Dakota Community Church
September 21, 2008
Scripture Alone 1
The Holy Bible; you know that as a Christian you are supposed to read it. You see the reading plan in the bulletin every week. You notice the sermon points all being backed by scripture. You even notice that many of the songs we sing in worship are biblically based.
Have you ever wondered why that is?
What do we believe about this ancient text?
From our articles of faith:
We believe in the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, known as the Bible, composed of sixty-six books and divided into two departments, Old and New Testaments. We believe the Bible is the Word of God, the full and complete revelation of the plan and history of redemption.
Is the Bible actually the authoritative “Word of God”, or is it merely a respected voice in the Christian community?
If it is the final authority; how did it come into being?
Who decided what was “in” or “out” as far as content goes?
Are there other gospels or other holy writings that should receive equal billing with the Bible in importance and authority for believers?
Is there absolute truth?
If the Bible is the authoritative Word of God then why are there so many denominations?
Where does interpretation come in?
How do we decide if something is literal or figurative in nature?
Jude 1:3
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
Titus 1:9
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
Titus 3:9
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.
1 Timothy 1:3-4
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith.
2 Timothy 2:23-24
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.
What we see here is that some issues are worth taking a stand on and insisting upon, things that pertain to what is known as sound doctrine, and some things are silly and argumentative and not worth wasting time on.
When we get together on Good Friday with the other Christian denominations in the area we are acknowledging that we recognize each other as fellow Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ. We all agree that the Bible is the Word of God; that Jesus is the Son of God, that our salvation is by faith in His sacrifice alone, and we share communion as proof of that.
We do not invite the local Buddhists, Muslims, Hindu’s, Jehovah’s witnesses, or Bahia’s because those groups do not agree to those foundational elements of the Christian faith.
Within the Church there would be wide variations of opinion taken from within scripture.
The place of women in ministry.
Baptism
Spiritual gifts
Healing, prosperity, worship, pacifism, rapture, and on and on.
What about taking everything literally?
Mark 9:43
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
How do we decide if that is literal or philosophical? Well the disciples all had eyes and hands the next day and we know that anyone who is not the sinless Son of God is not going to get through a day without stumbling because of hands or eyes.
How do we know the scripture is the “authoritative Word of God” and not just a suggested guide?
1. Scripture itself.
First of all the scriptures themselves tell us so.
Now the big thinker’s amoung us will claim that that is circular logic. I can say I heard a message from God but that doesn’t mean I did because I cannot testify about my own message.
Why is the Bible different in this regaurd?
The Bible is not a single book written by a single author. When we reference the Bible we are referencing a library of 66 inspired books which were written:
• over a 1500 year span (from 1400 B.C to A.D. 100)
• over 40 generations
• over 40 authors from many walks of life (i.e. - kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars)
• in different places (i.e. - wilderness, dungeon, palaces)
• at different times (i.e. - war, peace)
• in different moods (i.e. - heights of joy, depths of despair)
• on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe)
• in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek)
The Bible was completed in its entirety nearly 2,000 years ago and stands today as the best-preserved literary work of all antiquity with over 24,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts discovered thus far. Compare this with the second best-preserved literary work of antiquity, Homer’s Iliad, with only 643 preserved manuscripts discovered to date.
2 Timothy 3:10-17
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 evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Scripture is God-breathed in order that we might be equipped for everything!
The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God but more important than that claim is the testimony of the Son of God.
We know the Bible is not just a “respected voice” because of:
2. Jesus’ view and usage.
We know that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and not just a respected voice in the community because of how Jesus treated scripture.
Matthew 12:38-42
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
Mark 1:40-44
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."
Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: "See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.
Matthew 23:1-3
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
Matthew 5:17-18
"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. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Matthew 24:36-39
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.
Jesus believed in Noah’s ark! He is treating this narrative story as if it is literal fact. Should we treat it as less?
Luke 17:26-29
"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
"It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Matthew 19:3-8
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
"Haven’t you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ’made them male and female,’[Genesis 1:27] and said, ’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[Genesis 2:24]? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
I could tell you that the Genesis story is just a poem made up to help explain one possible theory of how life came to be… but I would have to insult the intelligence of the Son of God to do so because clearly He didn’t know it!
Are we supposed to use the scriptures like a weapon to bring correction?
Matthew 22:23-33
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?"
Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ’I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
Jesus brings the Sadducees a stern correction and faults them for not knowing the scriptures.
Next Week: the conclusion.
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
