Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone Series

Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone

2 Timothy 3:15-17

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

10-05-19

Lean on Me

In 1172, Donna Barto di Bernardo paid 60 coins for the bricks to build a new bell tower. From the first day of the construction, the workers knew there was a problem. After they completed the first three stories, it started leaning. Not a little lean, but a noticeable lean. As the years went by, it grew higher but leaned even more.

Everyone knows what I’m talking about, right? This structure is known as the leaning tower of Pisa. Anyone know why it leans?

Because it was built on soft soil made of clay, fine sand, and shells. The tower is literally sinking into the ground because it has a faulty foundation.

Over the next five weeks, we are going to be studying the foundations of our faith. If the foundation is strong, then our faith will stand the test of time. If the foundation is wrong, our faith will lean into liberalism and, finally, into apostasy.

Sola

Recently, I had a person ask me what it meant to be “Protestants” and what was the difference between Protestants and Catholics.

There are many differences but this month I want to focus on one little Latin word -Sola.

In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther posted 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany. It was written in Latin and was meant to start an academic discussion among his fellow clergy about the idea of indulgences.

The Catholic Church was teaching that there was a “treasury of merit” in heaven. Some people had lived such good lives that they actually had left over merit.

This merit could be bought on behalf of your dead relatives or friends to reduce their time in purgatory.

Priest were traveling the countryside collecting money from desperate people. By the way, this was funding the building of St. Peter’s Basilica. This was a brilliant, if not devious, way to raise funds.

Martin Luther said this was unbiblical heresy and wrote the 95 theses to refute this wicked practice. He proclaimed the real treasure of the church is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what he was “protesting,” hence the term Protestant.

Students in Wittenburg, took the 95 thesis and translated them from Latin to common Germany, made copies of them, and soon they were all over Germany.

Luther could not have known at the time, but this is usually marked as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

The cry of the Reformation can be summed up in five Latin phrases:

Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone

Sola Grata - Grace Alone

Sola Fide - Faith Alone

Sola Christus - In Christ Alone

Sola De Gloria - to the glory of God alone

This morning, we will be looking at the first one - Sola Scriptura. We believe as Protestants, that the Bible alone is our authority for faith and life. It’s the Bible alone, not the Bible plus…

That little word “alone” is what separates us from:

Mormons - they believe in the Bible plus the Book of Mormon

Jehovah’s Witnesses - they believe in the Bible plus The Watchtower

Christian Scientists - they believe in the Bible plus the writings of Mary Baker Eddy

Seventh Day Adventist - they believe the Bible plus the writings of Ellen White

Roman Catholics - they believe in the Bible plus the tradition of the church

We believe that the Bible is the inspired, sufficient, inerrant, infallible, immutable, invincible Word of Almighty God. We are going to look at each of these words this morning by walking through 2 Timothy 3:15-17.

Turn there now.

Prayer.

Continue Timothy

The second letter to Timothy is Paul’s last words. He is in a jail cell in Rome and would be soon executed. He wanted to write to his son in the faith, a young anxious pastor in Ephesus named Timothy. It’s the thoughts of a man who realizing his time was short and he wanted to encourage Timothy to stand strong the faith.

Chapter three begins with Paul telling Timothy that he would be heading into terrible days:

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Paul tells Timothy that it is getting darker by the day and that he will need to avoid this godlessness to lead the church.

He then reminds Timothy of his example through suffering and persecution:

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,  while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:10-13)