it alone is the authority on everything, but when it speaks to something, it is God’s authoritative Word.

Jesus & God’s Word

This topic is one that tends to end up talking about concepts and propositions rather than about the life giving message of the Gospel itself. So I wanted to close by trying to bring these two things together.

We’re talking about Sola Scriptura, that doctrine crystalised in the Reformation that God’s Word is the basis of our faith and practice, but the reason that this doctrine ends up being so fundamental is because it is in the Scriptures that we find the Gospel message handed down to us. Sure, it can be handed from father to son by oral tradition, or from priest to priest in liturgy, but the Scriptures are where the message is encased for Christians to access an external objective true source.

We can look back and see the unchanged scriptures back to the days of the apostles, and even further in some cases, what we can’t do is look back and see the certainty of other traditions that pop up along the way. Instead what we usually find is fallible folks who are doing their best to seek God, but who can loose their way.

In Jeramiah’s day it was the false prophets.

In Jesus day it was the Pharisees who had misappropriated Scripture.

In the Apostles day it was the Judaisers.

In St Nicolas day it was the Arians.

In Luther’s day it was the Roman Catholics.

In our day, misappropriation of Scripture is rife. It’s not as simple for us to point to one denomination or institution and call them the bad guys. And although we hope and pray that we are doing it well, we can fail in this area too if we are not diligent to remain faithful.

We always need to continue reforming our fallible and wayward minds to be true to God by hearing what he has to say, and the only place we can go with certainty and confidence is the Scriptures. We’re not always going to agree on every little point, but the essential message of the Gospel is abundantly clear.

Here in the scriptures we come to meet our firm foundation, our cornerstone that is Christ. Because of the work of the Apostles and Prophets who wrote the scripture by the HS we can find the fullness of our faith illuminated for us. Because of God’s preservation of His words through History we can know him more fully, and understand him better.

The Scriptures are ultimately all about Jesus. They point us to him to seek him out for our eternal life and our endless joy. They illuminate for us, through the work of the Spirit, our way into union with Christ.

Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Folks, without being Word Based we end up with a twisted gospel.

Without God’s Word we end up with a salvation that is not entered into by faith through grace. We end up with a Savior who does not fully rescue, and a faith that ends up serving the self or some institution rather than the Living God.

We need God’s Word so that we can find the fullness of the Gospel, that sinners can receive salvation, life and light by entering into Faith alone, by God’s Grace alone, through the work of Christ alone to God’s Glory Alone.

We need to be Word based today because of the twisting of the Gospel in all kinds of places. Even here this morning, we need to be reformed, out of the old ways of sin and death into the image of Christ. We need our beliefs conformed to God’s truth and our way of life to follow God’s way for us.

[call to repentance and faith]

[Prayer]

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