What Is the Bible

This morning, we're continuing on this theme of the bible that Michael has been sharing with us, and it's phenomenal to hear the stuff that is going on. I was just moved by this young man that was talking about his preaching to his Muslim friends, his Muslim ex brothers, so to speak, and just the confidence that he had in God's word. The other man said that it changes, has a power to change sinners into saints, and that's a huge power. So I thought this morning that we discuss some of these things and it's been something that's been happening in my life of late, where a lot of people have been asking the question, why do we believe in the bible? What gives us the right or the privilege to believe in it?

So this morning, I'd hope to answer some of these questions. So this morning can be very practical, and I hope that this will be a benefit to you and a great comfort to why we as Christians, why we as a church base everything we do and we believe on the bible that we call God's word. So here, we'll be dealing with some of those questions on what is the bible and why do we believe it. The first question is what exactly is the bible? What is what we consider to be God's word?

As you know, the bible is a collection of many various writings that has been put together over hundreds and thousands of years. But more than that, what Christians believe is that the bible is the word of God that was spoken to humanity, and it has a definite purpose. It is something that the world, that humanity must know. Some bible books recite what God has done in people's lives. So for example, one and two Kings and many other books like that are narratives and explain the history of a certain group of people or individuals where God has directly influenced and has been involved with.

Other books like Isaiah show God speaking directly to us as a humanity through the voice of a prophet. The prophets don't simply reflect on their personal experiences, but they speak about what God has done and is doing and will do for humanity. They speak on behalf of God, and we believe that God actually speaks through them. Then we get to the New Testament and the gospels in particular, and there we find the writers that have recorded the words of Jesus and what he spoke directly to us. And then later, we have various letters that flesh out the meaning of what Jesus taught, the meaning of who Jesus is, and what he did for us on the cross.

And so we can see that in all of these, there's just a huge variety that we find in the bible. Some things called narrative, some things called prophecy, the gospels, and the letters. They all form part of what we know today as the bible. Now, where does this come from? Where does the bible come from?

Centuries ago, Jews and Christians had to settle on which writings were inspired. Which writings that we hold today are believed to be the inspired word of God and which weren't? Now, if you've been a Christian for a while, you know that this is the controversial stuff. This is where the da Vinci codes are written from. What was in and what was out.

So it's important for us as Christians to know about these sort of things. Because some believe that there were other writings floating around at that time when the Christian church formed what we hold today as the bible. So the question is, is the church or was the church trying to hide something? Now the story of the formation of the bible was definitely not an easy one. Christians had a hard time forming a complete collection of the bible because Christianity in the early stages, in the first, second, third century, was very much an underground movement.

They were persecuted. They were killed. Some of them were tortured for their faith. Christians couldn't hold public meetings until the fourth century AD. That's three hundred years after Jesus Christ.

But in the second century, church leaders like Clement and Polycarp were already writing letters to individuals saying, you can read or you should read these books or these manuscripts and be careful of these manuscripts. So that is a hundred AD plus. There were already writers that were saying, these are the good ones to read and these ones are the dangerous ones. We have evidence today to say that there were already books that were considered to be authentic and books that were considered to be fraudulent. How did the church then decide between the books which were authentic and the books that were frauds that we hold today?

For the early church and for us today, it's based on two things. Firstly, historical credibility, and secondly, spiritual benefit. Historical credibility simply means asking, did an apostle, for example, or one of the few men who had a personal story or personal contact with Jesus stand behind the writing of this book. So for example, Matthew is an apostle. He was with Jesus.

And so the gospel that bears his name was considered to be authentic by the early church because Matthew had a personal walk with Jesus. Matthew was there. He was an eyewitness to what happened. On the other hand, Mark, the gospel of Mark, you may know that Mark wasn't directly an apostle, but we know that Mark had a close relationship with Peter, the great apostle that we all know. And Mark wrote Peter's account of that, and for that reason, it was considered to be authentic as well even though the gospel was attributed to the writing down of Mark.

So the book holds weight. Now, alternatively, there have been these other books that have been claimed to be authentic, that have claimed to have apostolic connection. So you may have heard of the gospel of Thomas. You may have heard of the gospel of Judas, for example, something that has more recently come out and has caught a lot of attention or interest at least. And this is where the second criteria comes in, the one of spiritual benefit.

Like I mentioned before, the wise bishops, the wise church leaders of that time like Clement and Polycarp examined these writings and then said to the churches, is Thomas really the author of this book? Is the apostle Thomas really the author of this book? Does this writing that we find in these manuscripts really reflect the spiritual and the theological commitments of the other books? Do they line up together? And the great thing then was that anyone was free to go and examine and read the gospel of Thomas or the gospel of Judas, and then make a decision for themselves.

And we have that even today. But this is where the spiritual benefit criteria comes in. If you read those books, if you read those manuscripts, you will realise that something just doesn't line up very well. For example, in the Gospel of Thomas, something that, again, that people know of as a gospel, we have Jesus as a young boy creating doves, pigeons out of clay for onlookers and then turning them into doves. Now that is something if we know the story of Jesus, if we have read the four accounts of Jesus in the gospels, we know that Jesus was very selective about his miracles.

That he didn't do things for side shows. He didn't do things that were had no immediate or real purpose to it. In fact, for a long time, he tried to keep his miracles quiet. So some of these things just didn't add up for the early church, and obviously, if we read that today, it doesn't line up. So for that reason, it is of no spiritual benefit for us to have these gospels as authoritative books in the bible.

Fourthly, what does it mean for us to say that the bible is true? What does it mean for us to say that the bible is true? Partly, it means that we believe the bible is factual. That it successfully and accurately records historical events. For example, the bible reports, going back to the story of Jesus, that Jesus was a man from Nazareth, that he performed many miracles, that he was executed at the hands of Roman authorities, and that he rose again from the dead.

That is the story of the gospels. But the amazing thing is that we have numerous historians, not directly related to Christianity, not believers themselves necessarily, who have also given an account of the story of Jesus and his disciples. So we have, for example, a person called Flavius Josephus, and you may have heard of this person as well, who was a Jewish historian from thirty eight AD to about a hundred. And he wrote about Jesus. He wrote about Jesus.

He was a Jew. He worked for the Roman government, but he wrote about the story of Jesus. From Josephus, we learn that Jesus was a wise man who did surprising feats, who taught many, who won followers over from among the Jews and the Greeks. These are directly from him. Who was believed to have been the Messiah, who was accused by the Jewish leaders, was condemned by a man called Pontius Pilate, and was considered to be resurrected.

Now, this is a man completely removed from the Christian cult or sect in that century. But a man who wrote these very things about the man Jesus. Even the Jewish Talmud, which was the teachings of the Jews, which is obviously not biased regarding Jesus, concurs about the major events of Jesus' life. From the Talmud, it reads that, according to their understanding, Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. So they don't understand that he was born in a married relationship.

That Jesus gathered disciples, that he made blasphemous claims about himself, calling himself the son of God, that he worked miracles, but this is what they say, that these miracles are attributed to sorcery and not to God. Isn't that interesting? Again, from the first century. So what we have here is remarkable information about the historical statements that the New Testament makes about Jesus and his life. These ancient historians, the Greeks, the Jews, the Romans, confirmed the major events that at least are represented of the New Testament even though they weren't believers themselves.

So what does it mean for us to say that the bible is true? Partly, that it is historically accurate, but more importantly, and I want us to understand this, more importantly, truth, the truth of the bible goes further than accuracy, further than factual accuracy. Listen to me correctly here. Because something can be factually accurate, something can be factually accurate, but have no real meaning or significance. I could tell you how many buttons I have on this shirt but who cares?

Who cares? It's factual but it doesn't matter. Truth can go beyond accuracy. The bible has real significance. When I say the Bible is true, I'm saying that it explains life in a fundamentally true way.

It talks about our very existence, our purpose, our meaning. The bible says something profound about the human experience. So the bible is true in that we can say that it is factual, but more so, it is true because it explains the reality of life. And that is what we believe about the truth of the bible. Again, you may have heard this question.

Does science disprove the bible? In particular, miracles like the crossing of the Red Sea. I saw an amazing photo that Nathan posted on Facebook. Just the immenseness of a sea being parted. It is huge.

Does the bible disprove the crossing of the Red Sea? Oh, sorry. Does science disprove that? Or does science disprove, say for example, the resurrection of Jesus? Well, we all probably know someone that is the scientist in our friendship groups and who says, can't believe in God because I'm a scientist and so on.

But I think this discussion is less about what the bible writes and records and more about a person's belief concerning the nature of reality. Most people, believe it or not, do believe in God or a superior ultimate power. Most people do. There are very few people that are completely atheistic. A lot of people believe that God was involved somehow in what we see today and what creation is around us.

And most people would say that God is bigger than the world itself. He's an ultimate reality. He's not just relative to us. And the question then I ask these people is, why are we then sceptical of supernatural events where God manipulated the physical according to His will? If we believe that God is bigger, that He is bigger than the physical which has been created, why are we surprised by the fact that He can manipulate the physical?

If God created the world, doesn't it make sense that He'd be interested in what is going on in the world? If God is bigger and more powerful than all of creation and He steps into that world, why are we surprised that it is dazzling, that it is bewildering, that it is hard to understand? So science doesn't necessarily disprove miracles because science can explain these things. Science can explain what has happened, for example, for a sea to have been parted perhaps. I don't think it necessarily goes in as a contradiction.

The question we have to answer is, is God willing and able to roll up His sleeves and to get involved in our lives. That is the real question of miracles. If you can believe that, then of course God can perform miracles. Of course miracles can happen. So the question isn't so much, can science or does science disprove miracles and the things, supernatural things that are written in the bible, but what is your definition of God?

Who do you know God to be? The next question that is also often asked about the bible is, what sets the bible apart from the other great religious writings that we know? What sets it apart? Christians believe, for example, that the bible is unique. Now the problem is most of these reasons that work for us as Christians are not very convincing to other non-Christians, so I say.

So if we say that the bible makes me feel safe or moves me, I know Christians, I know Muslims that are my friends that say the same thing about the Quran. The Quran moves me. So some of these things are unconvincing. But there are some things about the bible that I think holds water with non-Christians. The first thing is that the bible wasn't put together in a secret sort of clandestine way.

The bible always was distributed, was formed within a community that read it, that heard it, that could attest to it. Many religious writings, take the book of Mormon, for example. Take the Koran, was written by one man, one person that had a supernatural event happen to them where an angel directly spoke to them and gave them this new information. But the bible was always written in a community. Even the story of Moses where he received the tablets of the ten commandments was produced in front of a nation of Israel.

The story of Jesus was full of crowds, full of people. So there was a real difference, I believe, in how the bible was formed. Christians welcome a scrutiny of our bible. Because it was open, because it was public, we welcome that openness and that scrutiny. Because we believe that our bible can stand up to it.

If it was good enough to pass for the crowds then, who also struggled with miracles, who also struggled with doubts, it can hold up for us as well. On the flip side, it's not true of Mormonism or Islam. Mormons, for example, and I'm not, you know, begging our mates here if they are if you have Mormon friends. But if you were to scrutinise and research the Book of Mormon, you'd be stopped very quickly because they're not open to that kind of scrutiny or historical research. The same thing of the Koran.

I've asked my Muslim buddy, you know, what sort of scholarship happens? What sort of historical criticism is done on the bible? How many non-Islamic people are able to read it and be scholars in it? And he said, not many, if any. Because there's a constant pressure.

There's a constant pressure to believe that as it is and not to ask too many questions about it. But the bible is and has always been a book that is open. And, if you've ever been to a public college, you will know that we deal with scholars, some of whom don't believe that Jesus Christ is the vine. Some of whom don't believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. And yet, they are entitled to research and to read and to give their opinions and their voice to the bible.

The bible has and always has and will be something that is openly discussed and distributed, just like Michael has said. But even in the early days, we saw this. Today, we have thousands of Greek manuscripts that talk about the events, again, in the New Testament. And the bible, we know that wasn't written just by one person, like a Joseph Smith or a Mohammed. The bible contains many flavours.

At least four people tell the story of Jesus. And these are the stories that are open to the public or were open to the public even in that day. People could read these stories, people could react to them, and people could give or weigh in what they felt, what they believed about these sort of things. The life of Christ was evaluated, was studied, was examined by people who had lived when Jesus lived. And there were many people that could verify the accuracy of these stories.

And to me, that's a valuable difference. Our last point. Our last point. Is the bible still the best way to get to know God? Is the bible still the best way to get to know God?

I believe that it is because the truth that we talked about before of human experience is timeless. People who lived a thousand, two thousand years ago still struggled with the same issues that we are struggling with today. And the task of twenty first century teachers and preachers is to look at the struggles of the people in the bible and simply to say, that's us. Because nothing has changed. Nothing has changed.

The bible is really the inspired word of God because it makes claims that reflect and ring true to us. And this is the most important thing I think from this whole talk this morning. It rings true. I can do research on the bible to find out that it's reliable. I can look at the thousands of manuscripts that testify to what we have now.

When Luke talks about historical events, we can research that and we can find that, yes, those places existed and yes, you know, there were ships sailing between these places that Paul's missionary journeys went on, and those sort of things. That is not difficult to prove. But proving that the bible is inspired, that it is God breathed, is more difficult. But I believe that the bible is inspired. Because when I read the bible, I often sense something that rings true.

It reflects and it speaks to me in my heart and it is not simply magic. It's not simply something that I read to feel inspired. The bible is written for us to know what God is about. Who God is. And the thing for us to encourage people to do is to read it for themselves, to read the bible.

Ask God to speak to us through His word, to encounter the bible on our own. You can't inherit somebody else's experience. You can't inherit that ring of truth. You've got to be authentic about your understanding of who God is and what God's word means to us. It's not something that we can force, but as we struggle, as we wrestle, as we digest God's word, I believe God will reveal Himself.

And that is what He's done through thousands and hundreds of years. And that's what He's continuing to do across the world. God's giant love letter to humanity is His word, is His bible. And that message that rings true is that He loves and deeply cares for a world that has fallen away, that has become terribly lost, but that He has relentlessly pursued and that He will not give up on. So we believe the bible.

We believe the bible because we can say securely that we know we were those lost sheep. We know that deep down we are broken, that we are in need of fixing, but as well, we have an immense hope and an immense appreciation that there is a solution, that there is hope for us. Let's pray. Well, as we deal with these practical things of your word and of course, for many of us, this is something that we take for granted. But, Lord, we have doubts sometimes and we have people that wrestle with these things, especially our non-Christian friends.

Lord, give us the amazing sense of security and peace knowing that this bible that we have, this word that we hold to is not something that is fake or is inauthentic or is a giant sham, but it's something Lord that actually has a meaning and has a purpose and that speaks to us in ways that are profound. Lord, it exposes our fears, it exposes our weaknesses, and it promises us something that we deeply realise we want. Lord, as we wrestle with your word, as we deal with it on a weekly basis, as we preach from it, as preachers, as we teach from it, as Sunday school teachers and catechism teachers, as we have our devotions as families together about this. Lord, help us to understand and have an appreciation for this word and feel secure in it, that it speaks to us, and that it has a meaning for us that is profound, that is life changing. Father, we thank you for this.

We thank you for the men and the women that have died for this, that have offered their lives for this truth to not be hidden. And with John, I pray for the work of Bible League. I pray, Lord, for individuals that we saw giving their testimony, that are willing to sacrifice much for the truth that is placed in this bible, in this book, to be made known to as many as those who are willing to hear. Father, in our lives, help us to develop a sense of great respect and admiration for this word. They are words of life and help us to keep them at the centre of our lives.

We pray this through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Amen.