The Bible

Who is in the picture?

Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing when she was 2 years old. Her family struggled greatly to communicate with her.

Her story is well known and well documented. She showed signs of great intelligence and determination to learn and communicate.

She would use crude and rudimentary sign language to communicate with her family. When they would struggle to understand, she was prone to fits of frustration.

When she was 7, the family hired Anne Sullivan, a renown teacher to the deaf, to work with her. And Helen was able to learn to read braille, learned to write, could read peoples faces by touch, and even learned how to speak verbally. QUITE THE INSPIRATION!

But what about the family? Helen is an inspiration on not giving up and overcoming all odds. But how does this story fit in with our topic of The Fundamentals of Faith and the Bible?

Let’s take the Bible back to the very beginning, the Garden of Eden.

God walked and talked with creation. Sin Separation Ever since God has ben reconciling the broken relationship between the corporeal and the spiritual.

This started with speaking through certain prophets, sending angels (or messengers), speaking through a burning bush, and so on.

God communicated to His creation and His people in various ways. - OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD

And that’s what the Bible is. It is the written account of God’s teaching and interactions with Creation. That’s why it’s called God’s Word.

You see, in a way, the Bible is like the story of Hellen’s family trying to communicate with her.

The Bible: Starts with the Torah (Law) The Old Testament (pre-Jesus) The New Testament (Jesus and up to 60 or so years after)

The Bible: A collection of 66 “books” Inspired to, and written by, aprox. 40 different authors Spread out over 1,500-1,600 year Written in 3 Languages

The Bible Contains: History, Prophecy, Poetry, Romance, Songs Narrative Story, Gospel, Epistles (Letters), Uplifting, Corrective Literal, Metaphorical, Instructional

Let the Bible be what it is.

Michael S. Heiser

We can read and witness the different ways that God reached out to humanity, and humanity fumbled in trying to understand and follow. And how we ended up having fits from our struggles to understand and hear Him. Like Helen Keller in her childhood.

I’ve heard it said many times, and I’m not sure who the original source is, that “The Bible is God’s Love Letter to the Earth.”

That makes sense, with how God has reached out an interacted over and over again throughout history.

Paul told Timothy of the value of the scriptures, and that letter ended up being part of the scriptures we have today.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 NLT

But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

Paul gives Timothy multiple key pieces in this short section!

Trust:

Who taught you (faithful people)

Holy Scriptures (taught from childhood)

Scriptures give wisdom about Jesus

Scripture is inspired by God

All Scripture is useful

The writers of the epistles knew their letters were being shared and spread amongst the churches. But I don’t think they fully anticipated that their inspired words were becoming holy texts that would influence and impact the world for thousands of years.

The writers were inspired. God didn’t put them in a trance and ghost-write through them. He used their past, their education, and the HS in them to write the scriptures.

But Paul tells us here that ALL SCRIPTURE is useful in teaching us, correcting us, and preparing us. All Scripture that points to Jesus, that is. AKA, biblical sources.

Paul believed this so much, that he shared similarly to the church in Rome.

Romans 15:4 ESV

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Again, Paul is pointing back to what we now consider the OT. The NT was still being written. He’s confirming that the OT, while not directly written to us and to our day, is still there to encourage us, teach us, and inspire us. IT IS STILL GOOD!

In reality, the OT constantly points to Jesus. Jesus himself confirmed this.

John 5:39 NLT

“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!

Jesus was expressing this when the Jewish leaders were starting to want to kill him. He was calling God, Father, making him on the same level as God. So he pointed out that they were searching the Scriptures for salvation, eternal life, and they do give that direction. But the direction that they point is towards JESUS HIMSELF. HE IS SALVATION!

The Bible starts with God creating, through the Word, aka the Son.

Sin and separation

Cleaning the slate

Gathering His people

Planed restoration

All while pointing to the messiah, Jesus

Then we get the Gospels, telling us the Good News of Jesus and restoration. And the rest of the NT points us to how to live in this new restored relationship with God the Creator, and the future through JESUS.

Let us read the Bible as the Word of God and never apologize for finding Jesus Christ throughout its pages, for Jesus Christ is what the Bible is all about!23

A. W. Tozer

Reading vs Studying

The Bible is a living document! When we read it, God can, and often does, speak to us in our current situation and lives with the words inside it.

I can’t explain how many times God has spoken to me through these pages. I happen to be reading a section and a part all but jumps off the page and hits me based on what is going on through my life.

That is the wonderful thing about reading the Word of God. It’s living and He speaks to us in our current lives and situation through it.

But that can also be the danger!

People have a tendency to stop there and only want to listen by reading. But there’s a real danger in trying to interpret theology and doctrine by reading the text in our current context.

When we study the Word, we want to put ourselves in the shoes of the intended audience, as best we can. We need to understand a bit of the history, the society, and even use tools to better understand the language.

Our goal with studying the Word is understand the message that the author originally meant for the original audience. Then we take that message and apply it to our lives today!

A quick example would be understanding when 1 Peter was written. If we simply read the text, we could easily miss that Peter was writing to people who were being so heavily persecuted, that being found out that you were Christian could mean death.

It was written during the reign of emperor Nero, who blamed the great fire of Rome on the Christians and went on a bloody rampage trying to wipe Christianity off the map.

And yet Peter went on to encourage believers to not only persevere, but to live holy lives, to SUBMIT, and to show grace through suffering.

IT WOULD BE EASY TO MISS THE EXTENT OF THE CALL IF WE DON’T RECOGNIZE WHAT THE ORIGINAL AUDIENCE WAS GOING THROUGH AT THE TIME.

Also, it’s good to grow and to learn what others gain from the scriptures. Read theologians. Do Bible studies, daily devotionals, and allow God to speak to you through His Spirit, through His word, and through the faithful around you.

Faith is more than an individual activity. It’s cooperate, we need each other. That’s why I speak so much about being a family. We are not meant to go through this life and this walk alone.

PRAYER -

Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for loving your creation so much that you kept coming, kept speaking, and keep interacting with us even today. Thank you for coming as Jesus to fully restore what was broken so long ago. And thank you for this wonderful church family. We ask for your blessings and for your favor. Be with us today and throughout the rest of this week. Lead us, guide us, and encourage us as we go and be the hand and feet of Jesus. Help us to dig deeper into your Word and into this relationship with you. Help us as we continue to develop and grow in these fundamentals of faith.

Grow us as disciples of Christ. Help us to grow closer to one another in grace, mercy, and love. And help us to reach out and be a blessing to those around us when we leave this place.

In Jesus name, amen.