WHAT ABOUT ALL THE ERRORS 2 TIMOTHY 2:16-17; Hebrews 4:12

Introduction

I love this quote by Voddie Baucham concerning believing the Bible.

“I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They reported supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writing are divine rather than human in origin.”

Voddie Baucham is absolutely right. As it turns out, there are three general reactions to Scripture. You can be apathetic toward it. These are the people who say they believe the Bible but they never read or study the Bible. Thus, they are hypocrites in their estimation of the Bible.

Secondly, there are those who ignore the Bible. These disregard the Bible. It goes even further than that. These go so far as to actively oppose the Bible. They do not want to have anything to do with the Bible at all. Further, they do not want you to have anything to do with it either.

Finally, there are those who adore the Scripture. They highly esteem and respect the Bible as the Word of God. They spend much time reading, studying, memorizing and even sharing it.

Today I am going to take you to the testimony of Scripture and give three evidences why you can and should trust the Bible as we refute the

I. The Uniqueness of Scripture

The Bible is a unique book. There is no other book like it. It claims to be God-breathed. It also claims to be living and powerful. It claims to have the power to reveal our innermost thoughts to the point that we are convicted to our very core. No other book can do that.

A. It is Unique in Its Composition

The Bible was written over a period of about 1,500 years, by over forty human authors, three languages, and written on three continents.

Theologian Wayne Grudem states concerning Scripture, “Once the writings of the New Testament apostles and their authorized companions are completed, we have in written form the final record of everything that God wants us to know about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and its meaning for the lives of believers for all time.”

The canon is closed and Scripture is not being written today. We have the one and only Word of God, right here. It is the Holy Bible. There is no other testament of Jesus Christ. There is no effective New World Translation of Scripture. Judge Rutherford was wrong. Joseph Smith was wrong. Muhammad was wrong. Islam is wrong. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are wrong. The Mormons are wrong. This book right here is right.

B. It is Unique in Its Continuity

From Genesis all the way through Revelation, the theme of the Bible is the same throughout. Sixty-six books contained with two testaments bound in one perfect word. The message is unified from beginning to end. There is no equal to the Bible and there never will be.

C. It is Unique in Its Circulation.

A pastor that I know did an astounding thing. He decided to contact the American Bible Society. He asked this simple question: “How many Bibles are printed worldwide every year?” A simple enough question. The response that came must have been humbling. The response on the phone from the representative was uncontrollable laughter. After regaining composure, the representative said, “There is no way we can begin to tell you how many Bibles are sold annually worldwide. We simply cannot keep up with those numbers. The Bible is the number one selling book in the world. It is the most popular book universally, hands down. No book comes close to the circulation of this book.”

There is the uniqueness of the Word of God. There is a second line of evidence for the Word of God.

II. The Inspiration of Scripture

The Bible claims to be divinely inspired. What does this mean? First, it means that the origin of Scripture is from God Himself and not man. The Word for inspired literally means “God-breathed (theolnustos).” Second, the claim that Scripture is divinely inspired speaks of its relevancy. The Bible is relevant because it is in its entirety as well as its individual parts the very Word of God.

Hebrews 4:12 states that the Word of God is powerful. The word for powerful here gives us our English word “energy.” It is the powerful Word of God. What we are talking about here is what is not as the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture. Plenary means “all” and verbal means “writings.” Thus, this principle states that “all writings” of Scripture are the Word of God. Now let me throw a wrinkle into the midst of this. You must understand that we do not have the original manuscripts of either the Hebrew or the Greek texts. They no longer exist. What we do have are copies of the original manuscripts. F.F. Bruce, Bruce Metzger and other gifted biblical scholars through the discipline of textual criticism have proven that we we do have is 99:9% of the copies of the original autographs of Holy Scripture.

Concerning the inerrancy of Scripture, Wayne Grudem is once again helpful when he states, “When we say the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are implying that over ninety-nine percent of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant because they are exact copies of the originals.”

I know what some of you are thinking. “What about the one percent?” The one percent has to do with some numbers. Yet, the question of some numbers has nothing to do with any major doctrine of Scripture. In other words, having this one percent would in no way change the Word of God in its message and the absence of it does not do damage to any part of its message. Thus, what we have is the entire Word of God.

I could talk at this point at length about prophecy and about archaeology. However, I want to talk to you for a moment about two criteria that scholars use to defend the divine origination of Scripture. People of every age have tried to take down and destroy the Word of God. Yet, the Word of God still stands.

I like what David Guzik states at this point. He says, “Every generation gives rise to those who really believe they will put the last nails in the coffin that will bury the Bible. Yet, it never, never works. The Bible outlives and outworks and out influences all of its critics. it is an anvil that has worn out many, many hammers.”

Criteria #1: How many manuscripts do you have? The more copies of the original you have, the more credence it gives to the original.

Homer wrote the Iliad in 800 B.C. We have 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad. Homer wrote the Iliad in 800 B.C. We have 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad. Herodotus wrote “The Histories” around the year 425 B.C. We have only eight copies. Caesar wrote his “Gallic Wars” in 44 B.C. We only have eight copies of this. There are many others I could give as examples.

Now consider what we have with the New Testament. We have 5,686 copies. That is just the Greek. There are 20,000 more copies in other languages. When you add these in, the total is brought up to approximately 25,000 copies.

Criteria #2: What is the time lapse between the original and extant (what we now have) copies of the manuscripts?

Homer’s Iliad was written in 800 B.C. The earliest copy we have is from 400 B.C. Again, Herodotus wrote “The Histories around 425 B.C. The earliest copy we have is from A.D. 900. Thucydides was an Athenian historian who wrote “The History of the Peloponnesian War.” This was written during the early part of the fourth century, possibly 480 B.C. The earliest copy we have is from A.D. 900. Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” was written in 44 B.C. The earliest copy we have is also from A.D. 900. That is a lot of lapse of time.

What about the New Testament? The New Testament was written between A.D and 100. The gap between the original and extant copes if 50 years. Within 200 years the entire New Testament was complete. How can this be? The Bible is a divinely, God-breathed and perfect book.

The Usefulness of Scripture (3:16-17)

I declare to you today that the Word of God is sufficient. It is sufficient in what it tells us to believe and it is sufficient in how it tells us how to behave. It is sufficient in Christian doctrine and it is sufficient in Christian ethics. It is sufficient for belief and it is sufficient for practice. This is seen in the positive and negative aspects in the two two main areas of what it teaches according to the text.

The Word of God is useful for belief. It is useful for teaching. This is the positive source of Christian doctrine. This is the Word of God encouraging in the area of right doctrine or belief.

The Word of God is useful for rebuking. The Word of God exposes our failures and shows us how to correct them. This is the negative aspect of Christian doctrine. This is the Word of God used as a warning.

The second area of usefulness of the Word of God is in correct ethical living. Thus, the Word of God is useful for correction. It helps to restore doctrinal and personal believes and actions to a right state before God. This is the negative aspect of how the Bible teaches Christian ethics. This is the Word of God used as a warning.

The Word of God is also used in the area of Christian ethics to provide moral training that leads to righteous living. This is the positive aspect of Christian ethics of the Word of God. This is the Word of God used as encouragement.

Scripture demonstrates its usefulness in its standard of both holy living and teaching. All of this results in the man of God being complete, equipped for every good work. The entire phrase in the Greek is designated by one word meaning literally, “having been completely equipped.” In context this is referring to Timothy. Yet, it also holds true of every Christian leader. The Word of God completely equips the man of God to have the authority of God to perform whatever God has assigned him to perform. Even though the context is Christian leaders such as pastors, by their example in belief and behavior those who are to follow him will receive the benefits of the usefulness of Scripture as well.

If we, just like Timothy, would nurture our spiritual lives in the Scriptures that we are supposed to be using in ministry, we would be fully qualified and prepared to undertake whatever tasks God puts before us.

Conclusion

The Dead Sea scrolls is one of the greatest archaeological finds in Christianity. They were discovered by a young shepherd boy after he threw a rock in a cave in Qumron. The Essenes were a first century group were a group of scholars who translated and wrote down Scripture. They are the ones responsible for these scrolls. The earliest manuscripts we have on the Old Testament previously was A.D. 1,000. All that changed when the Dead Sea scrolls were found in 1947. Now we have manuscript evidence all the way back to the first century, which predated any other manuscript in our possession by a thousand years. What we have in our Old Testament is confirmed in those scrolls. This is tremendous evidence for divine authorship if the Scripture. Wasn’t that nice of God to help liberals and secularists to catch up. We have been there waiting for them for thousands of years.

The reason the Bible is so attacked ought to give us a clue as to its truthfulness and reliability. However, the issue is not how much the Bible is hated because of the ignorance of spiritually blind people. The ultimate issue is how can we know what we know about the truthfulness and trustworthiness of Scripture and live like we do not know. More p;eople would come to believe what we believe is would would live what we claim to believe. In the end the question, “What about all the errors in the Bible is a nonsensical and empty question. Scripture is perfect because it is the perfect Word of God. It is perfectly unique. It is perfectly inspired, and it is perfectly useful. It is God’s perfect revelation of Himself.