Fundamental 1.
The Bible:
Henrietta Mears wrote a classic best seller, “What the Bible is all About”. And she starts out in Chapter 1, Understanding the Bible, by saying, “Behind and beneath the Bible, above and beyond the Bible, is the God of the Bible.”
So, what is the Bible? Why was it written; and why should we believe it?
What is reliable? What is necessary? What is false? And how can we tell which is which?
We all know and believe that the Bible is God’s inspired, and inerrant message to us. It gives us direction, Psalms 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path; It shows us right and wrong Psalms 119:11 “I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you; and it shows us the truth about ourselves, Heb. 4:12, “Indeed the word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
Now let’s examine some facts to support what we believe:
We know the word Bible means book. And it has been by far and away the bestseller of all history and has been translated into more languages than any other book.
For Christians, the Bible is the written word of God. It is God’s written revelation of His will to all men. The first words of the book show us that God is the leading character of this “Divine” autobiography. And that is exactly what the Bible is, a “Divine” autobiography of God.
Look at the first words in the Old Testament ( OT): It begins with God. “In the beginning God… “ He’s telling us about himself, and showing us His purposes for us – after all, we are His Creation.
The New Testament begins with Christ. ) Matthew 1:1 – “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah…”
So what is the Bible and why do we and should we read it? It is God’s written word for all mankind.
Why do we believe the Bible is true other than our Faith?
Let’s look at more facts.
The Bible we Protestants use is actually made up of 66 books –
It is divided into two Sections: The Old Testament with 39 books and the New Testament with 27. The subject matter includes hundreds of topics, many of them controversial.
Yet the authors, and there were at least 40 of them, and who for the most part didn’t know each other or live at the same time, yet they wrote in complete harmony with each other.
The Bible contains many kinds of writings –
It’s not just one long sermon. Most of the Bible is history, poetry, and letters.
The Old Testament contains Five Books categorized as Law; Twelve Books of History; Five Books of Poetry; Five Books of the major prophets; and Twelve of the minor prophets totaling 39 Books.
The New Testament contains Four Books comprising the Gospel, One Book of History; Thirteen Pauline Letters; Eight General Letters; and One Book of Prophecy totaling 27 Books.
The Bible was written in three languages:
- Hebrew (the language of most of the Old Testament)
- Aramaic (the common language of the Near East for several centuries)
A common form of Hebrew and was the language spoken when Jesus was born.
- Greek (the international language at the time of Christ)
*About 100 years before the Christian Era (Before Christ) the entire Old Testament was translated into the Greek Language by a group of 72 Jewish scholars and they called this translation the “Septuagint” (meaning seventy).
The Bible was written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. The authors were kings and princes, poets and philosophers, prophets and statesmen. Some were learned in all the arts of the times and others were unschooled fishermen.
The Bible was written over a span of centuries –
About 1500 years, starting with Moses and Job, and ending with the apostle John.
The Old Testament was written over a period of 1100 years and the New Testament over a period of 100 years.
The New Testament written over a period of 100 year was written by at least eight men, four of whom – Matthew, John, Peter and Paul were apostles; two – Mark and Luke – were companions of the apostles; and two – James and Jude – were brothers of Jesus.
The Bible records thousand of prophecies –
There were prophecies concerning nations, cities, national and world leaders, and the coming of Jesus Christ. And, historical records outside the Bible can verify nearly every fulfilled prophecy recorded in the Bible—and not one prophecy has been proved wrong.
The Bible has one theme and one message throughout – and that is “Salvation and that it comes only through Jesus Christ”!
Taking all of these facts into consideration: that the Bible was written in three languages, on three continents, over a span of centuries, writers lived at different times, different places, spoke different languages, yet there remained only one theme and one message throughout, from Genesis to Revelation, the books of the Bible recorded one internally consistent point of view about God and man, and that was Salvation only comes through Jesus Christ. These Facts support what we believe!!
How was it written? How did God send His Message? Are the authors to be trusted?
We said the Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant message to us.
Well, let’s look at this. How did God send His Message?
To reach all generations, obviously, a written record was needed, one that would touch all people everywhere. And the Bible was God’s chosen vehicle.
God is a Spirit first of all which means He usually chooses not to physically write what He’s thinking. Yet the Bible says that God speaks things into existence: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. “ (Hebrews 11:3)
That’s how He wrote the Bible, also called the Word of God.
The original ghostwriter, the Holy Spirit was a ghostwriter of the most perfect sort. Because the Holy Spirit is God, He makes no mistakes.
God inspired more than 40 writers over a 1500-year time period to write down His message for humanity. The words did not come from the writers themselves. But the Spirit of God used their personalities, their skills, and their backgrounds (along with a wide range of obviously personal styles). But the message, accuracy, and power are God’s own.
The Bible originated in the mind of God, not in the mind of man!!
Although God did use human agents to write down the words, the Bible is a supernatural work, inspired in the truest sense of the word.
Let’s examine the word inspired/ inspiration. It means someone is influenced or moved by someone or something else. We might tell a person we admire for example, “Your life has been an inspiration to me,” or we may speak of being inspired by a book.
Things in my life inspired me to want to be a part of the Evangelism Program. Ask yourselves whom or what has inspired or been an inspiration in your lives?
Webster’s Dictionary says that to inspire means “to breathe or blow into.” Inspiration is defined as “a divine influence.”
We can trust the Bible completely because God inspired the writers through the Holy Spirit. He controlled the process. He “breathed in” what He wanted. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s why we can trust what we read.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 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.
Are all words in the Bible God inspired words or, are some words from Evil People?
To say all Scripture is inspired does not mean all the attitudes and ideas are God’s truth. Some are the words of evil and foolish people, even of Satan himself. Such parts are recorded as accurate information, true pictures of the people’s words and the circumstances
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Remember in the Book of Job we are told the words of Jehovah, the words of Satan, the speeches of Job’s three friends, and words of Job himself? Not all are equally God’s truth and authoritative, but inspiration guarantees that what each speaker said was accurately recorded.
A good rule for any passage is to check the participants and their belief systems.
Who decided which Books were Inspired and thus, make up the Bible?
I think most of us are familiar with the word “Canon”.
Canonicity was a process by which church leaders recognized individual books of the Bible as being inspired by God. The canon is the word that described which books make up the Bible we use today.
The word comes from the root word reed, which was used as a measuring stick in ancient time. When used with Scripture, canon indicates the measure or the standard used to evaluate which books were inspired and which ones weren’t.
In the first centuries after Christ, several councils met to determine which books should be included in the canon. Their main task was to evaluate books written during and after the life of Christ. (The Old Testament canon was already settled during New Testament times.)
Jesus referred to the Old Testament’s authority in Luke 24:44 when He said: “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms.
The word “testament” means “covenant,” or “agreement” The Old Testament being the covenant or Promise God made with people about their salvation before Christ came. The New Testament is the agreement God made with people about their salvation after Christ came.
In the Old Testament we find the covenant of the law. In the New Testament we find the covenant of grace that came through Jesus Christ. And one led into the other. (Galatians 3: 17 -25) Talks about Law or Faith and the purpose of each.
The councils followed strict guidelines to determine which books qualified as Scripture. Bible scholar Norman Geisler identified five checkpoints that were used:
- Does it speak with God’s authority?
- Is it written by a man of God speaking to us as a prophet of God?
- Does it have the authentic stamp of God?
- Does it impact us with the power of God?
- Was it accepted by the people of God?
But we must always remember and understand, the council did not declare a book to be from God. They simply recognized the “authority” that was already there.
In his book “A Ready Defense“, Josh McDowell asks the question, “Since we do not have the original documents of Scripture, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts and the time interval between the original and existing copies?” Excellent question!!
Manuscript experts tell us that books from the Bible were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books in the ancient world. More copies of Bible manuscripts exist than for any other ancient book (more than 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament alone). And these copies have been declared historically reliable by hundreds of experts in fields ranging from archaeology to theology.
“Words are Worth More than Gold: “
Copies of the Ten Commandments- and everything else God told His authors to write down—were handed down from generation to generation. Professional copiers, called scribes, lovingly reproduced words. They wrote on the best materials available—beginning with stone, then animal skins and finally paper.
If we want to know how seriously Jewish scribes took their work, read Psalm 119. All 176 verses are a tribute to God’s written Word.
Here are two:
At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws. Verse 62.
The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. Verse 72.
There is also a third section: The Deuterocanonical Books. Some Bibles will include this section and others will not. Some call these Books the “Apocrypha”. The word “Deuterocanonical” simply means, “a second canon”, and refers to those books written during the time between the Old and New Testaments.
The Deuterocanonical books were part of the ancient Greek Bible, the Septuagint, which was in circulation during the time of Christ. It was the Bible of the early Church and shaped the conscious awareness of God for the first Christians.
Most of the church throughout most of its history has included the Deuterocanonical books as part of the Bible. The Eastern Orthodox Bible, the Greek Bible, the Slavonic Bible, the Anglican Bible, and the Roman Catholic Bible all include the Deuterocanonical books. Plus, while not viewing them as Scripture, early Protestant Bibles included the Deuterocanonical books, or “Apocrypha” as something of an appendix.
Throughout history and even today, these Books are not given the same authority as the primary canon, the 66 Books.
And why? Research revealed The Apocrypha to be comprised of 14 or 15 books or as many as 22, depending on how they are broken up.
If or when asked, “what benefits does the Bible offer us, personally?
Consider this as an answer, “Because the Bible is God’s personal message to us, it is the ultimate guide to life and to Him. Besides being a “search for God guidebook”, we could call the Bible our life instruction manual, written for us by God, our Creator. And, as stated earlier, the Bible gives us direction, it shows us right from wrong and shows us the truth about ourselves.”
We may read the Bible repeatedly, but we will not discover the point of it all until the Spirit teaches us. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6.
Others may tell us our lesson, but only God can teach us.
The good news is that God’s message is always one of hope and welcome. It is beautifully expressed in one if not the most famous verse in the Bible. John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
In this one statement, which Jesus made to a Pharisee named Nicodemus a leader of the Jews, nearly 2000 years ago, God’s most important message for each of us is summed up.
