In Our Defense

Spoiler Alert

As we are coming to the end of Mark, we will be looking at the foundation of our faith. I am about to spoil the end of the story for you. The main character dies. Jesus gets nailed to a cross and dies. His disciples flee, end of story. Right?

Wrong! Jesus died, yes , and his disciples did flee, however that is not the end of the story. Jesus Lays in a tomb for 3 days and on the 3rd day, He walks out of the grave, goes to His disciples, and they see and believe. After that the whole world is changed forever. If there is no resurrection there is no Christianity.

At least that’s what the Bible tells us.

Is it True?

If you watch videos on any Social Metdia platform, Like Youtube or TikTok there is a good chance you’ve seen videos questioning the validity of the Bible. You might hear things like Constantine decided what books would be in the Bible and left out ones that didn’t fit with what he believed. That he burned those copies at the council because they would discredit the other books.

You might hear that the originals didn’t show or claim Jesus to be God. That His deity was added a couple hundred years later. Also at the Council of Nicea.

You might have heard about discrepancies and inconsistencies within the pages of the Bible.

These are Just some of the claims made about the Bible, by those who won’t believe the Bible to be the Word of God.

What does the Bible Claim for itself?

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

English Standard Version Chapter 2

13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers

The Bible is self affirming. The authors of the Bible claim within it’s pages that it is the Word of God. He inspired scripture through human authors. We, as Christians claim the Bible to be the inerrant, Spirit inspired Word of God Almighty Himself.

Who is right?

Who is right? The skeptic or the believer? How do we as Christians defend what we believe? That is what apologetics is all about. The word Apologia is where we get the word apologetics from. It means to defend. The idea of Apologetics comes to us Biblically,

1 Peter 3:15 says this.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

The word defense in the Greek is Apologia. Always be prepared to make a defense, but with gentleness and respect. Don’t argue. Build relationships with those around you and have a discussion.

You will never argue someone into Heaven.

Apologetics is a broad range of topics, from scientific evidense for creation, and Noah’s Flood to the Historical Jesus and the resurrection. After Mark we’ll be diving into some of these topics as we look at apologetics and how to defend our faith. Right now i want to look at the reliability and authority of the New Testament texts.

Unity of the Bible

The Bible as a whole is unlike any book ever written. Tho we see it as one book it is actually 66 separate books, written by 44 different authors over 1400 to 1600 years. It was written on 3 different continents, (Asia, Africa and Europe) in 3 different languages (Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic). But the Bible, even with all that separation of distance and time and authorship, it has one central theme of human failure and God’s redemption plan in Christ Jesus.

God’s Word is Indestructible!

Since Jesus’ time there have been at least 5 times where powerful leaders have ordered the destruction of all Bibles. Yet here we are 2000 years later holding God’s Word in our hands. God has preserved His Word to man through thousands of years and numerous persecutions.

God’s Word is Reliable

Many trying to raise the question of whether the text we have today is actually what the authors wrote 2000 years ago. They will say it’s a translation of a translation of a translation and keep going. That is not accurate at all. Is it true that we do not have any of the original letters of the New Testament? Yes. But we can trust our modern Bibles with almost 100 percent accuracy. Let me explain how this works.

Historians and ancient text experts take the copies of any ancient text and compile all that information together to be able to create an accurate copy of what the original would have said. Example Homers Iliad, who read that in school? With Odysseus, and his adventures to find the Golden Fleece. Well as a reference, that book is the closest to the New Testament in terms of number of ancient copies we have and their closeness to the time the originals were written. There are 643, that includes pieces, copies of the Iliad, the earliest copy written 400 years after the originals. In terms of historical document that is considered excellent. No one questions whether the book we read in school was what the original said. Because it is a well attested ancient document.

Now lets compare that to the New Testament.

There are fragments dated to within just over 50 years of the originals, full books dated around 100 years of the originals, copies of the majority of the New Testament dated around 150 years of the originals and Complete New Testaments dated around 225 years of the originals. There are a total of 5586 Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament.

Frankly no other ancient text compares to the abundance that we have of the New Testament. Then if we add in the manuscripts in other languages, all with are considered very early copies we come to a grand total of over 20,000.

Council of Nicea

The truth about the council of Nicea is that they add of remove anything that wasn’t already recognized by the early church. They began to formalize the New Testament canon, but their primary purpose was to address the Arianism gnostic teaching that Jesus wasn’t Equal with the father. All the scriptures we have today were already seen by the church as Canon.

We can affirm this by 2 strong pieces of evidence.

1. The fact that we have manuscripts dating well before the Council.

2. Early Church fathers either directly quote or elude most of the New Testament Letters.

People like Clement of Rome 95 Ad

Polycarp who lived (70 ad- 156 ad) who was also a disciple of the apostle John.

Justin Martyr 133 AD

and many others my point is the same NT books we read here were recognized by the Early church.

The uniqueness of the Word’s Christ-centeredness

From beginning at the creation and the first Adam Through Revelation the whole of scripture revolves around one central character. That being Jesus. Even though all the books were written by so many different author across time and continent as I mentioned before Jesus was always and will always be the in the center of it all. Jesus is the Word and the Bible was written to reveal Him to the World.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Finally

Evidence of the billions of changed lives.

It started with a scared fleeing group of men who were discouraged because their teach, leader and friend had been put to death. However, the story wasnt over, three day later the Word was revealed to them and they believed and their lives radically changed. Filled with the Spirit they went on to change the world, then Paul had a life changing encounter with the Word. These people who witnessed Jesus went on to write what we call the New Testament. They wrote down what was revealed to them by the Holy Spirit and what was taught by Jesus. Over the next 2000 years that compilation of books and letters we call the Bible has become the best selling book of all time, and when people hear it at read it lives change.

There is power in God’s Word.

17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Those are the words of Jesus, as we’ve seen we can confidently know that the words we read are in fact the words Jesus said.

If you have not put your faith in Jesus, i believe you were brought here to hear the words of Jesus Christ.

If you are felling a tug or a piercing in your heart you might want to listen to it.

Are you ready to admit you are a sinner separated from God.

Are you ready to believe the words of Jesus.

Are you ready to believe that Jesus died on a cross as a penalty for your sin and not for anything He did

Are you ready to believe what the disciples saw and wrote down, the resurrected King Jesus.

Are you ready to call Him King, to surrender your life to the King and call Him Lord.

Have people up front ready to talk with you, also if anyone needs prayers.