History Of Our Bibles Series

We are doing a Message Series on the Word of God with the Word of God. Our key passage for this Message Series is 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Open your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3. Timothy was warned that in the last days, there will be evil activities in society; Take a look again at 2 timothy 3:1-5…. We today are seeing all these evil activities; we are living in the last days. And like Timothy, we must always remind ourselves of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son Jesus Christ that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life! Forgiveness of sins is a gift from God through Jesus Christ! Christians now belong to God forever and while still here on earth, Christians anticipate the return of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, God gave us the Bible and we are to note 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which states….

Last week we noted that the Bible is God-breathed (inspired by God), meaning, God had people write down His own words. The Bible is God’s spoken words and we must read it and learn from it with that in mind. The Almighty God is talking to us through the Bible! All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching and rebuking… Before we can teach from the Bible, we must know how we ended with the Bibles we have in our hands and which Bible to use. Today let us learn the history of our Bibles.

We know the Bible is God’s Word but He called on people to put His words in writing! How did God put His own words through people? Remember what happened at Mount Sinai? God not only spoke to Moses but God actually wrote on stones His own words, the 10 Commandments.

1. God certainly could have just written Himself all of Scriptures, but God chose, with His divine wisdom, to have people write down Scriptures. What do you think would happen if the 2 stone tablets with the 10 Commandments written on them are available today? What have we done with all the Holy sites in Israel? People are worshippers of things not necessarily God! If we still have the 2 stone tablets, or even just a chip of those stones, people would worship the stones rather than God! Similarly, people worship the sun, stars, comets, and even pets instead of the Creator God Himself.

Open your Bibles to Deutoronomy 4:10-14 and read along with me…. now to Deutoronomy18:18-20…. And so, after God Himself wrote Scriptures, God called Moses and other Prophets to write down His Words. And what can we say about the New Testament? Jesus Christ Himself spoke, and He stated that God the Holy Spirit will guide others to write down what He taught; and we always note in the Apostle Paul’s writings the statement “this is the command from our Lord”.

God called on people, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, to write down God’s Word for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God put His words in writing for you and me!

2. As we had noted last week, With the exception of the Book of Genesis, Scriptures were written so close to the actual events that they are like “newsflashes” in a newspaper! God called on eyewitnesses to write down His words. Do you see the power of this? God could have just called anyone to write His words, but how believable would that be if just some random person wrote for God? Would you actually read seriously something written by PeeWee Herman? However, People do accept writings about Aristotle and Caesar when those writings are about 1000 years after the actual events when Scriptures are only about 200 years after the actual events written by eyewitnesses!.The Bible is historically accurate and reliable to depend our lives on it!

Now, there are many other writings which claim to be the Word of God; why do we only have 66 Books in our Bibles? First of all, turn to Deutoronomy 4:1-2….

3. God chose and protects only the 66 Books of the Bible! This is called the “canon”, meaning the standard! How is it done? …. at least 4 good reasons:

a. First of all, God Himself protected and continues to protect the 66 Books! How? After the last book of the Old Testament from the Prophet Malachi, God was silent for 435 years till the announcement of the coming Messiah! For over 400 years God silently spoke to state that the 39 Books of the Old Testament was enough! And what did Jesus say at the last Book of the New Testament? Turn to Revelation 22:18-19 with me……