Quick Bibliology...

Here's the text of the 'worksheet' I prepared for home group (aka Bible study this week). The idea is that the attenders would read Psalm 19 in addition to answering the open-ended questions at the beginning of the study. I then answered the rest of the questions because I wanted this to be more of a resource than a pure question/answer session.

My list of references is as follows:

• Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul
• Now that's a Good Question by R.C. Sproul
• A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell
• Starting Point by North Point Church
• Is what we have now what they had then? By Dr. Dan Wallace.

Proving that the Bible we have today is the authentic word of God.

What was your exposure to the Bible growing up?



How would you describe your current perspective on the Bible?



What role does the Bible play in your daily life?



Psalm 19 describes Scripture as perfect, trustworthy, right, beautiful, etc.. Are these descriptions overstated? Why or why not?



Why do people struggle so much with believing that the Bible is really the word of God?


How does God communicate with man?

Revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2, Psalm 19) -- Idle speculation about God is foolish. If we wish to know who God is, we must rely on what he says about Himself.
-- General - That which is expressed to all men through creation and internal conscience
-- Specific - That which is expressed in His Scripture or direct immediate 'voice of God'
The Bible contains Paradoxes and Mysteries, but no Contradictions:
-- Paradox -- an apparent contradiction that under closer scrutiny yields resolution.
-- Mystery (Romans 16:25-27) -- something unknown to us now, but which may be resolved in the future.
-- Contradiction (1 Corinthians 14:33) -- a statement that claims something both is and is not in the same time and context. These are not understandable.

If the Bible was written by man, how can it be the Word of God?

-- Its the word of God because, the Bible itself claims to be so. 2 Timothy 3:16 "For all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."
-- God inspired the authors to write the words of God through their direct human experience. 2 Peter 1:19-20

Who wrote the Bible?

-- Kings, shepherds, outcasts, scholars, laborers.
-- 3 Continents (Africa, Asia, & Europe)
-- 3 Languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek)
-- 40 different authors
-- Covers more than a thousand years of authorship, yet covers one theme: A loving God working to draw people to Himself via redemption.

How were the books in the Bible decided on as the authentic word of God?

-- Important to note that the church did not decide what books should be included. That would put the church above the Scripture. Instead they recognized the books that were inspired from their inception, and 'received' them from God.
-- The cannon of scripture means the standard of scripture.
-- The Old Testament cannon decided well before Christ by the Jews. A.D. 70 they codify the list to distinguish the Jewish texts from the rising Christian ones.
-- The cannon list published as early as 367 A.D. by Athanasius (church leader of the time) Repeated again at the Synod of Hippo 393 A.D.
-- New Testament books were recognized based on three criteria:
(1) They must have apostolic authorship or endorsement.
(2) They must be received as authoritative by the early church.
(3) They must be in harmony with the books about which there is no doubt.
-- No argument between Catholic and Protestant on NT. Some disagreement on apocryphal books. Those that fell between the Old and New Testament time periods. Most evidence points to a Jewish exclusion of those books in their OT. Also some things in those books contradict things stated in the New Testament. Council of Trent in 1546, the Roman Catholic church officially recognizes apocryphal books as cannon. A bit late if you ask me....

How do we measure the authenticity of any ancient text?

(1) How many copies do we have of the original and how close are they to when we think the original was written?
(2) Are the texts internally consistent and truthful?
(3) Is there external archeological evidence to support claims in the ancient text?

What are some facts and figures to support the authenticity of the document we have today is the same document they had back then?
Old Testament
-- Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947 & 1956 are dated around 100 B.C.
-- Talmudists (A.D. 100 - 500) Followed a strict 17 rules about copying the OT books, including rules like not copying anything from memory, or only using new skins etc.
-- Massoretics (A.D. 500 - 900) Followed additional word counts and calculations to ensure that nothing was out of place in a copy. For instance they calculated teh middle word and middle letter of each page geographically and made sure that each copy matched the original.
New Testament
-- More than 5,700 copies in Greek; 10,000 in Latin; another 10 - 15,000 copies in other languages and more than 1,000,000 quotations of early patristic writings that cover the entire NT except for eleven verses.
-- Earliest NT fragments are from 100 A.D. that's within decades of when the authors probably wrote. Its well assumed that Book of John was written between 70 and 90 A.D., 1 Revelations, around 95 A.D.
-- Of the supposed translation differences, 90% of them are actually untranslatable as differences in English. E.g. 500 different ways to say Jesus loves Paul in Greek.
-- Less than 1% of variants are both meaningful and viable. They concern no important doctrinal issues. E.g. The number of the beast is either 666 or 616.

How do we interpret the Bible? (2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:14-18; 2 Tim 2:14-15)

-- Scripture always interprets scripture. Meaning that we understand a passage by understanding both its local context, and all of scripture's perspective on a particular topic.
-- Scripture must be interpreted with respect to the original audience and their intended understanding of the words spoken to them.
-- Scripture's genres must be interpreted as those genres would be in non-scripture. I.e. poetry as poetry, history as history, hyperbole as hyperbole etc...
-- The explicit scriptures always interpret the implicit verses.
-- The rules of logic apply to interpreting scripture.
-- A particular passage can only have one correct meaning. It is our responsibility to do our best to seek that singular correct interpretation.

What about those "contradictions" like the seemingly different accounts of Christ's death?

• Matt. 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."
• Luke 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he breathed his last."
• John 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up His spirit."

At first glance these may appear to be contradictions, but they actually represent different degrees of emphasis. And even more so they lend credibility to different eye-witnesses remembering their encounters with the actual experience. If all of the accounts were in lock-step it would lend less credibility b/c it would seem as if only one person saw things and the others merely parroted him.

Bottom line:
The Bible is the word of God because the Holy Spirit testifies that it is. When a believer, or even a non-believer sometimes, reads the text he or she can feel the weight and reality of the text. If God is truly the God of the universe and capable of all things, then He's also capable of making sure the words that He wants communicated about Himself are actually communicated in an authentic way.

Devotion for Vacation

I'm heading out for vacation this next week and I'll be accompanied by a portion of my home group. I'm excited to get to know each other better and to worship the Lord together. It won't be exactly a 'retreat' but there's no reason why we can't be united in the Lord during our time.

To that end I've been searching for a passage to study that would talk of God's mercy from the Old Testament as well as be an encouragement for getting through our busy lives, while trying to submit to the Lord. I think I've settled on Psalm 25. Here's verses 6 & 7 talking about God's mercy to us, not for our sake, but for His. What an amazing God He is.

6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your asteadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

God actually does help when I ask for it

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 5:6-7

Been a pretty anxious last couple of weeks. I had some absolutely huge presentations to give.

The first was a chance to bring some organizations at work together to achieve something they couldn't have gotten to work without working together. Someone a few layers above should have had this meeting, but he didn't. Myself and another guy at the office knew they were headed for certain defeat so we put together a brief to convince them all to work together. I was quite nervous b/c I wasn't quite sure that the high level guy really hadn't coordinated the different efforts, and I could be stepping out on a limb. I prayed like crazy and God answered my prayers. The presentation went great and the offices agreed to work together.

The second was a brief to the president of my company. I've been working on a research project with 16 other people at work for the last 3 months and this was our chance to sell the most important audience in the company that what we had discovered was worth continuing. I was nervous, but didn't know what to do. I prayed to God for help and He led me to practice the presentation from 2200 - 2400 the night before. As a result of the practice, He was able to keep me calm and deliver a knock out presentation.

The third was the most important. I've been struggling for 18 months with my church leadership. I come from a very high view of preaching. Meaning that I believe it is the spoken word of the Gospel that calls men's hearts to saving faith. I felt that our leadership wasn't properly warning their hearers that they were in danger without saving faith. I struggled for a long time and finally wrote a letter to one of the leaders. I then prayed to God for weeks seeking patience and humility waiting for his response. I finally had a chance to speak with the leader today and my fears were much relieved. Praise be to God. The leader was equally concerned. He heard my thoughts and revealed that the Lord had been nudging him similarly to point to Jesus more in the various opportunities the church has to speak to an audience.

I was so worried in each one of these situations, that my spoken word wouldn't be enough to convince my hearers of issues or concerns that I felt were important. Praying to Jesus really has brought me peace in each of those circumstances. I really give Him the credit for the successes not me. Now the tricky part will be trusting in Christ when God chooses to lead me to Him through 'negative' experiences. I pray that I can remember this day as a testimony to His faithfulness in those possible dark days to come.

Confronting for the Gospel

How do you convince someone in your church leadership the importance of sharing the Gospel at every available opportunity? I'm not saying that we have to end every paragraph with the Gospel, but no matter the environment the Gospel should be paramount.: Sunday sermon, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, Service projects, Mission trips, Youth lock-ins, etc. Each provides an opportunity to point to the Glory of Christ and His amazing sacrifice. Its not an afterthought to those activities, its the entire reason for the activities.

The Gospel is the foundational, bedrock, in fact the entire point of being a Christian and being with other Christians. The Gospel is even in our name: Christian -> Christ -> Messiah -> One who was to be slain that others might be restored to God.

God loved us so much, but retained his full justice and therefore there had to be payment for sin. God understands how horrible hell is. He knows that we're going to be so much more miserable than we think we will be. So He provided His Son to pay our penalty, that if we believe in the effectiveness in that payment, we'll be with Him in Eternity, enjoying the total bliss and amazement of finally understanding how truly great and awesome He really is.

So if we have even the slightest inkling of the Gospel, wouldn't we want our church leaders to lead us to Christ and the Gospel at all times and in all venues? The Gospel beautifully applies to the saved and the unsaved. It points us to worship and recognize our own lack of self worth. I don't know how to convince the leader I'm talking with tomorrow of the desperate need I have for the Gospel, let alone the unbeliever. I'm praying that the Spirit will intercede for me.

Please join me as I pray for my church leaders, you pray for yours, that they would remember the Gospel and its centrality to everything a church should be involved in. Please honor and confront your church leaders with love and humility and call them to the Gospel. Remind them that their attendees are perishing without the Gospel.