Sermon Tone Analysis

Why 30 minute theology...

Because we study a lot of Max Lucado, Tim Keller, and Adam Hamilton…but not so much Thomas Oden, Ben Witherington, John Miley, or Karl Barth.

For that matter, Paul, John, David, or Moses.

Not thinking of these bigger theological points, has some definite consequences.

Recently there was a survey put out by Lifeway Research that found that most american evangelicals shared three beliefs....they shared more than that, but these were three things they agreed upon.

Most people are basically good (52%)

God accepts the worship of all religions (51%)

Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God the Father (78%)

Let me ask you....do you agree with most american evangelicals?

DO you agree with these ideas?

If you do, then you too believe things that the Bible teaches.....ARE FALSE.

That’s right, these are all false teachings that for centuries, since the earliest church, Christians have taught were outside the orthodox Christianity.

SO, we are going to spend some time addressing theological ideas that you and I, an dour friends and neighbors are apt to adopt…unless we can explain the difference.

So today we start with the bible....in fact we start with

The bible has in it everything we need to understand God, salvation, and how to live out our faith....

If we are going to study God, his word, as the passage said, God breathed word of God is a great place to start.

How trustworthy is the bible?

But how do we know we can trust the bible…sure the bible says that…but just cause you take something out of the oven doesn’t make it a biscuit.

Let’s define what we mean by the Bible:

The best selling book in the history of the world.

Not one but sixty-six.

0ver 770,000 words.

If you take part in the annual National Day of Prayer reading of the bible, you will know that it takes 70 hours to read out loud.

Written by all types of people: politicians, by statesmen, by farmers, by shepherds, by peasants, by musicians, by poets, even by tax collectors.

Written by all types of people in all sorts of different situations: The Bible was written by Moses in the wilderness, by Jeremiah in the dungeon.

It was written by Luke while traveling, Paul while he was in prison.

It was written by John while he was in exile on the Isle of Patmos.

Written by different types of people, in different situations…in 13 different countries..on 3 diffwerent continents…in 3 different languages…over 1500 years.

Amazingly accuracy and consistency of its message about the character and nature of God and his plan for humanity.

The Bible is the word of God.

Because it is the consistent, true, and inspired word of God, it meets us where ever we are as it addresses topics that each one of us deal with on a regular basis: marriage, divorce, re-marriage, adultery, sex, lust, greed, guilt, materialism, generosity, healing, hope, forgiveness, parenting, prayer, friendship, pride, obedience, Heaven, Hell, lying, murder, suicide, rape, fears, doubt, miracles, love, hate, money, criticism, creation, government, submission, rebellion, peace, leadership, comparisons, joy, discontentment, sacrifice, delayed gratification, patience, faithfulness, enjoying life, self control, disasters, injustices, demons, angels, discipleship, disciplines, fasting, honor, mercy, caring for the poor, handling wealth, family, and even the devil.

Being a disciple is about studying God’s word and doing what it says....but that means we have to trust the bible we have is the bible that God has given?

C. Sanders in 1952 wrote Introduction to Research in English Literary History

The Bible is Internally Accurate

- what the document claims for itself

What did the writers say…this is what I saw…or this is what I think?

This is what I heard....or this is what I know?

Peter is saying…you can trust what I have written because I saw this, we saw this…some of you saw this...

The Bible is Externally Accurate

- how the document squares or aligns itself with facts, dates, persons from its own contemporary world…does the story it tells fit with the rest of recorded history?

Roman- Greek - Jewish history of Jesus

Josephus - history of Jesus, John the Baptist, leaders from Acts

Archaeological history of the bible, Jesus and the church

“It may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference.”

Nelson Glueck

the former President of the Jewish Theological Seminary

The Bible is Bibliographically Accurate

- the textual tradition from the original document to the copies and manuscripts of that document we possess today

Accuracy of the copies we have consistent with what the originals.

In 586 Jerusalem captured…70 years later Ezra returned and found a hidden scroll.

He established a practice for copying the holy scriptures:

They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.

Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.

The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.

They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.

They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.

There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.

The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other.

The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.

The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).

As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah - a Hebrew term meaning "hiding place."

These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.

Written to these standards, the Masoretic Text a copy that had lasted since 895 had been preserved and known as the most accurate translation of the bible.

So you see there wernt a lot of old copies because the rule was when one wore out, you burn or bury it and use the new text.

But in ad 70 teh temple was destroyed and the people of Jerusalem took some scrolls, put them in jars, and hid them in some caves.

They sat there until 1948 when some shepherds found them sitting there waiting to be discovered.

Those copies because the oldest copies of the Bible, dating back to 100 bc to 100 ad...

and the accuracy to the Masoretic Text was stunning.

In fact…every copy of scripture has been amazingly consistent.

This would be believable if there were one copy.

But consider this:

Try this for reliability: Have you heard of the ancient writing Plato’s Republic?

We have 7 known copies.

What about Aristotle? 5 copies.

What about Caesar?

we have 10.

In fact Homer’s Iliad is one of the most widely accepted documents we have from antiquity…we have 643 copies that are consistent.

Now because we have multiple copies fo the same document, we trust that what was written is actually waht happened....it’s accurate.

The bible, we don’t have 1,000 copies.

We don’t have 1,500 copies, that would be amazing.

Actually, there are over 24,000 ancient copies of the bible that are written to the strictest standards with amazing accuracy.

We can trust that the Bible says today, what is said 2000 years ago when Jesus walked the earth.

The bible is accurate in communicating to us it’s purpose...

What it doesn’t do:

It’s not a science book…it’s not a math book…it wasn’t written to prove anything.

It was written to communicate something…a message from God.

What it does:

As UMs -

We believe the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our salvation.

It is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice.

Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential to salvation.

It is a revelation of God to Man.

Throughout the record of the Bible, this has been done through the voice of prophets who spoke the word of God, then God brought about his word.

We know the bible is historically accurate…but how Prophetically accurate is it?

Difficulty of prophetic accuracy of Jesus....8 prophecies to come true:

1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000

The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).

A messenger will prepare the way for the Messiah (Malachi 3:1).

The Messiah will enter Jerusalem as a king riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).

The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend and suffer wounds in His hands (Zechariah 13:6).