Sermon Tone Analysis

Opening Story

Imagine your son/daughter/grandson/granddaughter coming home on Spring Break next month

There’s something different, perhaps their smile isn’t as bright or they seem a bit distant as if something is on their mind

As they cautiously ask this question you can hear the heartfelt emotion behind the question.

“(Mom/Dad/Nanny/Pawpaw), how do we know that we can trust the Bible?”

Quickly they expand on their question to get to the root of what is on their heart; she says “I mean, like how do we know that what was written close to 2000 years ago is what we read today?”

Softly you ask “Honey, why do you ask? Are you doubting your faith or is there something that is causing you to doubt the Bible?”

As the emotion wells up inside her you begin to see the pain and discomfort she’s having in wrestling with this question.

She responds “I don’t want to doubt and I feel ashamed of my feelings, but my professors have been telling me we can’t possibly know what was written by the original authors.”

Through tears she says “I took a New Testament class this past semester and my professor said that we don’t have any of the originals or even copies that are close to the originals.

he said there are more errors in our New Testament than there are even words.

Like 3 times the number of errors than words.

He has us reading these books and studying material that makes our Bible look like a complete legend.

Several of my classmates have walked away from Jesus and are telling me I have no rational reason to hold on to a myth.”

Fact or Fiction

Some would say the story I just told is sensational.

Its a story to provoke emotion and fear.

Its a story that’s exaggerated to cause fear about the universities and what our children are facing when they leave our home for the first time to head off to the college classroom.

However, the basis of this story and the teachings referenced in this story is playing out this semester in a university less than 20 miles from this church.

While this story doesn’t recount a specific conversation, it is based on parts of several stories that I have heard first hand from parents and grandparents that have walked through the heartache of seeing a loved one that grew up in a Christian home, grew up attending church, made a profession of faith, was baptized and now claims to no longer believe in or have faith in Jesus Christ.

Generation Z

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Statistics show that 75-85% of students that are raised in a Christian home, have made a profession of faith and are baptized will leave their faith in the University.

Please hear me when I say these are statistics and I’m not making any theological statement or judgement on the validity of those professions of following Christ.

That is between those individuals and God.

Those statistics are for the millennials.

And yet the millennials are done with college, in their careers and starting families.

However, Generation Z (born 1995-2010) are now our seniors in the university and the next generation to pave their way into society

So how are we doing with this generation?

Most socialistically inclined generation

1st Generation of this nation that is Post-Christian with 30% of enrolling college students identifying as atheist.

30% are atheist - 1st post Christian

73% are pro-same sex marriage

48% of students support campus speech codes where certain forms of speech should be regulated

66% define Hate speech as anything a particular student finds offensive

81% believe words can be a form of violence

30% believe violence is morally justified to prevent someone from using hate speech

“Ideas are more powerful than guns.

We would not allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?”

~Joseph Stalin

Addressing the Problem

Ratio Christi Overview

As a church we must be sharing the Gospel

We must be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in us with gentleness and kindness.

1 Peter 3:15

Purpose

Tonight my purpose is to equip with how one might respond to this loved ones doubt.

If you were to find yourself in this situation whether it is your own child or perhaps someone else challenged you on the authenticity of the Bible.

How might you respond.

Let me start by saying this “If there is one thing for you to remember tonight.

If you forget everything else I say this evening.

Write this down, memorize this, take a photo of the screen with your phone.

Whatever you need to do, make sure you remember this.”

The New Testament is the most historically preserved, attested and reliably transmitted literature of any work from ancient past up to and including the time of the printing press.

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Understanding the Issues

So in light of that statement how could a NT professor teach a class on the New Testament in a manner to cause a student to have such doubt.

We need to first understand what the skeptics are claiming to then begin to unravel the truth behind these statements.

All too often, in any communication, we want to jump to what we have to say before we’ve taken the time to listen to what the person is saying.

You’ve heard the saying God has given us two ears, yet one mouth.

puts it bluntly “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

The Question and Statements

but only in expressing his opinion.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Her Question: “How do we know what was written close to 2000 years ago is what we read today?”

She quoted two statements behind her question - These are called defeaters.

Defeaters are statements that when effective can cause doubt about a belief

We will evaluate the defeaters to determine whether there is a good reason to doubt our belief

Manuscript Evidence

Credit Daniel Wallace

NT Scholar and Textual Critic from Dallas Theological Seminary

Founder and Executive Director for the Center for the Study of the New Testament

Statement 1 - “My professor said we don’t have any of the originals or even copies that are close to the originals.”

Is this a true statement?

Bart Ehrman in his introduction to Misquoting Jesus says “We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals.

What we have are copies made later - much later”

It is true that we don’t have the original manuscripts (autographs) that were hand-written by the authors.

Credit Daniel Wallace

It is true that we don’t have the original manuscripts (autographs) that were hand-written by the authors.

NT Scholar and Textual Critic from Dallas Theological Seminary

Founder and Executive Director for the Center for the Study of the New Testament

It is true that we don’t have the original manuscripts (autographs) that were hand-written by the authors.

It is NOT true that our copies are “not even close to the originals”

To understand the evidence we look to a field of study called Textual Criticism.

The goal of New Testament Textual Criticism is the study of the handwritten copies of the New Testament whose original is unknown or non-existent, for the primary purpose of determining the exact wording of the original.

So scholars in this field collect ancient handwritten manuscripts in the original Greek and translations of the Greek, from numerous types of sources (papyri, pottery shards, stones, etc) and they compare the manuscripts to determine how well they align with each other and where there is any variation.

Two Major Considerations when weighing manuscript evidence.

Having more manuscripts allows for more comparison.

Having earlier manuscripts gets us closer to the originals

So what do we currently have that have been catalogued, studied and analyzed?

An Embarrassment of Riches

According to Daniel Wallace, Textual Critic scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary “We have an embarrassment of riches when compared to all other classical literature.”

Quantity

Greek manuscripts: 5824

Latin manuscripts: 10,000+ (avg size is 400+ pages)

Other ancient versions: 5000-10,000

Quotations from the New Testament by church fathers: over 1 million

Removing the quotations of the church fathers we have somewhere between 20-25k manuscripts

Dating