Sermon Tone Analysis

PRAY

As many of you know, 4 years ago I was setting up a mission in Lesotho, southern Africa.

I had to get permission from the local chief to allow 5 westerners to live and work with the Basotho shepherds high in the remote mountains.

Having hiked the mountains with my trusty translator we were repeatedly told that the Chief was Ntate Morena Mokolobane.

We tracked him down.

He loved our idea and was only too pleased to grant permission.

He even took us to the police station in the nearest town to report our intentions.

He was convincing, and everyone else was convinced he was the man!

We trusted him.

He promised we could live and work in his part of the mountains with the shepherds.

But a few months later, rather a lot happened all in one day, and I’m not sure what it was, but we got the impression he wasn’t able to deliver on the promises he had made.

When I say I’m not sure what it was, I don’t mean I’m not sure how we realised, I mean I don’t know which of the following gave up his game first?

Whether it was the real chief shouting ‘you must be terrorists’, or the minister of immigration who took our passports, or the head of military intelligence who thought we were mercenaries not missionaries, or the chief of Police who was making arrangements to put us in jail that night, or the transport police officer who looked like he’d never been allowed to shoot anyone before!

It was a fantastic day for building a treasury of ‘When I was in Africa’ stories, but a terrible day for ‘trust’ in Ntate Morena Mokolobane.

And I suspect, that some of us here today are in a very similar situation - well not literally - but in how we think about the bible.

People around us keep telling us it’s reliable and trustworthy, the real deal, but you don’t want to be naive (like me with the fake chief), and are understandably concerned that it may not deliver on the promises it claims!

A life spent

It seems very far fetched, very… extremist… very well.. very much like some nutters spent too long isolated in a cave and came up with a massive book to confuse the weak and naive.

I’ll grant you, in todays culture, to suggest that there is a God is on the edge already, but then a God who reveals himself in book that claims to hold predictions that stretch into all eternity!

Sounds like a Harry Potter, made up, make believe and fantasy.

Sounds like a Harry Potter book, made up, make belive and fantasy.

So if you’ll allow me, come on a journey for the next 20minutes to discover if the bible can and does deliver on it’s promises, unlike Ntate Morena Mokolobane!

I think it would be fair to say that many Christians don’t put much thought into the reliability or authenticity of the bible.

We simply trust God that it is His word, and therefore try to learn from and live by it.

To a modernday observer that may seem rather nieve.

Basing our whole life on something that we haven’t investigated factually and scientifically.

But i don’t really have a problem with that.

I trust the weatherman without needing to know the science ebhind his interpretation of meterological charts.

I trust the M25 sign boards telling me there’s an accident ahead, without having to see the accident myself.

I trust my bank to invest money and give me interest without checking each trade they do.

My point is, we actually trust many many people and many many things without any real proof or eveidnece that something is as they say.

What is it that makes us trust these things?

Well it’s if they deliver what they promise.

I trust the waether man because ‘give or take’ they consistently deliver what they promise.

The M25 matrix signs consistently (not alwasy) deliver what they promise.

The bank consistently delivers a tiny bit of interest, so I trust them to keep doing it.

But NONE of that actually prooves anything about whether it is really all true or not.

And we’re going on a journey today to discover if the bible can and does deliver on it’s promises.

Can it actually be trusted?

Is it actaully reliable and full of truth?

Is it really the book it claims tobe?

A book that allows us to meet, know, love, follow and live with the Almightly God of creation for all time!

And while it may seem odd to turn to the bible to prove itself, in a sense it’s the only place to begin.

If the bible is the actual Word of God, it ought to be able to defend itself.

end up in todays talk about the bible.

Along the way, We’re going to do some historical accuracy analysis on the bible - but ultimately, I hope we’re going to see that bible delivers consistently on it’s promises, so much so that it’s more relaible than the weather man, matrix signs and your bank mananger.

You have a few points on your handout to help you follow, and the first is this

If you today have issues with the reliablility of the bible I’d just like us to be straight with each other to start.

Just becasue you may know people that ‘as you see it’ blindly trust the bible, does not in anyway proove that it is not trustworthy.

Just becasue you may have heard a non-Christian say that the bible is unreliable does not in any wayproove that it is unreliable.

But, equally I can’t just stand here and tell you the bible is reliable.

What I say doesn’t make anything true or false.

So let me try and prove it to you..

1 - Jesus: Clever Stories or Eyewitness Truth?

1 - Jesus: Clever Stories or Eyewitness Truth?

The book of 2 Peter was written by a chap called, unsurprisingly, Peter.

And in this small section he discusses this very issue of the bible’s reliability.

Bible written over X years, X No. authors - 1 theme!

Can’t happen without a plan!

But it wasn’t nutters in a cave.

Bible written over X years, X No. authors - 1 theme!

Can’t happen without a plan!

But it wasn’t nutters in a cave.

So, his claim is that the message he, the other preachers of that time and the other writers of the New Testament were not making up ‘cleverly devised stories’ about Jesus being the Saviour of the world - but that they were eyewitnesses of the actual events.

Let’s think about it, Peter says, we did not follow cleverly devised stories - like Harry Potter books.

a: Cleverly devised stories?

I mean think about it.

If the bible didn’t fit together very well, then a case could be made for some nutters trying to piece it all together.

The Bible contains 66 documents.

Approximately 40 authors wrote in three different languages over a period of about 1,500 years.

Some of the authors were young, some were old; some were professionals, others were peasants; some were soldiers, others were civil servants, fishermen, farmers, or kings.

They wrote in wildly different genres: history, population statistics, poetry, travel diaries, law, prophecy, family trees, biography, geographical surveys, architectural blueprints, song lyrics.

They wrote in different periods of history, in different geographical locations, to different groups of people.

And, it wasn’t like a relay race, with one author handing on the baton to another.

Often, the authors wrote centuries apart.

The bible is made up of 66 books by different authors over thousands of years and didn’t fit together very well, then a case could be made for some nutters trying to piece it all together in the 1st century.

But while we don’t have time to read the whole thing now, there really is a strong and united theme throughout.

As a whole, the bible tells how mankind turns it’s back on the creator God through all generations (which we call sin), and how that same rejected God puts in place a loving covenant (or promise) to rescue mankind from themselves, through a Messiah (a chosen one) who we meet in person in the New Testament.

There is masses of content in the bible, but it all revolves around that very simple Big Picture.

Either directly predicting or fulfilling that message, or teaching the world how to live in the light of that Big Picture.

Ask me or a Grace church member about any book of the bible and we’ll tell you how it fits into that Big Picture.

We might have to do some homework first, but it will fit very comfortably.

That being the case then the way in which the bible is compiled makes the option of it all being a ‘cleverly devised story’ basically impossible.

One commentator summarises it like this (and it’s worth pointing out that these general statistics are not disputed by secular mainstream historians.

The Bible contains 66 documents.

Approximately 40 authors wrote in three different languages over a period of about 1,500 years.

Some of the authors were young, some were old; some were professionals, others were peasants; some were soldiers, others were civil servants, fishermen, farmers, or kings.

They wrote in wildly different genres: history, population statistics, poetry, travel diaries, law, prophecy, family trees, biography, geographical surveys, architectural blueprints, song lyrics.

They wrote in different periods of history, in different geographical locations, to different groups of people.

And It wasn’t even like a relay race, with one author handing on the baton to another.

Often, the authors wrote centuries apart.

And It wasn’t even like a relay race, with one author handing on the baton to another.

Often, the authors wrote centuries apart.

For me, that’s enough to rule out nutters making up stories in a cave!

1500 years, 40 authors, 66 documents, but one Big Picture traceable through it all.

But let’s think about Peter’s second claim in v16 - that they were eyewitnesses.

Bible written over X years, X No. authors - 1 theme!

Can’t happen without a plan!

But it wasn’t nutters in a cave.

(quick summary of prophesies fulfilled, 800 contradictions explained, early church father’s referenced every verse in the NT within X years AD, archeology despite trying to discredit the bible keeps getting proved right )