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How
often do you watch or hear the news last week?
How
much of the TV culture did you watch or listen to? I include soaps, films, and
documentaries in this ?
How
long did you spend listening to Jesus ?
Part
of being a disciple of Jesus is reading God's Word. The challenge of
discipleship we will see is keeping in touch, remembering and acting on what
the Holy Spirit says to you through the Bible.
We start our reading today with 2Timothy
3:14-17 page
We
are going to look at this backwards . First we look at the purpose. We don't
read the Bible just to be religious or to be knowledgeable, we read it to be
equipped for every good work.
Second we have a valuation. “It is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” That might at
first sound like an excuse to use it as a weapon to beat fellow Christians over
the head with and some Christians use the Bible that way. But it is not. It is
valuable because it equipped the man or woman of God by guiding you into what
is the truth, challenging your prejudices, correcting erroneous thinking and
telling how you get right with God. It is a manual for life. It does not tell
you what socks to wear or who to marry or what career choices to make but it gives
the framework in which you can make those decisions wisely.
Thirdly,
the Bible is authoritative. All Scripture is God-breathed. It is not just a
book of wise information. It is not just a superior wikipedia. It is
God-breathed. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit its words become words of
life and salvation.
Now lets turn to John 5: 36-40. Jesus is in
hot debate with the Jewish leaders about his authority and therefore right to
be a rabbi.
We look again at the authority of scripture.
Jesus is clear here that the words in the Bible come from the Father. His
authority comes directly from God. The Bible speaks the truth about Jesus.
Turn on to the letter we were studying in the
last few weeks. 2Peter 1:20
READ 2Peter 1:20
We
have already seen that this book is God breathed. Here is a little more detail.
Other holy books are the result of one person claiming that God dictated the
words to them. That applies to the Qur’an, The book of Mormon, and the 10
different Gurus of Sikhism. Hindu Holy books are written by a number of people.
Buddhist Writings are an attempt to recognise the true sayings of Buddha. The
Bible is a book written by a large number of people over thousands of years. In
each case, God inspired them. Their own personalities are expressed but they
also express the truth that God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
This underlines the need for us to ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us in
interpreting the Bible.
Turn the page to 2
Peter 3:15-16 and we see that Peter rated Paul’s writings as Scripture.
He recognised that they were God-breathed.
Now look back at 2Peter
3:2 and we see the purpose of reading the Bible. Peter is telling us he
wrote this letter to remind us of what was written by the Prophets and what was
said by Jesus. We read the Bible to be reminded of the truth.
Returning to verse 16, we see the extent of
our Bible reading Paul’s writing’s were included. So How do we end up with our
Bible?
The
Old Testament is the Hebrew Bible and is largely unchanged since before Jesus’
time. There are some books which are in or out depending on your tradition but
the books in the Bible in front of you are all accepted by all the Christian
churches and the Jews.
What is amazing is to discover how quickly
there was agreement about the New Testament books. A Latin manuscript of about AD170 refers to Luke being the third
Gospel and John the Fourth. And most of the present New Testament writings are listed. In other words, by
then, only 100 years after the death of the apostles, the four gospels in
order, Acts, Paul’s letters, John’s writing, Peters letters, etc were already
more or less universally accepted as Scripture. We use the word Canon to
descried the collection of texts that make up the Bible. In AD 369 and 397 they were formally agreed
by the church.
But
are they accurate?
FF
Bruce was a Biblical scholar who looked into this as he was John Rylands
Professor and as such actually had access to the manuscripts that were
available.
Here is his survey of books of that period.
For example Heroditus was written 500 years before Christ but the earliest copy
we have is dated 1300 years after they were written, and we have only 8 copies
of that period. We all know about Caesar’s Gallic wars by reading Asterix
books. We accept the book as historic and accurate. But they were written 60 years before Christ and the earliest
copy we have is dated 900 years after Christ, so there is a 950 year gap
between to originals and the 9-10 copies we have.
When
it comes to the New Testament, it was written between AD40-AD100 and we have
fragments or parts of texts as early as AD130. A full manuscript exists which
dates back to AD 350. Most of it is in
the British library in London and I have seen it. It is a copy only 300 years
after the originals. There are 5 000 odd Greek copies,
10
000 Latin translations and 9 300 other copies known. So reliable was the
copying of the scribes of those days that the significant variations can be
noted at the bottom of the page in your Bible. You will see just two notes on
this page in your Bible. In simple terms, this book is remarkably authentic to
what was originally written.
So the extent of the Bible we should read is
all of it, with confidence that it is what God wants you to read.
Lets pause and review where we have got to.
Its about Jesus
It
is written to remind you of the truth
It
is here to equip you for life.
The Bible is like food.
So
you need to feed on it regularly. At least daily.
You
need to read it in small amounts to absorb and understand it. There is no
problem with reading a whole book or even reading through, it will take you
some days but it is better to read a bit at a time and digest what it says.
But most of all we need to understand this is
a practical manual. We need to do what it says!
There
is no one way of reading the Bible. You need to find a way that suits your
lifestyle. Some read using notes like Scripture Union notes which help you to
work your way around the Bible and explain some of the meaning. As a family we
use Lucas in Life every day, which has two readings and a challenging though to
go with it. Others use a book with questions to provoke you into thinking
through the implications of the passage, like Search the Scriptures. In Maranatha
you will find a scheme of reading through the Bible chronologically. You need
to try them out and find one that suits you. If you are stuck in a rut, you
need to change the way you do it. Sometimes it is good just to read a passage
and ask what it says about Jesus and what it says about what you should think
and do.
We are blessed with a number of
translations./ Here at church we use the NIV but there are some good
alternatives. The Contemporary English Version, The Message to name but two.
Again find one that you can read comfortably. If you don’t read much, the Good
News Bible is specifically designed for easy reading. Lots of Bibles have notes
to help you understand the text and maps, diagrams and so on. But in the end it
is getting to know the Jesus the book talks about that is most important. And
older Christians have to guard against reading it to dissect it rather than
live by it.
Remember the key point it that the Bible is
there to equip you. Equip you to worship God, equip you to receive salvation.
Equip you to be holy. Equip you to make sense of the world around you. Equip
you to pray, Equip you to serve. Equip you to live. It is a special book and
with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it can be a means of transforming you
life. Value it. Trust it. Read it.