Sermon Tone Analysis

Why do we need the Bible?

The necessity of Scripture means that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel, for maintaining spiritual life, and for knowing God’s will, but is not necessary for knowing that God exists or for knowing something about God’s character and moral laws.

But if people can be saved only through faith in Christ, someone might ask how believers under the old covenant could have been saved.

The answer must be that those who were saved under the old covenant were also saved through trusting in Christ, even though their faith was a forward-looking faith based on God’s word of promise that a Messiah or a Redeemer would come.

Speaking of Old Testament believers such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah, the author of Hebrews says, “These all died in faith not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar …” (Heb.

11:13).

The same chapter goes on to say that Moses “considered abuse suffered for the Christ (or the Messiah) greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward” (Heb.

11:26).

And Jesus can say of Abraham, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

This again apparently refers to Abraham’s joy in looking forward to the day of the promised Messiah.

Thus, even Old Testament believers had saving faith in Christ, to whom they looked forward, not with exact knowledge of the historical details of Christ’s life, but with great faith in the absolute reliability of God’s word of promise.

The Bible is necessary for salvation, then, in this sense: one must either read the gospel message in the Bible for oneself, or hear it from another person.

Even those believers who came to salvation in the old covenant did so by trusting in the words of God that promised a Savior to come.

Pure spiritual milk: God’s Word

The Bible is Necessary for Certain Knowledge of God’s Will

In fact, if there were no written Word of God, we could not gain certainty about God’s will through other means such as conscience, advice from others, an internal witness of the Holy Spirit, changed circumstances, and the use of sanctified reasoning and common sense.

These all might give an approximation of God’s will in more or less reliable ways, but from these means alone no certainty about God’s will could ever be attained, at least in a fallen world where sin distorts our perception of right and wrong, brings faulty reasoning into our thinking processes, and causes us to suppress from time to time the testimony of our consciences (cf.

Jer.

17:9; Rom.

2:14–15; 1 Cor.

8:10; Heb.

5:14; 10:22; also 1 Tim.

4:2; Titus 1:15).

The Philosopher says: The fact that we do not know everything requires us to be uncertain about everything we do claim to know

If we are to talk about degrees of certainty of knowledge we have, then the knowledge we attain from Scripture would have the highest degree of certainty: if the word “certain” can be applied to any kind of human knowledge, it can be applied to this knowledge.4

1.

When you are witnessing to an unbeliever, what is the one thing above all others that you should want him or her to read?

Do you know of anyone who ever became a Christian without either reading the Bible or hearing someone tell him or her what the Bible said?

What then is the primary task of an evangelistic missionary?

How should the necessity of Scripture affect our missionary orientation?

2. Do you nourish your soul on the spiritual food of the Word as carefully and diligently as you nourish your body on physical food?

What makes us so spiritually insensitive that we feel physical hunger much more acutely than spiritual hunger?

What is the remedy?

3. When we are actively seeking to know God’s will, where should we spend most of our time and effort?

In practice, where do you spend most of your time and effort when seeking to find God’s will?

Do God’s principles in Scripture and the apparent guidance we receive from feelings, conscience, advice, circumstances, human reasoning, or society ever seem to conflict?

How should we seek to resolve the conflict?

4. Is it a hopeless task to work for civil legislation based on standards that accord with God’s moral principles in Scripture?

Why is there good reason to hope that we will finally be able to persuade a great majority of our society to adopt laws consistent with scriptural norms?

What would hinder this effort?