Rooted in the Word, Part Two

Have you ever talked to someone who didn’t believe in God’s Word or who doubts the authority of God’s Word? Over the years I’ve encountered many people who have refused to believe the Bible is God’s Word.  Some, with an attitude of intellectual superiority discount the Bible as un-trustworthy because they say it was written by men. Others have refused to believe the Bible is God’s Word because they think it’s historically inaccurate and full of errors.  But that’s not the worst of it.  I’ve met quite a few people who simply refuse to trust God’s Word because they feel that it’s irrelevant for life today.  They see the Bible as archaic and unenlightened.  They say that there are some good stories or great sayings in the Bible, but for the most part, “you can’t take it literally.” After all, some of the stuff in here is scientifically impossible, or their just myths that are meant to illustrate a truth. Or that some of the content of the Bible is so culturally out of touch that some teachings are offensive to them. Now, when I came to faith, I some doubts about the trustworthiness of the Bible, but it wasn’t long before this book proved how truly reliable it is to all of life.

Now my guess is that all of us here have had some doubts about the Bible’s veracity at one time or another.  And perhaps that’s where you find yourself this morning.  And if that’s you, then what we’re going to look at today will help you see why this book is not onlyGod’s Word, but how it is trustworthy for all of life. For to be a Christ Follower is to be a person of the Book!  To be a Christian is to trust that all of God’s Word is authoritative to what we believe and how we live today.

So if you are new here today, this is the second of three messages on what it means to Be Rooted in The Word of God.  Last week we looked at Hebrews One and discovered how God’s Word is a love letter to us. God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.  Hebrews 1:1-2 God spoke to us at many times and in various ways to reveal to us who He is, what He wants for us, how we can be included in His story through faith in Jesus Christ.  And how from cover to cover all of Scripture points to Jesus,  that Jesus is the hero of His story.

Now today, we want to help you see why you can trust the Bible for all of life.  And to do that, I want to encourage you to open your Bible to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, where we will look at the origin of Scripture, and why it is so beneficial for life today.  So, if you’ve found 2 Timothy 3:16-17, lets look together why God’s Word is trustworthy in its entirety.

God Breathed it into Existence Paul writes, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 God’s Word, the Bible in its original manuscripts, all 66 books, written by 40 different authors, over about 1500 years, in three different languages – is the product of God’s breath. And even though it has come to us through 40 different human authors, the key to the origin of the Bible is found in this one word: “God-breathed.” The truth is that the Scriptures are divinely produced. Just as God breathed the breath of life into the first man, God breathed forth the Scriptures. So the Bible carries great value in giving us what we need to live this new life He has given us.

In fact, the writers of Scripture affirm this truth about how we got the Scriptures. In Acts 1:16 Peter says, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus.” He then proceeds to quote from Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8 regarding the fate of Judas. Peter not only regards the words of David as authoritative, but affirms that God spoke by the mouth of David.

We see this with the prophets as well.  Again and again they declared, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” For example, the prophet Micah wrote: “Everyone will sit undertheir own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.”Micah 4:4  Jeremiah said, “These are thewords the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah.”Jeremiah 30:4.  Isaiah wrote: “This is what the Lord saysto me with his strong hand upon me.”Isaiah 8:11. And again David says, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke throughme; his word was on my tongue.”2 Samuel 23:2 Confessions like these, which appear throughout the Old Testament, show us how each writer was aware they were being moved by the Spirit.   So this verse in 2 Timothy summarizes this reality: every word recorded in the Bible is the product of God’s breath.

So here’s the good news: If all of the Scriptures are the product of God’s breath, then all of God’s Word is without error – there are no contradictions, no historical inaccuracies, no cultural irrelevance.  The Bible is completely trustworthy and without error in its original form. And this means that God has given us all we need to know Him and to live a life of purpose and meaning.  In other words, because God’s Word is true in its entirety we can trust it as our authority for all of life. And when we trust it and let it shape our lives, it will benefit our lives in a number of ways:

First, it is profitable for teaching.  God’s Word teaches so much.  The Bible teaches us what God is like and what God has done for us.  God’s Word teaches us about Jesus.  How Jesus offers us salvation and new life with God.  It teaches us about love, grace, goodness and hope.  And God’s Word teaches us how we can begin to think like Jesus, love like Jesus and live like Jesus.  It is full of benefits for our life!

Secondly, it is profitable for rebuking. This sounds negative, but it’s really quite loving. God’s Word tells us when we’re are out of bounds. It’s like the umpire who cries, “Out!” or “Safe!”  So the Bible sets up boundaries for life.  As it does, it reveals sin: how our sin not only offends God, but damages our relationships, and keeps us from living a joyful and abundant life.  So God’s Word rebukes us to keep us out of harms way.

Third, it is profitable for correction. From birth you and I have been told that the way to live is for yourself, to follow your heart, do your own thing. But what we’ve learned, is that when you live for self, you loose out on life the way God meant it to be lived:  a life full of love, joy and peace. I like how Elizabeth Elliot puts it. She says, “The Word ofGod I think of is a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness. We can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.” It corrects our thinking, gives us an attitude adjustment, and corrects our actions.

Forth, it is profitable for training in righteousness.  This affirms what we learned last week, that God gave us His Word so we might flourish and bear much fruit!  That we might do the right thing, treat others the right way: with humility, compassion, and grace: so that we may be fully prepared for every good work.  The more we get God’s Word into our life, the more His Word will set us right!  It will heal us, restore us and make us whole.

Again this is good news:  When you begin to digest God’s Word, God will produce His life in you – the eternal and abundant life Jesus promised.  Imagine that? God breathed His Word not to diminish you, but to help and heal you. That’s why He produced this book. It’s God’s Wisdom, God’s Ways and God’s Truth meant to give us life.  So you can trust it, all of it, to make a difference in your life.

And what is so amazing about it, is that God produced it through people like you and me, so we could relate to it in everyday life.  In other words,

God Produced it Through Human Authors Listen now to how Peter explains this: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  2 Peter 1:20-21

Peter uses a word picture to describe how God produced the Word through human authors.  They spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This word, “carried along” is the same word used to describe a ship being moved along by the power of a blowing wind.  Literally, each biblical writer was moved by the Holy Spirit to write what God wanted them to write.  How that benefits us, is that God used their personalities, their writing styles, perspectives, and cultural distinctives to show us God’s truth in everyday situations.  Every word written, every historical account, every truth God wanted us to know came to us through the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon these forty authors so that what was written became the Word of God: Moses was carried along by the Spirit to give us the first five books of the Bible.  God used him to reveal to us how God created the earth, how we are made in the image and likeness of God, how sin came into the world, and how God chose to redeem us from our sin.  God used Moses to tell the Story of God, that how through Abraham, God would create a people who were His very own, and through whom would come one who would be a blessing to the world.

David was carried along by the Spirit to give us the majority of the Psalms, and there we learn from his songs how we can relate with God.  He poured out his soul, got angry at God, cried out to God, but in the end always gave God praise.

Paul was moved by the Spirit to write the majority of the New Testament letters.  He wrote from his prison cell and revealed to us the riches of God’s grace to us in Christ; how we can be saved through faith in Jesus; and what it means to be united in Christ by faith and live this new life in Christ by the power of the Spirit.

And then there was John, the beloved disciple, through whom the Spirit moved to write the Gospel of John, three New Testament letters to help us understand how to live in the love of God, and the book of Revelation, where John gave us a window into the end of history, the coming reign of Christ and the reality of heaven where there will be no more tears, but only joy in the presence of Jesus.

All this and more God chose to produce for us through ordinary men. It’s all right here in the Bible. Everything God wanted us to know was written down, passed along through the ages, so that God’s Word has been preserved for every generation.

In fact, another unique aspect of the Bible you are holding in your hand today is this:

The Manuscript Evidence Authenticates It For centuries manuscripts of the Scriptures were hand-copied and handed down to each new generation, beginning with the Jewish Scribes. Because of the great reverence they held toward the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The entire copying process was specified in meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of the slightest error.  Every letter, word and line was counted.  If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed.  When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, it included fragments from every Old Testament book except Esther, and verified every manuscript we had up till now. Included in these scrolls was a complete copy of Isaiah that is considered to be the earliest Old Testament Manuscript still in existence.

Then there’s the New Testament. Scholars of almost every theological stripe attest to the profound care in which the New Testament books were copied in the original language. Today we have over 5,300 completeGreek manuscripts of the New Testament.  There are over 10,000 copies of the Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions, and more than 24,000 manuscript portions of the New Testament have been preserved. To understand the significance of these ancient manuscripts is to know that the next closest ancient work that compares to what we have in theNew Testament is Homer’s Iliad, with 643 copies, with the earliest known copy written some 500 years later than the original.  To tell you how significant that is, there are only 7 copies of Plato’s works, the earliest copy written some 1,200 years later.  There are only 10 copies of Caesar’s Gallic wars, with the earliest manuscript copy written 1,000 years later.  And of the 142 books of Roman history written by Livy, only 35 survive, and they have come to us through only 20 manuscripts.

Now all that comparison of historic documents, of which the New Testament has over 24,000 manuscript portions is to say this:  About 99% of the New Testament can be reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt from these manuscripts. This means that what we have in these manuscripts is incredibly accurate.  In fact, if you take what has been preserved by the three Major manuscript traditions:  The Alexandrian, the Western and the Byzantine traditions were laid side by side, there would be virtually no difference in the texts.  And the beauty of this incredibly accuracy is that not one theological doctrine is affected by the 1% or disputed passages. And what that means for us is this: When we pick up our Bibles, we can be confident we are reading what God intends for us to read – that this is the Word of God. 

But I don’t want you to rest your confidence in God’s Word based solely on manuscript evidence.  Don’t just take these scholars word on it. Take Jesus’ Word on it.

Jesus Verified It! In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said about God’s Word:“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Matthew 5:17-18

What Jesus was referring to here is a book, “The Law and the Prophets,” the Hebrew way of referring to the Old Testament. And here he gives authority to every jot and tittle of God’s Word. A jot is the Hebrew letter yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet and a tittle is the smallest marking in the Hebrew alphabet.  And what Jesus is saying here is that even the smallest letters or markings of the Scriptures were given to us from God.  They have value, meaning and significance to all of life. In other words, what Jesus is saying is this:  All of God’s Word is authoritative for life, even to the finest detail.

And we can see this in Jesus’ life.  Jesus knew God’s Word.  When tempted by the devil to turn a stone to bread he quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man does not live on bread alone,but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4

When challenged by the Pharisees and the teachers of the law as to why he didn’t keep with the tradition of the Elders.  He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of Godand are holding on to human traditions.” Mark 7:6-8  This is the way Jesus treated the Scriptures in his day.  For Him, what the Scriptures said, God said.   God’s Word is true, all of it.  Jesus verified it.  Jesus trusted it.  And Jesus lived it. And if Jesus trusted that every detail of the Scriptures was of God, then we too can believe that God’s Word is trustworthy.

And we can know with confidence that God’s Word is not simply a road map to a relationship with God, but a manual for life. With this book we can trust that what God says is true, we can rest in His promised salvation, we can learn to live like Jesus, and let God’s Word give us light and make us right.  For All Scripture is God-breathedand is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Bible is God’s Word in its entirety. Jesus had complete confidence in it for all of life.  And if Jesus trusted it, then you can too.  What a gift. God has spoken and what we have in the Bible is the very product of God’s breath.

Let’s pray.