Sunday, July 29, 2012

“The Bible We Study” Basics of the Christian Faith Sermon Series, July 29, 2012


1.                   Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.  In the message from God’s Word today we’ll be looking at the importance of God’s Word for our lives as Christians.  The message is entitled, “The Bible We Study,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.                   According to John Burwell’s  report of the 2012 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, church delegates got an unexpected education when discussing a resolution to include the English Standard Version of the Bible to the list of approved Bibles for the denomination.  But controversy arose when one delegate discovered that the ESV’s translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9 clearly includes those who unrepentantly practice homosexuality among those who won’t inherit the Kingdom of God. Immediately, a new vote was called and the ESV was rejected. Anyone who thought the matter was finished was disappointed when someone discovered that the same wording is found in the RSV, the NIV, the CEV, and several other versions already approved for use in the Episcopal Church! As John Burwell wrote, “Who Knew?”  The decision was then made to send the bill back for more study. Wonder what they’ll find in there next?  Or, take another example from this past week over the Chik-fil-A controversy. Mr. Dan Cathy, the Chik-fil-A CEO, stated that he supports the traditional BIBLICAL view of marriage. That’s the “controversial” news. His words were, We’re very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.”  “We’re a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we’re married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.” For this reason, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has urged Chick-fil-A to “back out” of its “plans to locate in Boston.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says Chick-fil-A has no place in the city of Chicago.  In his comments to the Baptist Press, Cathy didn’t even mention same-sex marriage. He simply said he and his company supported traditional marriage. It’s clear that anyone who supports the authority of God’s Word in all areas of life is frowned upon by those outside of the church and yes, even those within it. 
3.                   Some people think the Bible “contains” the Word of God.  The Bible’s origin, coming from the one true God, and the Bible’s purpose, communicating God’s life to us in Jesus, makes it unique.  No other book in the history of the world has had that origin and purpose.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “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.”  All Scripture is God breathed.  God the Holy Spirit gave His chosen writers the thoughts they expressed and the words they wrote.  Even so, the holy writers didn’t simply take down heavenly dictation.  They weren’t robots.  Each wrote in his own style, and each book reflects the experiences of its writer.  The Bible is unique.
4.                   The Bible is also completely reliable.  It’s God’s Word, not the word of human beings.  Inspired by God, it’s inerrant.  That means it’s free from error.  We can depend upon it as God’s truth for our lives.  From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is God’s message of love to sinful human beings.  Unlike other books, even other so called holy books like the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita, the Holy Scriptures are uniquely God’s Word.  It’s wrong to pick and choose those parts we believe because we consider them “reasonable.”  We can’t decide which parts of the Bible we want to believe.  Our reason, flawed as it is by sin, must submit to the authority of God’s Word.
5.                   We can despise God’s Word by ignoring it or parts of it.  We can also abuse God’s Word by twisting the meaning intended by the Holy Spirit.  Each passage of Scripture has one intended meaning.  We can’t get away with thinking that person A can arrive at one interpretation while person B arrives at the opposite interpretation.  But the Holy Spirit’s intended meaning in each text doesn’t and can’t change.  Neither does the Holy Spirit contradict Himself.  This is why we interpret the harder verses of Scripture in light of the much clearer to understand texts. 
6.                   But how do we decide what the meaning is?  How do you interpret the Bible?  In one sense, those who say, “It’s all a matter of interpretation,” are right.  As we interpret the Bible, our questions needs to be this, “What is God trying to tell us?”  There are several principles of interpretation that can help us answer this question in a way that we can be sure of.  The first principle of Bible translation is that Christ is the center of the Bible.  The Bible must be interpreted in Light of Jesus.  Luther once asked, “Take Christ out of the Scripture and what do you have?”  His answer was, “Nothing.”  The second principle is, all Scripture is to be interpreted in the light of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  In other words, God declares us right with Himself freely, as a gift, not because we deserve it but because Jesus lived, died and rose again for us.  The third principle, is that we approach Scripture not with a “prove it” attitude, but with an open mind, a repentant heart and faith that clings to Christ alone.  As Luther has said, “Reason is held captive under the obedience of faith.”  We come to the Scriptures asking, “Lord, what would you teach me here?”  The fourth principle is, we approach Scripture asking the Holy Spirit to work through His Word to convict us of our sins, and then, confessing our sins, we ask for God’s forgiveness in Jesus.  The fifth principle is, we read the Scriptures asking the Holy Spirit to reveal their meaning for our lives.  We look for blessings God has given us for which we can return to Him thanks and praise.  We ask, “Lord what would You have me do?” as we look for ways to respond to His mercy in acts of loving service. 
7.                   From the principles of Bible interpretation you can see that the Bible isn’t a book of rules for living a good life.  Not at all!  The central teaching of Scripture is God’s call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  From the Scriptures we learn that Jesus lived a perfect life in your place.  He obeyed each one of God’s laws perfectly for you.  Then He died on the cross in your place.  He suffered the punishment that you by your sins deserved.  And He rose from the dead to give you eternal life, a life with God that never ends.  That’s why we read the Bible, not looking for lists of do’s and don’ts, but asking God to transform us more and more into the image of His Son Jesus.
8.                   But, some people believe that the New Testament is more important to us today than the Old Testament.  The New Testament does portray the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus for us.  But the entire Old Testament also points to Christ.  It abounds in the revelation of God’s grace--His promise to send a Savior after Adam and Eve fell into sin, His answers to prayer in the Psalms, His message of forgiveness spoken by the prophets.  We don’t pit the Old Testament against the New.  Nor can we conclude that the Old Testament carries a message of law and the New Testament a message of gospel.  Both Law and Gospel are central in both the Old and New Testaments.  Both testaments tell of God’s judgment on human sin, but both testaments also tell of God’s mercy toward repentant sinners. 
9.                   There are a lot of “mistakes” in the Bible!  In its pages we read of many people who made “mistakes.”  But these “mistakes” were sins against our holy God, sins that deserved His punishment.  But the Bible doesn’t contain mistakes about who God is or what He’s done through history for us and our salvation.  Sometimes people point to “mistakes” in the Bible, to supposed “contradictions” or to conflicts between science and the Bible.  Certainly some textual problems exist.  But given the length of the Bible, these “variant readings” are few and far between.  More important is the fact that none of them detract from the central truths of Christian doctrine.  In fact, those who refuse to study the Bible because “it’s unscientific” need to study it more closely.  True science and the Christian faith don’t disagree at all.  All truth is God’s truth.  Pure science discovers the truths in the natural world.  It deals with empirical data, not with matters of faith. 
10.   One final comment about the reliability of the Bible we have in English.  Some people have come to the idea that because we have so many translations of the Bible, no one can really know the truth.  “Which translation can you trust?” they ask.  If this is your question, take an hour to compare the NIV, or the New King James Version, and the New American Standard Version, or the ESV.  Look at verses like John 3:16, 1 John 1:8-9, and compare Psalm 23.  Check out some of your own favorite texts.  If you do that, you’ll almost certainly conclude that the translations all say the same thing.  Certainly no differences in the major doctrines of the Christian faith can be found among the major translations.   In fact, the variety of translations can help you gain fresh insight into the meaning of specific texts by looking at how the translators chose to phrase words and verses. 
11.   God the Holy Spirit is always present to strengthen us when we pick up the Bible and take a long drink of the “milk of the Word.”  Some have suggested that the Bible we have in our homes never be closed, that they always lie open, the better to remember the invitation of our Lord to “take up and read.”  But, even if our Bibles are left open, how can we develop the right attitude toward reading them? How can we find time each day to read the Scriptures for our own personal spiritual growth?  For one thing, we need to view the Scriptures not just as divinely inspired, but also as living power.  If the Scriptures are only a code book of texts that prove our intellectual understanding of Him is a correct one, then no wonder they are of little help to us in real life.
12.   The Scriptures are our Lord’s Word to us.  An active powerful Word.  A Word that works changes in our hearts and lives.  We can go to it when our spirits are low.  We can read it as God’s letter of love written to each of us personally.  We can think of it many times a day.  We can refer to it in our daily conversations.  And as we let God’s Word have its way with us, those around us will see evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in us.  We will become more and more the living epistles Paul once wrote about, “Known and read by all men” (2 Cor. 3:2 RSV).  Amen.
    

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