1: Sola Scriptura Intro

My Story

My name is Jackie Watts. I grew up in a Christian home. At 16 I started questioning what I had been taught by my parents, pastor, and church - for the sake of truth.

I started meeting other people with different beliefs who seemed to be just as sincere as me. But sincerity is not the test of truth.

So what would be my TEST to determine what was TRUE?

Would I believe the Bible because people I loved and trusted told me to?

Would I believe the Bible because I read it…in the Bible where it says “Every word of God proves true” (Pr 30:5 ESV)?

Or would I believe it because I have a peace about it being God’s words?

Imagine a Mormon elder knocking on your door and telling you he holds another testament of Jesus Christ - the Book of Mormon. When we ask WHY they would believe that, they tell us their parents & spiritual leaders told them so. When that doesn’t suffice, they open the Book of Mormon and read where it says it is true. Finally, they tell us they prayed about it and God gave them a peace about it in their heart .

Would any of those answers convince you? Doubt it. And I don’t think those answers are going to convince those who ask YOU why you believe the Bible to be true.

In fact, I think the greatest critic you are ever going to face, you looked him or her right in the eyes…this morning…at your mirror. Do YOU hold the Bible in high honor? If so, WHY?

QUESTION If someone asked YOU, “Why do you believe the Bible is really reliable” - how would YOU answer? If your best response is, ’my pastor, my parents, & my church said so’ OR ‘The Bible says it, I believe it, & that settles it’, then you will never be confident nor persuasive with someone who needs to know how the Bible came to be & why its trustworthy.

Over the next several weeks I hope to give you reasons and point you to resources to answer 2 questions:

1) How did the Bible come to be? &

2) Why is it trustworthy?

But before we tackle this huge task, let’s be real about some of the obstacles we face.

Christian influence is fading in our homes. It is no longer the norm that parents & grandparents take their children to church, read the Scriptures in homes, & demonstrate the Christian lifestyle. Sadly, children are more likely to get trained by what they watch on a screen, listen to via earphones, or see from their peers. Few parents LEAD their children to open, read, trust & apply the Scriptures.

Second, Christian influence is fading in our culture. Many churches as well as individuals claiming to follow Jesus are treating the Scriptures like an outdated list of rules that need to change with the times. And of those who still SAY they believe the authority of the Scriptures, most of them don’t know WHY they do.

Further, while Christian influence is fading, pagan influence is rising

The instant influence of TV, music, movies, and internet often attempts to deceive our conscience into believing there is no right and wrong. Live & let live! Everyone has their own moral code and it’s WRONG for you to judge anyone else as being wrong. Think about the absurdity of that statement: “It is immoral for you to say anyone is immoral.”

Public universities hack away at Christian students in an attempt to get them to doubt what the Scriptures say. Professors often ask a question & make a statement like this: “How many of you are Bible believing Christians? When I get done with you, that will no longer be the case.”

The students who don’t have good reasons to trust the Scriptures will quickly be sucked into the liberal, atheistic, darwinian, cesspool of relativistic humanism.

Further, Atheists & Skeptics are saturating the book market & are influencing thousands via YouTube.

Many people respect Richard Dawkins, an Oxford professor and outspoken atheist. In his New York Times best-selling book The God Delusion, he describes the God of the Bible as

“the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (In plain English - God does not exist…and I hate him)

Way back in 2003, Dan Brown’s Book, The DaVinci Code, caused quite a stir, claiming that the Bible is not reliable and making many other claims such as Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and she was pregnant with His child when He was crucified. Even though Dan Brown is no Biblical nor historical scholar, many were swayed by his work of fiction. Sadly, very few heard the scholars who easily discredited his claims.

A few years later, Bart Ehrman who IS a Bible scholar and chair of Religious Studies Department @ UNC Chapel Hill, left the Christian faith. He continues to influence many people, essentially claiming that the Scriptures are just moral myths, coming from copies of copies of copies that have drastically changed over 2000 years. Could this skeptical scholar be right?

Many atheists & skeptics are quick to quote his writings in their arguments. Listen to some of his book titles and see if you can determine why he is writing them.

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) [Mar 3, 2009]

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why [Oct 6, 2009]

God’s Problem How The Bible Fails To Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer [Oct 13, 2009 - ultimately led Bart Ehrman to walk away from the Christian faith]

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are [Oct 13, 2009]

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee [Mar 25, 2014]

Ehrman is directly challenging the authority of the Scriptures as an outdated, manipulated, mangled work that shouldn’t be considered trustworthy. He’s not the first & won’t be the last to ask with a smirk, “Did God really say"…fill in the blank?

Those who read the Scriptures will recall this as an ancient tactic of the devil.

Genesis 3:1a Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

It is understood that this is more than a snake, but imagery of Satan whom the writer of Revelation calls “the ancient serpent...who deceives the whole world” Rev. 12:9; 20:2). And it's here, for the first time, that we see the one Jesus later called 'the father of lies' (Jn. 8:44) do what he does best.

Genesis 3:1b–5 He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Kent Hughes writes: Satan’s approach was so subtle that Eve did not suspect that God’s word was being attacked. It was just an “innocent question.” But a seed of doubt about God’s word had been planted in Eve’s heart that would bear immediate fruit.

Genesis 3:6–7 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

In the end, those made in the image of God run FROM Him instead of TO Him - as was the case with Adam & Eve as they went to hide themselves from God.

This is still the enemy’s blueprint to deceive - get those created in the image of GOD to dismiss or discount what God has commanded. Can’t you hear the same rebellious response echoing through our culture today: “Did God really say?”

So what will OUR response be? It seems that we have a couple of options:

You can DISMISS the Scriptures and refuse to listen to sound arguments about how it came to be & why it’s trustworthy. Many are quick to swallow what Bart Ehrman says but won’t listen to other scholars like Dan Wallace - a Greek manuscript expert I’ll introduce to you via YouTube.

You can DISCOUNT why we are even taking the time to study this. After all, doesn’t Jesus want us to have a simple, childlike faith and just trust Him at His word?

If that’s you, then I have a question for you: Do you even CARE about those who are asking, “Did God really say”? If you are a parent, grandparent, or desire to prepare the next generation, then you NEED to take the 3rd option.

DIVE DEEP and do the hard work to learn WHY you believe WHAT you believe, so you can share with confidence & clarity.

One day a lady called into the Bible Answer Man show and asked what book she should get for her teenager who was walking away from the faith. The problem was, the teenager likely wouldn’t read it so Hank Hanegraaff told the lady, “You read it and prepare yourself to answer your teenager’s questions.” DIVE DEEP.

To that end…welcome to SOLA SCRIPTURA.

Sola Scriptura is a Latin phrase meaning Scripture Alone. The Scriptures are the ancient collection of OT & NT writings - a LIBRARY of multiple writings from 40 different authors spanning close to 1500 years from Genesis to Revelation.

Sola Scriptura is NOT the claim that the Scriptures contain ALL truth. The Scriptures don’t tell us how to change the oil on a vehicle nor answer complex biological, mathematical, & philosophical questions.

Definition of Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura: God’s Scriptures are the supreme authority over what Christians believe and how Christians behave.

Sola Scriptura means we trust the Scripture ABOVE our emotions, ABOVE our church traditions, ABOVE our family traditions, ABOVE our cultural practices, & ABOVE all other authorities. So what do you do when your emotions, traditions, practices, or authorities clash with the Scriptures? It’s not the first time that question has been asked & answered.

Martin Luther 1483-1546

Martin Luther was a German Catholic Monk who practiced prayer, fasting, and frequent confession of sin to other monks.

[JOKE] When they got together they had a song you might be familiar with, “Hey, hey we’re the monkeys”.

Luther attempted to become more disciplined by beating his body, going without sleep, & enduring cold weather without a blanket. He later said, “If anyone could have earned heaven by the life of a monk, it was I.”

And that was the problem. He, like so many people today, this religious guy believed he was made right with God by doing right. He was highly intelligent & well studied - earning his doctorate of Theology & then serving as a professor at Wittenberg University for the rest of his career. It was while preparing & teaching on the biblical writings of Psalms & Romans, He grappled with Romans 1:17 “The just/righteous shall live by faith.” His emotions, traditions, practices, & authorities clashed with what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans. There, recognizing that salvation was a GIFT, Luther simply trusted Jesus’ payment & was saved.

“At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I … began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith.… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open.

Now indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as Luther compared the Scriptures to Roman Catholic traditions, he grew more & more frustrated. Luther was outraged that the Church was allowing indulgences - passes out of Purgatory - to be sold. One man profiting from this, Johann Tetzel, was known for saying, “Once the coin into the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory heavenward springs!”

Luther publicly confronted this practice on 1517 on All Saints Eve (what we called - All Hallowed Eve or Halloween), by nailing his protests on the Wittenberg Church door (which was used like a public bulletin board), calling for a public debate. This ultimately pitted the authority of the Catholic Church versus the Scriptures. In other words Sola Ecclesia (Church Alone/Supreme) or Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone/Supreme)? This began the Protest-ant Reformation.

The issue was spotlighted again during a public debate in 1519 in which Luther declared that “a simple layman armed with the Scriptures” was superior to both pope and councils without them. The Catholic Church, of which he was a priest, threatened him with excommunication.

That didn’t stop Luther from his protests and after several more public debates & written debates, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther as a heretic on Jan. 3,1521. On April 18 of the same year, Luther was called to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor - Charles V. Thinking this was another debate, Luther quickly realized this was a trial. Copies of Luther’s writings were laid out on a table and he was asked 2 questions: 1) if the books were his, and 2) whether he stood by what he had written. Luther confirmed he was their author, but requested time to think about the answer to the second question. He prayed, consulted friends, and gave his response the next day:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.

Just over one month later (May 25 1521) the Emperor declared Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest, making it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter, even allowing anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence.

Because of this, Luther’s friends put him into hiding for 10 months.

WHY all this fuss?

Luther was calling all who would listen back to Sola Scriptura - the authority of Scripture over all others - even the traditions of the Church!

Luther was really confronting the serpent’s slippery question echoed from Gen. 3 “Did God REALLY say that? You won’t die. He’s just trying to keep you from something good! In fact, YOU deserve to be the one in charge.”

It’s the same deceptive claim bombarding our culture through the media, universities, and personalities like Dan Brown, Richard Dawkins, & Bart Ehrman. “You can’t trust the Scriptures to tell you who God is - if He even exists. That’s just a ploy to keep people afraid to push the boundaries. Don’t trust a book written by men. Trust your heart!”

Will we, like Luther and those who followed his lead, stand for Sola Scriptura, even when it could and WILL cost us?

SOLA SCRIPTURA: God’s Scriptures are the supreme authority over what Christians believe and how Christians behave.

Will you....?

DISMISS the Scriptures as just a book written by men who make mistakes, one of many religious writings that all point us to our version of God.

DISCOUNT the importance of knowing how the Scriptures came to be and why they are trustworthy? or

DIVE DEEP and do the hard work to learn WHY you believe WHAT you believe so you can share with confidence & clarity?

*Show up weekly. Take good notes/download them. Do your FEET2FAITH homework.

If you will go on this journey with us here’s a snapshot of what we will learn.

Inspiration & Preservation How did they GET it [Scriptures] and why should we TRUST it? Do we have NOW what they had THEN?

Recognized Writings & Trustworthy Translations How were the Scriptures compiled and which Translations should we TRUST?

Interpretation How can we read it right?

Application How do we LIVE it out?