Trusting The Bible

TRUSTING THE BIBLE

A story was told of a man who loved old books. He met an acquaintance who had just thrown away an old Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations. “I couldn’t read it,” the friend explained. “Somebody named Guten-something had printed it.” “Not Gutenberg!” the book lover exclaimed in horror. “That Bible was one of the first books ever printed. Why, a copy just sold for over two million dollars!” His friend was unimpressed. “Mine wouldn’t have brought a dollar. Some guy named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German.”

Today we are joining Fellowship Baptist Churches all across Canada in a three week series entitled “The Greatest Book.” It is a celebration of the Protestant Reformation which started 500 years ago this week on Oct 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg Germany. At the heart of the Protestant Reformation was the idea of Sola Scriptura – which means the bible alone. It means that the bible is our sole infallible rule for faith and practice. Over the next 3 weeks we want to talk about the importance of the bible.

2 Timothy 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Paul starts this chapter in verse 1 by telling Timothy “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” He then goes on to describe what those days will be like. I think they very much describe the world we are living in today. I believe that we are living in the last days, so these words are especially relevant for us.

In times like these we need God’ truth like never before. The purpose of Paul’s letter to Timothy (and also the purpose of this message today) is to remind us again of the importance and authority of the Bible in the life of every believer. It is also to give some practical advice on how to study and meditate on the bible so that you can apply it’s truth in your life.

1. The Truth of the Bible

2 Timothy 3:14-15 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

The bible is true. Paul here tells Timothy to live his life according to the truths which the bible teaches. These are the same truths that he had heard from his childhood. He had learned these truths from his mother and grandmother.

I am so grateful for my own Christian upbringing. I am grateful that I grew up in a home where both my mother and father went to church and taught me about Jesus. I was given a strong foundation as a child. Likewise, we as a church recognize the great responsibility we have for parents to teach their children. That teaching must start in the home and seek to support it through our children’s ministry here at the church. I want to remind you today to pray faithfully for our all our teachers and Interns and for Pastor Bev. Teaching children is a truly a high and holy calling! We have a great Children’s Ministry here at the church – so make sure you are using it – including nursing mothers room.

The greatest truth we will ever know is a simple message we learned as children – Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.

Timothy had been taught the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation. He learned the good news that God had sent Jesus into the world to die on a cross for our sins. This is the greatest truth we can give our children.

That is the central message of this Book ... it tells us how to be saved. No other book communicates this message except the bible. In this Book we have the Good News (the Gospel) that salvation is found in Christ alone. He loves us, He died for us, He took God's judgment for our sins upon Himself and He rose again from the dead proving He alone has the power to forgive every one of our sins. That message is true for a child and it is absolutely true for every adult here this morning.