Lesson 2: Scripture

Key Verse

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path - Psalm 119:105

Lesson Objective

“The Old and New Testaments, inerrant as originally given, were verbally inspired by God and are a complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men. They constitute the divine and only rule of Christian faith and practice.” 

Resources

What is the Bible?; The Story of the Bible; and Literary Styles in the Bible (Videos) (The Bible Project)
Revelation: God Speaks (Sermon) (Mark Driscoll)
The Doctrine of Scripture: Defining our terms (Kevin Gardner; Ligonier Ministries)

The Doctrine of Scripture (Video) (Kevin DeYoung; Desiring God)
10 Basic Facts about the New Testament Canon (Michael J Kruger)
How do we decide which books belong in the Bible? (GotQuestions.org)
Why we believe the Bible (5 part sermon series) (John Piper; Desiring God)
If the Bible has been added to, can we trust it? (John Piper; Desiring God)
Making of the Bible (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) (Tim Mackie)
A Quiz on the Doctrine of Scripture (Tim Challies)

How does God reveal Himself to us?

What is the Bible?

The Bible is the complete revelation of God’s plan for His Kingdom.

See C&MA Statement of Faith

See video “What is the Bible” by the Bible Project

·       The Old Testament (39 books)

o   The Law

o   The Prophets

o   Writings (Wisdom literature; History; etc)

·       The New Testament (27 books)

o   The Gospels

o   Acts

o   Letters of the Apostles

o   Revelation

Why is the Bible so important? It is THE way to definitively know what God has to say about Himself.

Who wrote the Bible?

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

So we have the prophetic word strongly confirmed. You will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dismal place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all, you should know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man;instead, men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. - 2 Peter 1:19-21

The Author of the Bible is God Himself, but expressed through human co-authors.

This principle is called divine inspiration

or verbal plenary inspiration

Verbal plenary inspiration means that EVERY word of the Bible is inspired of God Himself. Therefore, it expresses to us the necessity of the TRUTHFULNESS of Scripture (because God is true), and therefore its reliability. It also means that we need to pay CLOSE attention to EVERY word of Scripture, not just the bits that we like. ALL Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. EVERY WORD COUNTS.

Did the New Testament Authors know that they were writing Scripture? YES!

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. - 2 Peter 3:15-16

- From this point, it was evident that Peter was putting Paul’s writings at the SAME level as “the other Scriptures”, indicating that Paul’s letter was ALREADY accepted as Scripture

This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the message about God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the message of God, which also works effectively in you believers. 1 Thess 2:13

- Written by Paul to the Thessalonians, clearly indicating he believed his words were "the message of God".

How did they decide which books were part of the Bible? What was their criteria?

Old Testament – Established books of the Hebrew Bible; written by Moses and the Prophets; directly claimed.

New Testament – “One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing their innate worth and generally apostolic authority, direct or indirect. The first ecclesiastical councils to classify the canonical books were both held in North Africa – at Hippo Regius in 393 and at Carthage in 397 – but what these councils did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to codify what was already the general practice of those communities.” – FF Bruce “The New Testament Documents: Are they reliable?”

Criteria:

1)  Conformity to the “rule of faith” (Important to note with regards to Conformity that the Bible is incredibly (and miraculously) COHERENT as ONE book even though it is actually made up of 66 books written by many different human Co-authors!); 

2) Apostolicity - Whether it is written directly by an apostle or indirectly under an apostle's direction; 

3) Catholicity - Whether it has been accepted by the wider Church Body, past and present.

When were Chapters and Verses and Paragraphs put in? What implications does this have for our way of reading Scripture?

Chapters were added in 1200’s and Verses were added in 1500’s to provide “reference points” for people. Paragraphs were an even later English variation (Some of the ancient languages did not even use paragraphs or even punctuation! Interpretation based on widely accepted literary rules of the past). Because of this, it is important that when we interpret the Bible, we interpret the words within the wider context of its passage, the book, and even the Bible as a whole. Need to be careful that these “artificial” divisions don’t section off your reading!

Why can we rely on the Bible?

Based on God’s Character, why does the Bible have to be infallible?

God is true. Scriptures are from God. Therefore Scriptures must be true.

How do we know that the Old Testament that we have now is the same as the text back in the old days?

The Dead Sea Scrolls were written about 150BC – 70 AD; found between 1947 to 1956 to be almost identical to modern copies.

Important to note that this means these translations would have been pretty much the ones JESUS relied upon.

How old are our oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, and how many of them do we have? How does this compare with other well-accepted historical texts? Why does this matter?

Text	Homer	Plato	Aristotle	Caesar	Tacitus	Bible
Number of Copies	643	7	5	10	20	14000
Time between first writing and oldest available manuscript	Unknown	1300	1400	950	1000	100! (possibly even 30)

The closer the manuscript is to the original date of writing, the less chance of copying errors there would be (simply due to the time factor). The sheer number of Biblical manuscripts available means that we have the ability to investigate this incredibly thoroughly. Simply speaking, there is no other more historically reliable ancient text than the Bible. There are many other ancient texts that stand on MUCH more tentative grounds that we do not doubt the existence or correctness of.

What is the place of Translations?

 It is important to remember that we claim infallibility only on the “originally inspired” text. The Translations themselves are not. Therefore, it is important not to hang onto one particular translation over another. It is also important to look back at the original text (hence the emphasis on Pastors needing to learn Greek and Hebrew). Translations are generally very reliable because many, many passionate, faithful and scholarly brothers and sisters pour out their lives to ensure that they are correctly interpreting the Scriptures for us. But each Translation has its particular strengths and weaknesses.

Different translations play different roles in a Christian’s life. For example, when you’re a young Christian something like “The Message” may be good for you because its language is easier to understand. However, it doesn’t capture the FULL depth of the Word, and so when you mature you may need to progress onto something like the ESV in order to be able to grow to more full and complete understanding of the Word.

It is especially important to be watchful of Corruptions, translations that deliberately corrupt the meaning of the original text, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ “New World Translation”.

What place does the Bible have in our lives as Christians?

What is the principle of Sola Scriptura? Where does it come from, and why does it matter?

Sola Scriptura is the principle that the Bible ALONE is our HIGHEST Authority (in ALL matters of faith and conduct.). It is not the ONLY authority by which we can know our world (eg. It doesn’t teach us how to do Chemistry), but it is our primary and highest authority when it comes to all matters related to God.

This comes from an understanding and recognition that the Scriptures are breathed out by GOD HIMSELF, and that there are NO other sources of authority which can state this claim. This is why we need to pay CLOSE attention to the Bible.

This is important because this sets up the foundation of how we view EVERYTHING.

What happens when the principle of Sola Scriptura is violated?

You deviate from Christianity, and compromise on what the Bible says. If other authorities are as important or more important than the Bible, then your view of the Bible is shaped by those authorities, rather than having your view of everything else shaped by the Bible itself. It’s a question of what comes first.

What are some every-day examples of when we don’t hold the Bible in the place of Highest Authority?

-          Friends and their advice; peer-pressure; peer “experience”

-          Other “scriptures”

-          Reason – If your head disagrees with what you find in the Bible, GUESS WHO’S WRONG? YOU! This is important because there will be a lot of things that you will disagree with and try to “reason off”.

-          “It feels good” – contemporary emphasis on the authority of emotional “goodness”

What does this mean for ME?

How much do you read your Bible? How much should you read your Bible?

Why should we study our Bible?

When we teach, what should we ALWAYS reference back to? Is it ok just to go back to “good resources”? Why/Why not?

Good resources can be a guide, but we should ALWAYS be bringing our work BACK TO SCRIPTURE.

Do you treat the Bible as a textbook or a love-letter?

In our discussions about Scripture, there is a danger of treating the Bible simply as a dry textbook from which to extract information from. It is true that the Bible is full of information, but we must remember that this is God’s LIVING WORD to us, not just a try textbook! It is his personal message of love to Humankind, and it should be treated so. Don’t read just to get information; read to RELATE to your Living God.

For further reflection: Psalm 119