Unpacking Our BIC CORE VALUES: THE FOUNDATION OF OUR FAITH Believing the Bible Hebrews 4:12 and 2 Timothy 3:16 & 17 Layne Lebo February 25, 2018 After polling Americans about their religious beliefs and practices, pollster George Gallup concluded, Americans revere the Bible but by and large, they don t read it. And because they don t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates. That claim wouldn t trouble me so much if it referred just to what we might call nominal Christians those who profess faith and belief in God, but whose lives give little evidence of a relationship with Jesus. But my suspicion is that Gallup s statement includes many of us who regularly attend church and follow Jesus. And that troubles me because God has given us his Word as a primary means of knowing his love and gaining his wisdom and direction. In one sense, these are just words on a page. There s no special ink or magical power in this book. But God has given us his Word in the Bible as a connection point between God s heart and our heart. As we read the Bible, we re interacting with his Spirit. The value we re exploring today as we continue our series on BIC core values titled, The Foundation of Our Faith, is Believing the Bible. The statement expressing that value is: We value the Bible as God s authoritative Word, study it together and build our lives on its truth. That statement contains 3 important claims that I hope to unpack as we walk through the message today: The Bible is God s authoritative Word. We re committed to studying the Bible. And we build our lives on its truth. As I began to write this sermon and thought about the challenge of not just presenting information about the Bible that tickles our minds, but touching people s hearts in a way that compels them to read God s Word, I envied the gravitas and charisma of the famous British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Churchill led the British Empire through the dark, seemingly hopeless days of WWII, by calling the British people to maintain hope and persevere. After the war as Churchill was giving a commencement address, he reportedly stood up and repeated the phrase, Never give up! to the graduates and their families 3 times and then sat down. I d like to be able to stand here and say, Read your Bibles! Read your Bibles! Read your Bibles! 1
And then sit down. And some of you would be very happy if that were the extent of today s sermon. (By the way, while the words Never give up! repeated several times were included in a commencement address Churchill gave, his actual speech was much longer than that.) The Brethren in Christ, along with many followers of Jesus, believe the Bible is God s authoritative Word. Volumes have been written and countless debates have been waged seeking to prove the authority of the Scriptures, and at times those proofs can be helpful for people wrestling with questions surrounding the origin and inspiration of the Scriptures. But my main focus today is allowing the Bible to speak for itself. I m reminded of a wonderful quote by the famous 19 th Century preacher, Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon said, The Word of God is like a lion. You don t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself. And this week many have honored the life of the great evangelist, Billy Graham, who reportedly preached to over 200,000 million people. Graham was known for his emphasis on the authority of the Word of God and his signature phrase was, The Bible says There are two verses from the New Testament that I want us to focus on today. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 says, For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 And in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 16 & 17 we read, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16 & 17 The words, living and active, God-breathed, and useful for equipping speak to the inspiration and authority of the Word of God. Those verses present the inspiration and authority of the Bible in a very matter of fact way, but how people and denominations view Scripture has been a hotly debated topic since the 2 nd Century and it continues to be a contentious issue today. I won t go into great detail here, but I want to speak about two words that inevitably arise in discussions about the authority of the Scriptures: inerrant and infallible. 2
Inerrant and infallible are terms Bible scholars have used over the last 125 years attempting to explain the authority of the Scripture. The word inerrant, simply means, without error. That seems pretty basic. Those of us who look to the Scriptures as the basis for how we live our lives want to know that the Bible is true, but it s not quite that simple. In Exodus and Deuteronomy we read about God giving Moses the Ten Commandments inscribed on tablets of stone. God did that with the Ten Commandments and He also gave Moses parts of the Jewish Law written on tablets as well, but the majority of the Old Testament Scriptures were communicated from God to people who passed those truths along by word of mouth and later they were written down. In the New Testament, people listened to the words of Jesus and they were passed along orally and later recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We also have letters written to 1 st Century churches by apostles like Paul and Peter and John. The Scriptures are a collaborative effort between God and the people through whom He communicated. The question that has caused Bible scholars and others who read and study the Bible to stumble over the years is, How does an all-knowing (the theological word is omnipotent) God communicate his truth to people like us whose understanding is woefully incomplete in ways that we can comprehend? God knows much that we don t and so to effectively communicate with us He needs to start where we are, not with all He knows. Since humanity s knowledge is constantly expanding, what we know today looks very different from what we thought we knew decades or centuries ago not to mention 4 millennia ago. An example of what I m referring to occurs in Joshua chapter 10 verses 13 & 14. Moses successor, Joshua, was leading the Israelites in battle against the Amorites. The Israelites were winning the battle, but the day was coming to an end and some of the gains the Israelites had made would be lost if darkness kept them from finishing the battle. So Joshua prayed, Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon. And then we read this, So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a human being. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel! 3
God answered Joshua s prayer with a miracle and the Israelites were able to win the battle and claim more of the land God had promised to them. That s fantastic! But do you see the problem that has nagged at modern readers? We now know the sun and moon don t move. The earth revolves around them, not vice versa. But it was well into the 17 th Century, after the scientist, Nicolas Copernicus, presented the idea more than a century earlier, until people understood the sun and moon didn t revolve around the earth. If the Bible is without error, how can it claim the sun revolves around the earth? And if the Bible is wrong about that, what other errors might it have in it? Realizing that the concept of inerrancy had its problems, some biblical scholars proposed the concept of infallibility. Infallibility states that the Bible is true in all that it means to communicate. In other words, the intent in the account of the sun standing still was to demonstrate God s power over nature and his answer to Joshua s prayer, not to quibble over the science of whether the sun or the earth stopped revolving. That makes sense, but then who determines what the Bible s intent actually is? As you can imagine, the debate surrounding inerrancy and infallibility and the authority of the Scriptures gets quite complicated. The Brethren in Christ steer clear of words like inerrancy and infallibility because the words have taken on a life of their own that goes beyond the meaning of the terms. In some cases these words are used as litmus tests for orthodoxy or theological conservatism and those who refused to use them are labeled theological liberals or even heretics. In February of 2013 I was privileged to be part of a group of 38 men and women from across the BIC who met at Carlisle BIC Church for a gathering called, Consultation on the Nature of Scripture. Participants were assigned some readings on the nature of Scripture prior to the event and then we met for several days to develop guidelines for interpreting Scripture. Amidst the variety of people present and churches represented, I was impressed by the shared understanding most of us had about Scripture. One of the commitments that was strongly affirmed at our gathering in February of 2013 was that rather than putting words like inerrant or infallible on Scripture, we would use words that the Bible uses to define itself. Words like: living, active, God-breathed and useful for teaching, training and equipping. 4
Flowing out of our time together we developed 10 Guidelines for reading and interpreting Scripture. (Copies of that list of 10 guidelines are available at the Welcome Center and you can find them on the BIC website as well, under the link: What we believe about the Bible. ) Of these 10 guidelines, I d like to highlight 3 that I believe are central and somewhat unique to the Brethren in Christ s understanding and interpretation of Scripture. The first statement I want us to examine is number 5 on the list of 10 guidelines: We believe that Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God and is central to our understanding and interpretation of Scripture. The BIC believe in the authority of all of the Scriptures, but we believe Scripture teaches (see Colossians 1:15-20) that God most clearly revealed Himself in Jesus. So, we give special attention to Jesus life and his teaching, especially as found in Matthew chapters 5-7, The Sermon on the Mount. The 8 th guideline states, We believe that the Christian community, as informed by Christian tradition, is the most reliable context for the study and understanding of Scripture. The BIC, consistent with our Anabaptist roots, have always placed an extremely high value on community, believing that God s will is often best determined in dialogue and prayer with Christian brothers and sisters. And we see this emphasis on the value of community as an important guardrail in interpreting Scripture. And number 10 reads, We believe that the proper interpretation of Scripture ultimately leads to a change of heart and a change in behavior, and makes God s redemption available to every person and to all of creation. I mentioned several weeks ago that the early River Brethren/Brethren in Christ were known by the label, People of the Book, because of their commitment to reading, studying and obeying God s Word in their daily lives. When we read Scripture and the Holy Spirit illuminates our heart and mind we learn truth, and the Old and New Testaments are filled with wisdom and understanding beyond what we can find anywhere else. But Scripture isn t designed just to give us information. Someone has said, Most Christians are educated way beyond their level of our obedience. Scripture was given to us by God to change our lives. The 5
Bible points us to the salvation that is available to every person, and as we read God s Word, it calls us to life change as we obey and put into practice what we read. I d like us to look again at 1 Timothy 3:16 & 17: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. These verses emphasize both the authority/inspiration of God s Word it s God-breathed and its relevance for all of our lives it s useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that we may be equipped for every good work. The tendency of some followers of Jesus is to focus so intently on fighting for the authority and inspiration of God s Word, that they neglect to actually live it. While others are committed to living out the principles of God s Word, but they divorce it from its authority and inspiration. Generally speaking, theological conservatives have tended to be strong on the authority and inspiration of God s Word, but have failed at times in living out its truths particularly as it relates to loving and caring for the less fortunate. Meanwhile, theological liberals have often done well at living out the truth of the Scriptures to love our neighbors, while at times undercutting the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. Hopefully, this is obvious, but we need both. We need to recognize the authority and inspiration of God s Word, while also obeying it and living out its truths of loving God and loving our neighbor. So far, this sermon has leaned heavily toward information, while I ve done very little with the experiential or obedience side. I guess I could try Winston Churchill s alleged tactic and close this message by saying, Read the Bible! Read it! Read the Bible! But I suspect that would have a limited impact. I want to close our time this morning by seeking to move us toward applying and experiencing God s Word. Throughout the Scriptures and in history, revival in communities and nations and renewal in the hearts of individuals was often sparked by a renewed interest in and commitment to reading God s Word. Listen again to the words of Hebrews 4:11 and 2 Timothy 3:16 & 17: For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 6
God desires to draw each of us closer to Himself. He wants to release his love and forgiveness and healing and peace and his power into our lives. And He wants to bear increasing amounts of fruit through you and me. And one of the primary ways He does that is through his Word as we read it, study, memorize, meditate on and apply his Word. And I m convinced God wants to do more in and through McBIC, and one of the ways He ll do that is as you and I read, study, memorize, meditate on it and apply his Word. As we close I d like to give each of us an opportunity to experience the truth of God s Word as we read and meditate on it and then as it is read over us. Over the next two minutes you ll see slides with portions of Psalm 119 on them. I encourage you to read and reflect on the truth of these words as they scroll before you. And then I encourage you to remain in a posture of reflection as portions of Psalm 139 are read over us Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart they do no wrong but follow his ways. How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. Teach me, LORD, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end. Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. Reflecting on Psalm 139:1-18 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 7
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand when I awake, I am still with you. 8