There’s a saying that goes like this, “A Bible in the hand is worth two in the bookcase”. C.H. Spurgeon wrote:
"I would recommend you either believe God up to the hilt, or else not to believe at all. Believe this book of God, every letter of it, or else reject it. There is no logical standing place between the two. Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of divine revelation; a faith that paddles about the edge of the water is poor faith at best. It is little better than a dry-land faith, and is not good for much".
Every week in church we look carefully at the Bible. And we do this because, as Spurgeon says, we should “be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of divine revelation”. A faith that comes through the Scriptures ought to be our craving. As the psalmist says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps 19.7).
The people of our day would have us belief that the Bible is irrational, untrue and for those who are weak-minded. The world will have us believe that only the facts that it discovers are true. The scientific method, the application of reason—the world says these are the only tools we have for acquiring facts for daily consumption in a humanistic world.
Away from the insights of science and technology—away from iPhones and the internet—there is a crisis playing out—the crisis of truth. No truth—only opinions. Yet we believe in truth and we assert that ultimate and absolute truth is revealed from God. And we affirm that God’s written revelation, the Bible, conveys truth because God is its author. A truth which not only satisfies our intellect but invites us into the warmest of fellowship with the God of creation and re-creation.
Last week we argued that truth does exist and we shouldn’t let the world’s unbelief in truth phase us, because philosophical moods come and go, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
And today we want to assure ourselves that the Bible is the legitimate source of truth and the source for deepening our faith. We want to assure ourselves that the words of God lead us beside still waters. We want to remind ourselves that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God (Eph 6.17).
This leads us to examine the nature of Scripture. What makes it special? How, humanly, speaking did it come into being? And then the implications of reading God-breathed books—truth and inerrancy, sufficiency and personal devotion.
One. Scripture is God-breathed. A good place to start are Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Tim 3.10ff. That’s our main text for this morning. Here Paul speaks of the persecutions he endured in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra in contrast to evil doers and imposters who seemed to flourish as they went from bad to worse.
Paul advice to Timothy, as we see in verse 15, is to hold fast to what he learnt from infancy regarding the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation. Persevere in the Scriptures which ground you in the gospel. The enduring word of God us useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that we all may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
What is it about the Scriptures that make us wise for salvation? What is it about the Scriptures that thoroughly equip us for every good work?
The answer we see in verse 16. All Scripture is “God-breathed”. This is its basic, essential property. What makes Scripture different from all other writings is that the breathe of God exhaled into the words of men who wrote the Scriptures. As Peter says in 2 Pet 1.21, Scripture did not have “its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1.21).
The Spirit, using human authors, inspired the Scriptures. It is God who decides which books are God-breathed and which ones are not. The church cannot by any of its decisions change the character of a book inspired by God. It is the original texts which are God-breathed and our translations are excellent but subject to error from time to time.
An 1810 a version of the Bible read, “If any man come to me, and hate not … his own wife (instead of ”his own life”), he cannot be my disciple”.
The first English-language Bible to be printed in Ireland, in 1716, encouraged its readers to “sin on more” rather than “sin no more”.
In 1631 one version reported the Seventh Commandment as "Thou shalt commit adultery," a mistake which infuriated King Charles. He ordered all copies of this Bible destroyed and fined all printers whose hands had touched the edition.
And yet another translation had Mark 7:27 written as, “Let the children be killed” instead of “filled”.
Notwithstanding these printing errors, we can have an awful lot of confidence in our English translations but wisdom dictates that different translations be consulted when doing serious Bible study.
Now although the 66 books of the Bible are God-breathed there needed to be a process whereby people came to recognise their divine origin. This brings us to ….
Two. How the Bible was Formed. The Bible wasn’t put together by a few elders in a back room one night after a late night meeting. There is no room for conspiracy. A book is either written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or it is not. And it’s a case of men, under the leading of the Spirit, recognising what already these books are.
Let’s briefly consider the origins of the Bible.
Pentateuch. The earliest inspired books coincided with God making his covenant with Israel on Mt Sinai. So we read in Ex 24.7 that Moses opened the Book of Covenant which recorded the covenant God had recently made with his people. This Book of the Covenant was considered Scripture because God spoke these words, they were written down, and the people responded because they were God’s words, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey”.
The main writer of the Pentateuch was Moses probably on the way to the Promised Land or shortly thereafter. He, of course, didn’t record his own death so there at least another editor involved. But these are overwhelmingly the words given to Moses on Mt Sinai and written and compiled on the way, or shortly after, entry to the Promised Land.
Genesis to Deuteronomy became Scripture because in the process of human authorship they were God-breathed.
The Prophets and the Writings. The prophetic voice continued after Moses. Exact details are shrouded in the mist of history. But we know that oral tradition usually played a large role. That is, the prophets spoke and their words were circulated by word of mouth to be eventually collated by an author and written down.
In this way, the rest of the OT was written over time and the list of OT books was likely finalised in 164 B.C. at the time of the Greek occupation of the Promised Land and the Jewish uprising known as the Maccabean revolt. Therefore, at the time of Jesus the OT canon had been written and the list of books closed.
As we know, Jesus often referred to the OT Scriptures, as indeed do the other NT writers. Clearly, the OT Jewish writings were considered as God-breathed by the NT church.
Of course, some OT books claimed the status of prophetic inspiration but were ultimately tested and rejected. Books you may not have heard of because they’re not God-breathed and therefore not in our Bibles. Books such as the Wisdom of Solomon, 2-4 Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit and Judith. These are some of the apocryphal books which are of historical value but are not authoritative in the life of the church.
New Testament. Hebrews 1.1–2 is helpful, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways (OT), but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”. Jesus is God’s prophet par excellence to his people. And then God raised up apostles and prophets who were recognised as being instruments of the Holy Spirit top bring to completion the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
So throughout the NT period, the church recognised that the Holy Spirit was working through writers to inspire Scripture. For example, Peter, commenting on Paul’s writings at the end of his second letter says, “Paul’s letters contain some things which are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet 3.16).
Paul’s writings placed alongside other Scriptures.
All the NT books were written by those who witnessed Jesus, the last book written being the Gospel of John in about 95 A.D. Then the books circulated. No NT book was rejected everywhere and then accepted. As books were recognised as inspired, and new books were considered, one test was agreement with those books already accepted. Since the Holy Spirit is the author, then there must be consistency throughout Scripture in doctrine and teaching.
It was toward the end of the 2nd century that the NT books came together to be regarded as “Scripture” on the same footing as the OT.
In summary, Scripture is God-breathed and over time these books were recognised and compiled and so we have the 66 books in the Bible today. Let’s now spend a moment exploring the implications of God-breathed texts.
One. Truth and inerrancy. On 9 July this year Fox Sports reported that the head of the ARU suggested that the Bible is akin to hate speech. The implication is that the Bible is culture-laden, and no more than a human product reflecting the views of ancient people. So the Bible has no place in a modern world.
The retired radio announcer, Brian Wilshire, in the 1990s wrote a book called, “Monday School” which supposedly tells you everything they didn’t teach you in Sunday school. The book mines for contradictions in the Bible in an attempt to disempower the book.
So what can we say about truth and Biblical inerrancy?
The historical reliability of the Bible can be tested as one would do for any other historical book. Like the accounts of war by Julius Caesar or the writings of Plato. As an historical book the Bible records the life of its central character, Jesus, who did what he claimed to have done and therefore is who he claimed to be: the unique Son of God.
The historical evidence confirms that Jesus really did live, history records that he did do miracles and teach with authority, that he did die for sins a fact confirmed by his resurrection. History and faith are wedged together in solid testimony.
As the unique Son of God, Jesus is an infallible authority. He not only assumed the Bible’s authority, he taught it and asserted that it is entirely without error, as in Matt 5.18, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”.Since Jesus taught that the Bible is the word of God, it must for this reason alone be entirely trustworthy and inerrant. For this reason, the church believes that the Bible is the infallible word of God.
Some may argue that the Bible must contain error simply because it is an historical document, written by men constrained by the limitations of language. How can finite language truthfully describe eternal realities?
But, as James Montgomery Boice points out:
"It is not up to us, however, to say in what form a divine revelation must be given nor to insist that the revelation cannot be divine because of certain characteristics. Obviously, nothing human is a fit vehicle for God’s truth. But God is not prevented from stooping to use human language to convey his truth inerrantly. Calvin compared God’s action to that of a mother who uses baby talk in communicating with a child. It is obviously a limited communication, for the child cannot converse on the mother’s level. But it is true communication nonetheless. Therefore the character of the documents in itself has nothing to do with the inerrancy question".
God can use finite people and limited language to communicate his truths and this he has done in his God-breathed books. As one commentator says, “Because Scripture comes from God, it is therefore true, and because it is true, it is therefore profitable” (Bill Mounce).
Two. Sufficiency. The Bible is totally sufficient. Everything we need to know about God, ourselves and the world in the realm of salvation is contained within its pages. This takes us back to our 2 Timothy passage. Within Scripture is everything we need to hear from God in order be brought to full maturity in Christ. Verse 16, “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”. This is why, in chapter 4, Timothy is to preach the Word with great patience and careful instruction. For the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to thoroughly equip every godly person for every good work.
Don’t look for knowledge about God elsewhere. Astrology, tarot cards, pop psychology are all destined to fail and may cause you to turn away from the truth. This is Paul’s point in 2 Tim 4.3–4. “For the time will come”, verse 3, “when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suite their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths”.
Scripture enables us to recognise false teaching. As we understand the gospel with increasing clarity, we are able discern truth from false teaching. Make it your business to understand the gospel as taught in the Holy Scriptures and pray that the Spirit of God will enable you to grow in grace. And pray that he will protect you from those who peddle mindless myths.
Three. Personal Devotion. George Muller, a man known for his strong faith, confided, “The first 3 years after conversion, I neglected the Word of God. But since I began to search it diligently, the blessing has been wonderful. I have read the Bible through one hundred times and always with increasing delight!”.
John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, testified, “Read the Bible, and read it again, and do not despair of help to understand something of the will and mind of God, though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble yourself, though you may not have commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from man”.
Anyone can open a Bible and read it. There is no virtue in simply opening its pages. But for those whose spirit has been stirred by the Holy Spirit—a little from God is better than a great deal from man. Hear God’s word and learn to love him more and more. Delight in fellowship with God. Give thanks for the Lord Jesus and live with him as King.
Christianity is not a dry, heartless, mindless religion. It is not about burdens and laws and traditions designed to harden our spirits and lead us to resentment. The gospel is the most liberating, joyful expression that the human spirit can ever imagine. The truth of the gospel sets us free.
“A Bible in the hand is indeed worth two in the bookcase”.
To be liberated from sin by the power of God’s word is the greatest freedom for any human being. And so all the honour and glory goes to the one who saved us for his eternal kingdom.
