Spiritual Disciplines—Bible Intake Part 1

Spiritual Disciplines—Bible Intake Part 1

Before we dig into the 1st of the Spiritual Disciplines, let’s take a moment and review what we talked about last Sunday regarding the importance of the Spiritual Disciplines. First, we noted that:

“Developing a life devoted to the Spiritual Disciplines, can and will take you places you never imagined you would be able to go in your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

We went on to look at the Greek word that is most frequently used for discipline in the New Testament which is:

“gymnazo, meaning “to exercise, to train the body or mind” and it is where we get our word gymnasium. The picture here is someone working hard to the point of working up a sweat. In other words, we are to put significant effort in our exercise of the Spiritual Disciplines.”

We looked at the purpose behind the Spiritual Disciplines which is:

“that we will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ, to Christlikeness, that we will be Holy.”

We reviewed 1 Timothy 4:7 where Paul writes; “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” and were reminded that:

“Paul makes it clear that godliness is something that should be a sincere pursuit of ours, and that that pursuit will only come through discipline, and in this instance, it is the spiritual disciplines.”

It was pointed out that there are both Personal & Corporate Spiritual Disciplines, and that some of the Spiritual Disciplines are both Personal & Corporate.

We noted that Spiritual Disciplines are Activities and not Attitudes, while at the same time making it very clear that if your heart is right, the regular Activity of Spiritual Disciplines will bring about attitudes like the Fruit of the Spirit highlighted in Gal. 5:22&23

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control.

In the end we were reminded that; “The goal of practicing the Spiritual Disciplines is not about doing as much as it is about being, that is, being like Jesus”

With that as an introduction this morning, let’s take a look at the first of the Spiritual Disciplines.

I mentioned on our first Sunday here that Brittany and I had the opportunity to go to Pune, India on a mission trip the summer of 2018.

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Each day we would go to an area called the Ramtikiti slums and help lead a Vacation Bible School. At the end of each day of VBS, we provided a meal for everyone that was there, which on the last day was probably 400 or more individuals. For many if not most of the children that were there, this was the only meal they would receive that day.

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Needless to say, every child cleaned their plate completely. No child ever pointed at any one item on their plate and said “I don’t really like this”. They ate whatever was laid before them. And each one was very grateful for what they had received.

Each morning before we went to VBS, we met for breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel that we were staying at. And each morning we had the same hostess serving us, her name was Sneeha . Throughout our 10 days there, we got to where we knew her pretty well, and quite frankly, we got pretty attached to her. As we went down, on what was supposed to be her last morning with us, one of our group decided that he wanted to give to Sneeha his Bible. I had him put a book mark at the beginning of the gospel of John, and took a highlighter to highlight several key verses. She was so over joyed at receiving the Bible that she had to hold back her tears. We gave her the Bible, hugged her, and prayed with her.

When we went to breakfast the next morning, we were surprised to see Sneeha’s smiling face. Someone else, who was supposed to work that morning, was not able to make it so she came in to work for her. She let us know that she had already read much of the Gospel of John. She also told us that she felt like we were messengers sent to her from God. I let her know that she was correct, that God had specifically sent us there for her. I was pretty surprised that she had already read much of the Gospel of John.

As I think back on it now, I believe there are a lot of similarities between her and the children that we fed each day at VBS. Both had an insatiable hunger, and in both instances, God opened up the door for us to meet that hunger. For the children, the physical food that we provided each day opened up the door for us to share with them about the one true God. For Sneeha, her hunger was not a physical one, it was a spiritual one. We are praying that God will take His Word and use it in her life to bring her to a personal faith in Christ.

The Word of God is very scarce in the country of India. Should the Bible we left behind bring Sneeha to the point where she puts her faith and trust in Christ, there is little doubt that that Bible will become a prized possession for her. In a metropolitan area of over 7 million people, there are very few Bibles. You and I marvel when we think of how a few Bibles there are in cities like Pune. Most of our homes have 6 to 10 copies of God’s Word. We have more Bibles in our homes than entire churches have in some impoverished and isolated parts of the world.

The believers in those countries are malnourished believers, and rightly so, as they have little access to the Word of God. But I have noticed something as I have been all over this great country of ours, as I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with believers in many different States, and worshipped in many different churches in those States, and that is that there are many malnourished believers in this country as well. It is one thing to be a malnourished believer in a country where you have virtually no access to the word of God, it is another thing altogether when you have multiple copies of God’s Word.

As we continue our series on the Spiritual Disciplines this morning, we will be looking at the most important of all the Spiritual Disciplines, the Spiritual Discipline of Bible intake.

Bible Intake

In Donald Whitney’s book Spiritual Disciplines for The Christian Life, he writes,

“No Spiritual Discipline is more important than the intake of God’s Word. Nothing can substitute for it. There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture.

The reasons for this are obvious. In the Bible, God tells us about Himself, and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. The Bible unfolds the Law of God to us and shows us how we’ve all broken it.

There we learn how Christ died as a sinless, willing Substitute for breakers of God’s Law and how we must repent and believe in Him to be right with God. In the Bible we learn the ways and will of the Lord.

We find in Scripture how God wants us to live, and what brings the most joy and satisfaction in life. None of this eternally essential information can be found anywhere else except the Bible. Therefore, if we would know God and be godly, we must know the Word of God—intimately.”

With the understanding that Bible Intake is the most important of all of the Spiritual Disciplines, I wanted to spend the rest of our time this morning looking at some pretty incredible facts about the Word of God, specifically

6 ways in which the Bible is the most unique book ever written.

1. First, the Bible is unique in its continuity.

· Written over 1,500 year span.

· Written over 40 generations.

· Humanly speaking, the Bible was written by approximately 40 men of diverse backgrounds over the course of 1500 years.

Isaiah was a prophet, Ezra was a priest, Nehemiah a cub bearer, Daniel was a Prime Minister, Matthew was a tax-collector, John was a fisherman, Paul was a tentmaker, Moses was a shepherd, Solomon was a King, Luke was a physician.

· Written in different places.

(Moses in the wilderness, Jeremiah in a dungeon, Daniel on a hillside and in a palace, Paul inside prison walls, Luke while traveling, John on Patmos)

· Written at different times.

(during times of war, times of peace)

· Written during different moods.

(heights of joy, depths of sorrow and despair)

· Written on three continents.

(Asia, Africa, Europe)

· Written in three different languages.

(Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek)

· Despite being penned by different authors over 15 centuries, the Bible does not contradict itself and does not contain any errors. The authors all present different perspectives, but they all proclaim the same one true God, One unfolding story: God’s redemption of man.

English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) once said in describing the Bible, “It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter.”

2. The Bible is unique in its circulation.

The Bible is unique in its continuity, but it is also unique in its circulation. Did you know that the Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book in history.

· Statistics suggest that the Bible has sold 3.9 billion copies in the last 150 years combined. Second in the most sold list is “Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung” with 820 million…and third is Harry Potter books with 400 million.

· The Bible was the first book to be printed on the new moveable print machine invented by Johann Gutenberg. Scholars believe the printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed toward the end of 1455.

3. The Bible is unique in its translation.

The Bible is unique in its continuity, it is unique in its circulation, but third…the Bible is unique in its translation. The Bible was one of the first major books ever translated. The Hebrew Bible (or our Old Testament) was translated from Hebrew into Greek in 250 BC. This translation is known as the Septuagint, and you often see it abbreviated by the roman numerals for “70” as LXX.

The Bible has been translated, re-translated, paraphrased more than any other book in existence. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “By 1966 the whole Bible has appeared…in 240 languages and dialects…one or more whole of the Bible in 739 additional ones.” A more recent stat suggests that the Bible is translated as a whole into 349 languages…with 2,123 having at least one book in that language.

What does all this mean? Well if you compare this to the 1 to 20 copies of any works of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Tacitus…the NT alone has over 5,800 Greek manuscripts (completed or fragments), 10,000 Latin manuscripts, over 9,300 other languages to include Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, and Armenian.

An even more interesting statistic is: If all of the Bibles in the world were burned…we could reconstruct the entire Bible from quotes made by the early Church Fathers alone, except for a very few verses.

What other book in all of human history has that sort of translation history and reproduction-ability? None! Why? Because the Bible…say it with me…is UNIQUE

4. The Bible is unique in its survival.

Next, the Bible is unique because of its survival. It has survived in 3 key areas.

· First, survival through time.

As already mentioned today, there is more manuscript evidence than any 10 pieces of classical literature COMBINED.

· Second, survival through persecution.

The Bible has withstood vicious attacks to burn it, ban it, outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to present-day Communist-dominated countries.

The French infidel, Voltaire (1694-1778), said within 100 years of His death the Bible would be extinct and only exist in museums. But 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his previous home in Geneva Switzerland to produce stacks and stacks of new Bibles!!! What an irony of history!

· Third, consider its survival through criticism.

The Bible has not only been persecuted and tried to be extinguished, but the Bible has…and continues…to undergo great scrutiny or criticism. One person wrote, “Infidels for 1800 years have been refuting and overthrowing this book, and yet it stands today as solid as a rock….the Church of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers…Emperors and popes, kings and priests, princes and rulers have all tried their hand as it; they die and the book still lives.”

Two issues to note when it comes to its survival.

First is its Quality.

Because of the great reverence of Jewish scribes had toward the Scriptures, we have high quality manuscripts. The Masoretes orchestrated a serious process for the transmission/copying of the Old Testament Scriptures. They counted the # of letters, words, and lines were counted…so that the middle letters of the Pentateuch and OT were determined. If a single mistake was found, they’d be destroyed.

Can you imagine what agony it would be to be on the last stroke of the page…and find a mistake. You didn’t erase it. You burned it! For that reason, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered…and copies were found that were 1000 years older than our current oldest manuscripts…that is why they matched so closely. Great care equaled great quality.

That brings me to the second note: Does that mean there are no errors? No! There were errors in different manuscripts. There were errors from faulty writing, scribal errors, judgment, additions, deletions.

But here is what you need to know…due to the great number of manuscripts available, textual criticism supports that 99.5% of your Bible is pure with no variant reading (errors) affecting any doctrine of the Bible.

Norman Geisler says you can have 99.9% assurance that the Bible you hold is the same as was written. Why 99.9% and not 100%? He said he wanted to leave room in case something was ever discovered. But that is likely not going to happen, because it is;

Sustained by the Author, God Himself.

To put it in the words of Jesus,

Matthew 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

5. The Bible is unique in its teaching.

The Bible is also unique in its teaching. There are 3 worth noting.

· First, The Bible teaches Prophecy.

First, the Bible teaches prophecy. No other volume of literature has such prophecy…with such accuracy. According to scholars, Jesus fulfilled at least 55 OT prophecies in His first coming. That one man could fulfill all them is a mathematical miracle…even to fulfill a handful really. Let’s say Jesus fulfilled just 8 of the prophecies, that is a 1 in 1017 possibility (1 in 10 with 17 0’s behind it).

Let me explain. If you mark 1 of 10 tickets…place them in a hat, then ask a blindfolded person to draw one. There is a 1 in 10 chance that he would pick the correct one.

To say that Jesus fulfilled just 8 prophecies is a 1 in 1017 possibility. That’s huge. Here is a comparison. Take 1017silver dollars. Mark one. Lay them out on the state of Texas. They would cover the entire state of Texas…two feet deep. Stir them up. The likelihood that a blindfolded person would walk back and forth…finally reach down and pick up the marked one…that’s a chance 1 in 10^17. Jesus fulfilled not just 8 prophecies, but so far 55!!!

· Second, the Bible teaches history.

Distinguished archaeologist, Professor William F. Albright says the Bible is an “astonishingly accurate document.” Go back and study history. Kings and governors. Timelines. All that is in the Bible is correct…it teaches history.

· Third, the Bible teaches about personalities.

It deals very frankly with the sins of its characters. Read the biographies of today and they’ll try to cover up, overlook, or ignore the shady side of people. The Bible does not paint its characters as saints. It simply tells it as it is!!!

If the Bible were untrue, it would have described the many heroes of the Bible in a much happier, cleaner, better light. But it doesn’t. It describes the sins of Noah, David, and Peter. It shows that it wasn’t made up to cover up the chaos of the crazed disciples. No, it shows the good, the bad, and the ugly.

6. The Bible is unique in its Authority.

2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…

Did you catch it? All Scripture is inspired by God. The source of the Bible’s authority is God Himself. A lot of books boast incredible authors. Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), John Grisham (The Testament), Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter Series) and so many more great authors. But they are just people. Just ordinary people like you and me. But the Bible is inspired…breathed into existence…by God Himself.

Peter says it a similar, but different way... 2 Peter 1:21

2 Peter 1:21 (ESV)

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Peter clarifies that the Bible is not “by an act of human will.” He acknowledges that the Bible is a divine book… men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Then Paul adds to the authority when he writes in

1 Thessalonians 2:13 (ESV)

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 was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.

As we close out this morning, what I am hoping that all of you come away with, is the incredible uniqueness of the Word of God. We looked at six different ways that it is unique. From its continuity, to its circulation, to its translation, to its survival, to its teaching, and ending with its authority. This is a living book that is packed with truth and authority and power. And as we spend the next couple weeks concentrating on the Spiritual Discipline of Bible Intake, my prayer is that this study will be a catalyst in moving all of us closer into being Christ-like.