How Scripture Came About
Notes
Transcript
It’s been said that you can make the Bible say anything you want, that you can find verses to support whatever your position is. People have used the Bible to support slavery and oppose slavery, to limit the role of women in the church and to encourage their growing involvement, to justify war and to condemn violence. This happens when a passage is taken out of its historical setting and interpreted in an individual way. Because of this some people doubt the value of the Bible and others simply ignore it completely.
The answer is not to put down the Bible, however, but to get deeper into the Scripture, to understand the context of a passage, to understand what the author intended. Most of the Bible is straightforward and fairly easy to understand with a little effort. Some of it is challenging, and some of it takes real struggling with. This should not surprise us if we believe that it is God’s word to us.
This is not a new problem but has been going on almost as long as we’ve had Scripture. In our passage today Peter is turning to that problem in his day where false teachers were twisting the meaning of Scripture to support their teachings.
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
There are many false teachers today, taking passages out of context, misinterpreting them to support their own doctrines. We need to have a solid foundation in what the Bible teaches and the proper method of interpretation in order to identify and refute these false teachings.
Not own interpretation
Not own interpretation
Just as the writer of Scripture did not record their own ideas or interpretation of events, so we cannot simply come up with our own ideas about what a passage means.
Tradition – it is important to know how the church through the ages has understood it
Community of faith – how is it read by other believers today
Holy Spirit – most of all, let the Holy Spirit be our teacher
Did not come about by the will of man
Did not come about by the will of man
Peter tells his readers, including us, that we must realize that the Bible is not just another work of human authorship.
Stories in the Bible not made up – eye witness accounts; many confirmed by archeology; fulfilled prophecy.
There is a sense in which prophecy does for us what traveling in space has done. Much has been learned about the earth from going out there and looking back—things about weather patterns, location of natural resources, and so forth, which we could never have known from earth, where we are too close to really see what is there.
In a similar fashion, prophecy takes us out of the limitations of seeing only what our immediate circumstances allow and helps us to see the big picture. The result should be that we become better stewards of our time and other resources now and that we live our life on eternal values.
Dr. Charles C. Ryrie has pointed out that, by the law of chance, it would require two hundred billion earths, populated with four billion people each, to come up with one person who could achieve one hundred accurate prophecies without any errors in sequence. But the Bible records not one hundred but over three hundred prophecies fulfilled in Christ’s first coming
Peter refers in vs. 16-18 to his own experience of hearing God speak
2 Peter 1:16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Men spoke from God
Men spoke from God
Even though the words were written down by people, it was God who moved them and spoke through them.
David
“The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; his word was on my tongue.
The prophets
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
Paul
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
Carried along by the Holy Spirit
Carried along by the Holy Spirit
It was the Holy Spirit who not only spoke through the prophets but guided the riters of the Bible.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
The richness of the Bible is demonstrated by the depth to which it will take us if we give it the time and effort it deserves. The Holy Spirit not only inspired the human writers but also opens the hearts of readers today, leading us to greater understanding.
Pay attention to it
Pay attention to it
For Peter, the prophets were the writers of the Hebrew Bible, but even in Peter’s day Paul’s writings were also considered Scripture. For us today it is the entirety of the Old and New Testaments that we believe in inspired by God.
And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
It reveals who God is and what God is like
It reveals what God has done for us and promised to us
It reveals what God desires from us
It guides us in many decisions we must make
It nourishes our spirits