What About The Bible? Part-2, II Timothy 3:16
The New Testament – Truth
Introduction
A clergyman took a seat in a dining car on a train traveling along the Hudson River. Opposite him was an atheist who, seeing his clerical collar, started a discussion. “I see you are a clergyman.” “Yes,” came the reply. “I am a minister of the gospel.” “I suppose you believe the Bible.”
The clergyman, orthodox in his views, responded, “I certainly do believe the Bible to be the Word of God.” “But aren’t there things in the Bible you can’t explain?” With humility the minister answered, “Yes, there are places in the Bible too hard for me to understand.”
With an air of triumph as though he had cornered the preacher, the atheist asked, “Well, what do you do then?” Unruffled, the clergyman went on eating his dinner, which happened to be Hudson shad, a tasty fish but noted for its bony structure.
Looking up, he said, “Sir, I do just the same as when eating this shad. When I come to the bones, I put them to the side of the plate and go on enjoying my lunch. I leave the bones for some fool to choke on.”
Transition
Indeed, the Bible is the word of God though the critics often do find themselves choking on the finer points of Scripture. Today we pick up where we left off last week in answering the question, “What about the Bible?” Last week we discussed the reliability of the Old Testament.
We saw examples of how the Old Testament provides reliable historical accounts and if it provides accurate accounts of history then it can be trusted as a reliable document. If the Old Testament can be proven to be historically dependable then great weight is lent to its trustworthiness as an internally consistent record of God’s dealings with His people and its message in regard to salvation through Christ can be trusted as well.
This morning we will discuss the trustworthiness of the New Testament. The Old Testament is the seedbed for the New Testament and salvation and truth is the fruit thereof. This morning it is my hope that you will leave this place encouraged and renewed and refreshed in your love of and trust in God’s divine revelation to humanity – the Bible!
Exposition
After Jesus had been arrested and accused before the Jewish religious leadership, he was brought before the local Roman authority – Pontius Pilate. The Jews had no love for the Romans, but Pilate was the only one with the authority to put Jesus to death, which was what the religious authorities had wanted to do all along.
Jesus had challenged the establishment. Jesus had told us to lay aside wrath and revenge in favor of love and forgiveness. Jesus had said that the Kingdom of God is primarily invisible as it is made up of genuine believers and not worldly powers.
What Jesus had done was basically to undermine the power that the Jewish religious establishment had massed unto itself. In short, he had threatened their authority and control over the people and I think it was this, more than any other thing, which caused them to bring him before Pilate.
Surely, they also thought him to be a blasphemer – calling himself equal with God – but there were lots of blasphemers in those days, what Jesus had done most of all, was to expose them to the light of truth and when the ugliness of the human condition is exposed to the beauty of that light, that light must be extinguished.
In John 18:33-38 the conversation between Jesus – the light of God in the world – and Pilate – the local representative of worldly authority – is recorded. (READ)
In this conversation we see the Kingdom of Heaven conversing with the Kingdom of the world. In a very real sense Pilate, as a representative of perhaps the greatest worldly empire of all history, speaks on behalf of all worldly power when he asks what I believe is the most powerful and most important question that was ever posed to Jesus by anyone during His earthly ministry. “What is truth?” (v.38)
Indeed, from eternity past and ever since Pilate uttered this most important of questions, humanity has been seeking its answer. Postmodernism is the common philosophy of our day. It tells us that it is not possible to know truth. Truth is relative to what you want it to be. Truth is not so much a concrete reality as it is a subjective view point.
To be sure, people have stopped looking to the Church or to the Bible as their source of truth. Media drives our culture doesn’t it? For most people it is the television which gives them their news, their entertainment, and in many ways it is the media which drives our entire civilization and shapes the way in which we view and understand the world around us.
In a recent book entitled, “The Gospel According to Oprah” Marcia Z. Nelson explains the way that the celebrated talk show host Oprah Winfrey has amassed for herself something which resembles much more of a religious following than a studio audience.
In her book she writes, “Watching the Oprah Show is something like attending a worship service. Go to this house of worship and sit down for an inspiring hour that will engage you and give you a lift, an hour-long show five days a week adds up to a lot more pulpit time per week than the average pastor enjoys, and Oprah commands a lot bigger congregation.”
The trouble with this is that if you examine the message that Oprah is preaching from her television pulpit, you will quickly find that her message is very much in keeping with the rest of the postmodern worldview; truth is ultimately unknowable and every road leads to the same god.
I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” We need a better answer to Pilate’s very good question; “What is truth?” It isn’t particularly difficult to shatter the myths of the modern worldview.
The agnostic says that you can’t know anything for sure. The trouble with this view of truth is that in affirming that you can not anything you are affirming the very notion of knowing something – namely, that you can’t know anything. As a basis for understanding truth this view is absurd and flawed.
The skeptic says that you should doubt everything. In our day skeptics abound. Perhaps you have met one of these folks. They offer near constant commentary on what is wrong and why this thing or that can not be trusted but they offer no alternatives. Skepticism is self defeating. Should I also doubt that I should doubt?
In the New Testament God has given us much more sound criteria for evaluating truth. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (NKJV)
Ultimate truth is found in the very person and life of Jesus Christ alone! In the pages of the New Testament the word truth is used more than 100 times. The New Testament declares what is truth – Jesus Christ is truth.
In speaking of the coming of the messiah, the prophet Isaiah writes, “A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.” (Isaiah 42:3 NKJV)
In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NKJV) The reliability of the New Testament is confirmed in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus quoted the Old Testament, Jesus empowered His followers to write the words of the New Testament, and then in order to prove that is the truth he did what absolutely no man has the power to do; he rose from the dead and appeared unto many witnesses!
The writers of the New Testament were eye witnesses to the events. The writers of the New Testament were honest. Even in cases where distorting the truth would have put them in a better light, they still wrote an accurate account. In the case of Peter denying Jesus three times on the eve of Jesus arrest, for example, the fact that embarrassing facts were recorded lends weight to the credibility of the account.
Their honesty is also attested to in that they were willing to die for the plain and accurate account which gave of the plain and accurate details of the life of Jesus Christ. The writers of the New Testament gained nothing and lost everything for passing on to us the events of the life of Christ.
The internal evidence of the New Testament substantiates its credibility. The writings of the New Testament harmonize with each other. The historical accounts of the Gospels fit well together and in many cases are nearly identical. A common argument against the reliability of the New Testament is that there are supposed differences in the Gospel accounts. This supposed discrepancy is easy to explain.
God used the individuals who penned the Bible in a dynamic way. While He inspired what they wrote perfectly, He also allowed their varying perspectives and personalities come through in their writing. Mathew was a Jew and his Gospel declares Christ as the King of the Jews who were his intended audience.
Mark wrote his Gospel to his people – the Romans. Mark is a gospel of action written to people of action. The word “straightway” is used 19 times in the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark to show the action of Jesus just as Romans were also a people of action.
The Gospel of Luke was written by a physician and for this reason it is filled with wonderful detail. Luke was a Gentile and the book contains internal evidence that it was written to non-Jewish people as well.
The Gospel of John, my favorite Gospel, was written by John that we might believe that Jesus is the son of God. At least a dozen times the phrase, “Son of God” is used in reference to Jesus in this Gospel.
Each writer spoke from his particular perspective and God used the experience and point of view of each individual to shape the message of truth to the world. It is not that the Gospel writers have offered conflicting accounts. It is much more than we are enriched by the varying perspectives of each author as God used them to write His eternal word to humanity.
Regardless of the evidence there are always those who will say, “I don’t care what you tell me of what Jesus said nor did, I don’t care about the loads of ancient manuscripts which prove that the word has not changed through the centuries, because you Christians are just too narrow minded. You Christians want everybody to accept that there is only one truth and that you know his name – Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
Truth is narrow. If we were hiking and came to a wide river, and we learned that there was one bridge, down the river a mile or two, we wouldn’t stomp in disgust and moan about how that was such a narrow way to think and that the bridge should be right there, where we were. Instead, thankful that there was a bridge, we would go to it and cross over.
Or consider the following. When we go to the doctor, we want a prescription for exactly what we will need to get well. We would be quite startled if the doctor said, “These pills ought to cure you if you’re sincere. After all, we believe in health, don’t we?” Or would you trust yourself to a surgeon who had received no specialized training but was simply a really good person who meant well?
Of course not! You know that truth is narrow. And you will trust your life only to someone who knows exactly what he or she is doing.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NKJV)
