Untitled Sermon

Doctrinal Synthesis Paper on Bibliology

A brief statement about the Bible, itself:

The Bible claims to be Truth (Jn 17:17), and the words of God (Ex 34:27, 1Ch 28:19, 2 Tim 3:15-16). Every word is from God, himself (Ex 34:27, 1Ch 28:19, Jer 30:2, 1 Cor 2:13, Gal 1:11-12, 2 Tim 3:15-16), not man (1 Th 2:13, 2 Pe 1:20-21), and because he cannot lie (Heb 6:18), every word is perfect (Ps 19:7, Prov 30:5). Because they are from God and because their perfection makes them dependable, and authoritative over our lives (Jos 1:8, Is 8:20, Ac 5:29, 2 Th 2:15). This collection of 66 books is recognized as sufficient “for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16) and complete, allowing no other books to be added to it (Deut 4:2, Pr 30:6, Re 22:18-18).

The Detailed Exposition:

Why are each of these essential, define them, how do they relate to each other

It is common to believe that theology and doctrine--sets of beliefs held and taught by Christians--should be “explicitly based on the teachings of Scripture.” It is essential, then, to assert a Bibliological position because this establishes a foundation for all teaching regarding the Bible, God, Jesus, and how to live the Christian life. The Bible claims to be Truth (Jn 17:17), and the words of God (Ex 34:27, 1Ch 28:19, 2 Tim 3:15-16), therefore many people have committed their beliefs, behavior, ethics, and lifestyles to the standard of its teachings.

The believability of the following assertions is dependent on the conviction that the Bible was inspired in its entirety (1 Cor 2:13). Because the Bible is completely inspired, it contains the very words of God, himself (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Because it contains the words of God, these words are , dependably infallible and inerrant. , they bear his authority, are sufficient for their intended purposes (2 Tim 3:15-17), and can be found as a completed unit in the 66 book canon known as the Bible, a list that is not longer be added to or taken from.

The term inspiration can be defined as "God's power enabling man to accurately record the truth revealed." God is the author of the Bible and yet did not use a pen and paper to record any of the words, although he does personally get credit for writing on stone tablets once (Ex 32:16), and a wall one other time (Dan 5:5). Otherwise, he used human penmanship through a variety of other methods. The authors recorded by dictation when they were told exactly what to say or write (Ex 34:27, Jer 1:7, Ez 24:1-3) and at those times, his exact utterances were recorded (De 4:33, Mt 3:17, Mt 17:5, Jn 12:28). Otherwise, the spirit of God influenced the human authors using their individual personalities and different styles of writing to verbally record the details of each law, narrative, poem, letter, etc. It is not revealed explicitly how God did this, but Biblical descriptions include because of “the LORD's hand on me” (1Ch 28:19 ), in the past he spoke through prophets, now, he has spoken through his son (Heb 1:1-2), these things were reveal by the spirit (1 Cor 2:10), they were spirit taught (1 Cor 2:13), all scripture was God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16), and the authors were “carried along” (2 Pe 1:21). Humans physically wrote the words, recording them in their contexts, and their own personalities show through their writings, and yet, no prophecy of Scripture came about from anyone’s own interpretation of things.” (2 Pe 1:20)

Based on the belief that the Bible is fully inspired, it is readily assumed it is inerrant, that is to say, there are no mistakes in the original texts. There are things we do not understand, passages that appear to conflict or where meaning is difficult to discern, these are not to be viewed as errors--as though they were mistakes. These are things that require patience, additional study, or trusting dependence on God’s Holy Spirit to reveal understanding, as he has done time and again in the past. Thus, it is also sufficiently and infallibly capable of serving the purposes for which it was intended including making believers wise for salvation, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the servant of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). The 66 books of the protestant canon give us all the information we need for knowing God- knowing about him (ie. that he gets the credit for everything in the universe that exists, that he is knowable, and that he has an answer for the problem of good and evil) and what he wants from us (ie. how to and not to interact with him, that he wants to be in a fatherly relationship with us). The knowledge in these books is not by any means exhaustible, they do not contain all that we want to know, but they sufficiently describe all we need to know about the subjects they address. There are other ancient books about God, Jesus, Judaism and Christianity, but only these books have demonstrated--by their continually being used and valued throughout time--that they are trustworthy and authoritative. This collection is complete, nothing is missing, nothing needs yet to be added, and nothing needs to be removed.

As the collection of writings increased, all books and letters were eventually recognized as a whole unit of 66 books and were called the Old and New Testament canons. Even though we do not possess any of the original manuscripts, also called “autographs,” this collection continues to be relied upon as perfectly true and authoritative. It has been determined that, when the copies are compared to one another, very few mistakes are present and none that affect essential articles of faith. The books of the Bible have been copied and translated with integrity, providing continued authority. This collection is, therefore, sufficient “for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 2 Tim 3:16.

Practical Implications for Ministry

I am currently interested in becoming a Bible teacher on the secondary education level. If I can clearly define my understanding and clearly state my position regarding the integrity and authority of the Bible, I could more easily let a school and parents know what the students would be taught. I have been reflecting with gratitude on such essential teaching I received in my Jr. High and High school years. I know it was foundational for building and strengthening my beliefs before attending college, and entering the “big word” full of varied ideas in life. I am grateful for the school, the school board and teacher because of their mindful thoroughness. Even at the time of life, I understood the importance of the things I was learning and the papers I was required to write, so I saved them. I have referred back to them, especially while in college, again recently, while researching this paper. I would like to be a part of building that foundation in the lives of impressionable students during that formidably formative stage of life.

As a way to introduce myself to a school, I could outline some of the vocabulary with examples of why these words are important and how teaching them would be handled. I don’t want to mechanically restate everything previously listed, but I do want to give an example of how it could be defined simply and demonstrate how it could be shown as relevant.

Self Governing, Tried and true rules or make your own? Adulting and parenting

EXAMPLES OF WORDS AND WHAT THIS ALL MEANS

Bibliology- the study of a book where a student looks into the background of a book, why the book was written, the history of the book, who the author was, the author’s history and motivations. In this case, it is studying the Bible. It is different from Bible study and devotions that might be held at church, in someone’s home, or at camp, that’s like level one bibliology. Studying “capital B” Bibliology is how people sort out the big ideas of church life, like doctrine, the history of ideas that come from the Bible, what people throughout history have said about the ideas and about the Bible. It helps find answers about what we believe (doctrine), how to apply it to how we live our lives and do church.

Theology- studying God, reading the Bible closely and comparing passages to learn what the Bible says about God. It is something everyone can do.

Word- This word is used in two ways. It is used to talk about Scripture, the words in the Bible or it is used to talk about Jesus, because that is how John introduced him in the first chapter of the book of John.

Revelation- God revealed truth about himself to creation. He used a variety of methods which can be categorized in these three ways: 1. His Word in the World- frequently referred to as general revelation; 2. His WORD in the Word- Jesus and what was written about him; 3. His world in the Word- .

Inspiration- there are two definitions of inspiration, one is a good feelings type of definition where someone or something makes a person feel reassured, motivated to do something or create something. When the word is applied to the Bible, it means the words are all from God because he gave men the ability to write things down in just the right way.

Truth- this is a multifaceted subject, meaning a word with several definitions and can be applied in multiple ways. A universal definition that encompases all the definitions would be “a measuring up in being or excellence.” When we say that the Bible is true, we are saying that the Bible “measures up” to being of high quality and excellence, it measures up to being something we can put our hope in and be confident in.

Corollary- This is an idea or fact that naturally follows an idea of fact. The following four words follow naturally from the idea of inspiration, and don’t need much more discussion to prove them, although it is necessary to carefully define them, how they should and should not be understood in order not to give students false expectations.

Inerrant- Simply put, the Bible was originally written without any mistakes, but this word comes with a few conditions. Here are three examples: 1. The definition of inerrancy cannot be extended to today’s expectations of exactness or precision in accuracy. 2. The claim cannot be applied to everything in the Bible, only to the things it affirms. There are people in the Bible who made mistakes, their mistakes don't make the Bible inerrant. 3. No one knows where any of the original manuscripts are or if they still exist, instead we only have copies. There are mistakes in the copies. Students would be taught reasonable reactions to this fact and how to navigate the struggles associated with it. For example, contextual criticism shows us that the Bible can still be trusted and still has integrity, even though it has not only been copied, but translated into other languages. Students will meet people who believe the Bible cannot be trusted and they will find all kinds of negative writings online and in the library, they need to be prepared and equipped for handling these engagements.

Infallible- This is a reassuring view that reflects our assurance of hope. For example, the Bible cannot be proven wrong,

Authority- As Americans, we live by laws written cooperatively by elected citizens. These laws contain authority because we collectively give them authority. That authority is enabled by our agreement to abide by them, they reflect our collective will and, yet, they are changeable, laws can be added and laws can be removed. The Bible is, similarly, a set of laws (Joshua 1:8, 23:6), but they contain the authority of God because they are the words of God, not man (1 Th 2:13; Ac 17:11). They require adherence because they contain the authority of God, himself. The words it contains were not written at the will of any human. They do not allow humans to add to them, nor remove anything from them (Deut 4:2; 12:32, Pr 30:6).

Sufficiency- The Bible does not contain everything we want to know, but the information in the Bible is “enough.” God rarely revealed “why” he did anything, so the Bible is not good at answering that question, but it tells us “enough” about him, who he is, and what he wants from us.

Canonicity- There are so many other books that have been found, why do we trust only these books and call them “scripture?” What is the apocrypha, and why are those books excluded? Is it bad to read them? Answering these questions would simply equipe students even more with being able to trust the Bible and knowing what to do with extra-biblical material.

This is only a sampling of assertions that would be taught, meanwhile, I would need to define for the students how to approach the Bible, what considerations we should give it. That isn’t necessarily within the scope of this paper, so I’ll just acknowledge it, here and anticipate learning how I would do that in future classes I will be taking.