The Bible is the Real Deal

Intro

Good Morning!

Who did the Christian thing and went right to bed?

Last night, we talked about the human pursuit of Absolute Truth. We talked about how we can be resistant to it, how we can miss it because of hard hearts and misconceptions.

This morning we are going to be discussing the Bible, because from it, we are able to receive God’s word to us, his Children.

My goal is for us to come away from this conversation with an understanding of what Scripture is, knowledge of how we arrived at the bible we have today in our hands, what the bible is supposed to do in our lives, and how we can better interact with God’s word.

Let’s read God’s Word

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Prayer

Let’s start with scripture.,,,

What is Scripture?

Scripture is God’s Word

Let’s dig into that a little bit. I think a lot of us look at our bibles and take them for granted. I want to take a second here and hit you guys with some facts on what the bible actually is.

The Bible, is a collection of 66 Books, 39 OT 27 NT. That was written over the span of 1500 years. It didn’t take that long… There were periods of silence.

The Bible was inspired by God, but penned by 40 different men who were all very different and had very different backgrounds.

Contains Eyewitness accounts!

We have good, secular, historical data that points to the authorship of books of the bible.

The books that are in scripture were put to the test

OT - Inherent Authority/Prophet Authorship

NT - Association with an Apostle (Writer or Witness)

Acceptance by a large majority of other Church Bodies

“Did it reflect a work of the Holy Spirit”

We can and have put scripture to the test!

There are over 25000 manuscripts from ancient times with scripture. The amount of times that they agree with one another is staggering.

Scripture, God’s word, is a collection of stories that show God’s love for and faithfulness to his people, as well as guidance for how his people should live.

It’s not just a history book, although it contains history

It’s not a science book, although it talks about the natural order of things

It’s not just a book of rules, although it contains God’s law and instructions for how to live on earth.

I want to take a minute here and make a quick note....

Prescriptive vs Descriptive vs Prophecy

One of the things people often talk about when discussing the bible, is all the really weird and strange stuff in the Old Testament.

The bible’s contents fall into 3 Categories. …

Prescriptive texts push us to go and do something that is good for us, or to not do something that is bad for us.

Thou shalt not kill - Bad for us.

Go therefor and make disciples of all nations - Good for us, and the kingdom of God.

Descriptive texts tell us what happened and how God responded, or the person/people in the story were affected.

The throwing of babies into the river in Egypt.

Prophecy - Things that will happen.

Fun fact, over 400 prophecies in the OT related to Jesus came true!

Now that we have a background on what Scripture, or the bible is, let’s continue dissecting this verse.

ALL Scripture

Yes. All means all

When Paul wrote this letter, the NT wasn’t an organised thing yet. But remember the test that the books of the NT were put through?!?!?

It makes sense to attribute this passage with the books of the NT because they carry authority from the Holy Spirit because they pass the test of authenticity.

All is Important

We believe that ALL scripture was breathed out by God and that All of it is useful. This is important because the enemy/ the world would have you believe that you can pick out the good bits and leave in all the easy stuff.

It’s an easy conversation about the obvious things, but what about the things that don’t seem like a big deal?

Scripture is directly inspired by God

Scripture isn’t a collection of spiritual musings by a monk somewhere. Scripture was given directly to us by God. God wrote it, man penned it.

Why is this important?

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God is infinitely better than us. If we had a collection of musings it would be the blind leading the blind.

If you go through and read the prophets over and over you’ll find phrases like “to whom the word of the LORD came”

So not only is scripture breathed out by God, it’s good for us

Scripture is Good for YOU

Yes, you. It’s good for you

When your youth pastor is begging you to read along with the rest of the group it isn’t for his health. It’s for yours.

If you continue to read the verse, you’ll see that it’s good for us in 3 specific ways

1. Teaching

Scripture teaches us how God would have us live.

Scripture teaches us about the Character of God.

Next,

2. Scripture MOVES our hearts closer to God

The word reproof literally means to convict the heart of sin.

Last night I talked about eh effect of sin on our world, the fact of the matter is that sin is the ultimate ruiner of everything. If we have sin in our lives, we need that sin gone ASAP before we cause any more damage. Reading God’s word will convict your heart of sin and tear out that part before it causes some serious problems.

Not only does scripture Convict the heart but...

3. Moves us to honor God with our actions

Sometimes, I have to correct Tucker because his behaviour is buck wild...

Sometimes, God has to interrupt our behaviour because it’s just as wild

When studied faithfully, sccripture will direct our actions away from sin and towards Christ! The bible has plenty examples of God asking us not do do things. These things that we are asked to not do are there to protect us.

Husbands love your wife, respect your husbands, don’t be drunk, don’t kill

And Finally, scripture

4. Trains us for Righteousness

When we accept Christ, all we really know is that Jesus died for us. We don’t know how to do the righteous living.

It’s a process. Our careful and constant study of the scriptures will result in us having the tools to live righteously. (Proverbs a day)

Righteous living not only honors God, and allows us to live in a right relationship with him, but it’s also apart of the life more abundant Jesus talked about.

So Now what? (These will be quick, stay on your toes)

This is how you read your bible

Daily

Reading #1 - Read

Try to summerize the passage in your own words

Reading #2 - Observe

Write down words that seem important, key facts as well. Anything that seems interesting.

Reading #3 - Pray the Text

“Dear Lord… John 3:16”

Reading #4 - Apply the Text

What is God asking you to do today because of what you read?

Final Appeal

Pray

Close