Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: 2 Pt 1:16-21

Theme: Certainty in scripture

Doctrine: inspiration of scripture

Image: old books

Need: confidence in Bible

Message: take confidence in the scriptures

 

*Certainty in Scripture*

2 Peter 1:16-21

A couple of weeks ago I was flipping through the channels on the TV looking for some kind of diversion before I went to bed.

I passed by scores of uninteresting shows and was about to give up the search and pick up a book, which I generally prefer anyway, when I stumbled across an interesting altercation between a teenage boy and a woman.

It turns out the show was “Wife Swap” on ABC.

The show where two mums from very different families swap places for 10 days.

The first half of the time they have to live by the normal families rules, then in the last half of the time they change the rules of the household as they see fit.

As seems natural in this type of programming the producers always pick people who represent two extreme positions to switch places.

In this case the people who had been swapped had very differing views regarding government, specifically regarding the war in Iraq.

There were also very different views regarding religion, especially between one of the mothers and the other family's teenage son, the two people I had spotted arguing.

I found their argument was rather interesting because it involved the Bible.

The boy began yelling at the lady about her belief in this fictional creation called the Bible.

He argued that there is no such thing as God, that it is an antiquated belief for people who were ignorant enough to believe it.

He stated that the whole thing was made up, anyway, and that the Bible was so full of inconsistencies and contradictions that it could not be true.

“Besides,” he said, “most of the New Testament was written over a hundred years after Jesus died.

There is so much myth and legend mixed in the book that it reads more like a fantasy book than a history book.”

This, I think, is not an uncommon opinion among many people today, especially non-Christians.

Many of us have such a limited understanding of the full message of the scriptures that we cannot argue or defend our beliefs coherently.

We are stuck floundering about for an answer to some of the objections, muttering something about faith and a personal assurance of the reality of the scriptures.

On the other side of the debate we notice that the broader Christian community often does not take seriously our concerns.

We hear the ragged voice of the ultraconservatives on The Bible Network simply trying to outshout their opponents.

We hear anti-intellectualists urging people to accept what they are saying and not to think about it.

As we sit here, stuck in the middle of this ragging debate, hearing these conflicting messages, we do not know what to think.

One of my friends back home, Jane, asked me if I believed that the Bible was true.

I told him I did.

Then she said this, “So you think that the sky above is a solid thing, like an upside down bowl, or a stretched canvas, or something?”

I looked at her speechless.

Here was a person who I  had known most of my life.

Someone whom I had gone to church with for years.

Someone who had listened to the same sermons, yet was thoroughly confused by the mixed messages she was getting from culture and the church.

Her faith in the Bible was being shaken to its core by what she was learning in University.

I could not account for the base ignorance of the scriptures that she was displaying.

It became obvious as we continued to talk that she was simply spouting off objections she had heard from someone else.

She was giving me doubts which had been prompted by others.

This does not mean, however, that they are not real doubts.

Many of us, I think, would admit to wondering about the veracity, the truth of the scriptures at some point in our lives.

Did God really make man out of the dust of the earth, or did he use some other process, like common descent evolution?

Was there really a garden with a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or was that just a fairy tale urging kids to listen to their parents?

Did the whole earth really speak one language before the tower of Babel, or was that just the know world?

Was there really a flood that covered the whole earth, or was it just a local one?

Did God really send all those plagues on Egypt, or was it a natural coincidence?

Did God really appear on Mt Sinai, or was there a volcanic eruption?

Did the sun really stand still when Joshua fought the Amorite kings in Gibeon, or did it just seem that way?

Did God really talk to Moses out of a burning bush, or had he a bit too much to drink?

Was God really born in a stable in Bethlehem?

Did Jesus really appear to Paul on the road to Damascus, or did he simply have an epileptic fit?

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

These are real questions.

These are real doubts which we cannot gloss over.

These are problems which have plagued the church for centuries.

Do you think it is easier for you to accept these facts than it was for the early church?

What about those people in Athens who spent all of their time thinking about new ideas; who were trained in Aristotle and Plato and Euclid, who had been trained that the flesh was bad and the mind was good, who viewed the body as a trap for the soul and would have thought the resurrection as some kind of joke.

Remember when Paul preached on the Areopagus in Athens?

He got as far as claiming that Jesus was raised from the dead when they cut him off.

As it says in Acts 17:32 “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered”

This sneering is something we should expect to some extent.

The message of salvation is not one that the world likes to here, because to accept salvation, we have to admit we need help, we have to admit that we have a problem.

Even though people might mock us for our trust in the Bible, we can have confidence.

We can believe the message that has been given to us in this book.

We can study it.

We can examine it.

We can check it against these objections of opponents.

Lee Strobel, the former legal editor of the /Chicago Tribune /wrote a book called /The Case for Christ /which retraces his own journey from atheism to faith.

In this book Strobel takes many of these objections head own asking some of the world's most respected scholars tough questions.

This is a great little book for those who want an introduction to some of these questions and I heartily recommend it to all of you.

Even though he deals mainly with the gospels, the information can be extended to most of the rest of the Bible as well.

Do you remember the objection that young man on “Wife Swap” had about the scriptures?

He argued that they had not been written until over a hundred years had passed since the death of Jesus, and by then there was so much myth and fantasy mixed in with the original story that we cannot trust the statements of the scriptures.

This is, actually, the first question that Strobel deals with in his book .

He interviews Dr. Craig Blomberg, author of /The Historical Reliability of the Gospels/, and professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary.

Posing a challenge to Blomberg, Strobel says this, “Some scholars say the gospels were written so far after the events that legend developed and distorted what was finally written down, turning Jesus from merely a wise teacher into the mythological son of God.

Is that a reasonable hypothesis, or is there good evidence that the gospels were recorded earlier that [70AD], before legend could totally corrupt what was ultimately recorded.?” (Strobel, Lee; /The Case for Christ: A Journalists Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus/; Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI; 1998, p. 40)

Here is Blomberg's response.

“The standard scholarly dating, even in very liberal circles, is Mark in the 70's, Matthew and Luke in the 80's, and John in the 90's.

But listen: that's still within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who could have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around.

Consequently, these late dates for the gospels really aren't all that late.

In fact, we can make a comparison that is very instructive.

The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred years after Alexander's death in 323BC, yet historians consider them to be generally trust worthy.

Yes, legendary material did develop about Alexander over time, but it was only in the centuries after these two writers.

In other words, the first five hundred years kept Alexander's story pretty much in tact; legendary material began to emerge over the next five hundred years.

So whether the gospels were written sixty years or thirty years after the life of Jesus, the amount of time is negligible by comparison.

It's almost a nonissue.”

(Strobel, p 40-1)

See, the writers of the gospels, and the rest of the New Testament wanted to ensure that the message that they had been given; the incredible good news about the reconciliation of humankind with its creator, would not be lost.

This is what Peter is concerned about when he writes the passage that we read from his second letter.

He is concerned that his teaching would continue when he was no longer around.

He is anticipating his death.

In the verses just before our text he says this.

“I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.

I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.”

(2 Pt 1:12-15)

Peter wants to make sure that the story of Jesus Christ is passed on in its truth.

He wants to ensure that people remain grounded in the facts of Jesus death and resurrection.