Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 2 - We Can Trust the New Testament

Hope you guys had a great week in the Lord. We are going to be looking at a lot of different scripture passages today. The big idea is on the screen behind me, can the New Testament be trusted? We're gonna pray and then we're gonna jump into things.

So, I, I'm very excited about the lesson this morning. Hope it's encouragement. We're hoping that it's, gonna be something that you can use, in your own life, but also, in your evangelism and apologetics. So let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this time for us to be together on the Lord's Day, your day. With our eternal family, the people of God. We thank you, Lord, that you are calling people from all over the world, every tribe, tongue, and nation to be part of your kingdom. We thank you, Lord, that we see that representation even here at Cornerstone from people from different tribes, tongues and nations.

We ask God that you would help us to grow in our understanding of the gospel, that we would be impacted by our relationship with you and that you would just continue. To use us, Lord, in our spheres of influence, we pray this in the Christ, in Christ's name. Amen. All right.

Had an interesting. Some interesting reading. I was doing this last week. I was preparing to do a little bit of extracurricular teaching on Mormonism.

And ran across this quote from a guy named Thomas Stuart Ferguson. This is a guy who spent his whole life trying to prove that the Book of Mormon was true. In fact, he established a foundation called the New World Archaeology Foundation at BYU. So the whole purpose of this foundation was to find archaeological evidence to corroborate the Book of Mormon.

Raise your hand if you've ever read any of the Book of Mormon. OK, a couple of you folks? OK. So in the Book of Mormon, you've got the Nephites, you've got the Lamanites, the Nephites are good, the Lamanites are bad.

They battle it out in New York. And the Nephites win. The laminates get wiped out. or it's the other way around?

I forget. is it the other way around? I'm right? OK.

S Yes. Yeah, that, that gets left out today, the dark and light skinned side of it. But anyway, so you've got, there's all this stuff in the Book of Mormon that basically argues that they, that Jesus Christ came to North America and made an appearance, and, and so you have these people groups and Joseph Smith mentions all these different areas of North America. And, and so.

so, one of the charges against the Book of Mormon over the years has been, hey, where's the archaeological evidence for this book? you can go to secular universities and get your doctorate in biblical archaeology, but where's the archaeological backdrop for The Book of Mormon. And so, this is his quote. He is, he, he died in 1975.

But here's what he said before he died. With all of these great efforts, it cannot be established factually that anyone from Joseph Smith to the present day has put his finger on a single point of terrain that was a Book of Mormon geographical place in the hemisphere has been pretty well checked out by competent people. I must agree with Dee Green, who has told us that to date, there is no Book of Mormon geography. I, for one, would be happy if Dee were wrong.

This is a guy who Really, really research to try to find evidence. And even at the end of his life, he would have loved to have found a different result. But to his credit, and his honesty, As an archaeologist or There was just no evidence to support the Book of Mormon. And Which is really sad when you think about it.

Because you have a whole group of people. all around the world. who believe in a religion. That has no basis in reality.

And many of them know that. And so what do Mormons today do with this stuff? What do they do with the fact that there's just no, no historical backdrop? For their faith.

In fact, the actual history of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young is very sordid. well, they've had to basically liberalize their faith. In other words, what they do is they disconnect. The Mormon faith from history in the same way that Christians in the 1800s tried to disconnect their faith from the history of the Bible.

Are you guys familiar with like higher criticism? I don't know if you guys are, are familiar with Karl Bart and some of the German theologians in the late 1800s. Well, The certain Christians in Germany in the 1800s, they had a similar problem. It wasn't that there was no archaeology to support scripture.

The, what, what certain Christians were embarrassed by was the With certain things that were happening that's verifiable in the Old Testament, particularly, and miracles. So they were embarrassed by the warfare problem, the, the fact that you have Israel attacking other nations, that God is telling them to attack other nations and kill them. they're embarrassed by stories about a snake talking, a donkey talking. They're embarrassed by a worldwide flood that's being reported in the Old Testament.

they're embarrassed by, embarrassed by six-day creation, and with the rise of Darwinianism and so on and so forth, many Christian, apologists, these were people that were trying to defend their faith. They decided that one of the ways that we can defend the Bible and defend Christianity is we disconnect Christianity from history. We basically say that it doesn't matter whether the things that we find in scripture are historical or not. What matters is the story has meaning to us.

The story has meaning. and so this was the teaching Carl Barrett and other people, and that's what Mormons have had to do today. is they've had to just basically disconnect their faith from history, and they say it doesn't matter if there's no archaeological evidence. We don't really know.

What matters is that the story means something to us and that as we read the Book of Mormon, we get a burning in our bosom, they call it, that indicates that it is the word of God. So what, what would we say? How's the New Testament any different? some would say the New Testament isn't any different, but those that say that are ignorant.

They're not saying, and I'm not saying that, that they're stupid. I'm saying that they probably just don't know any better. The fact is, like I mentioned earlier, is you have secular universities that have departments in archaeology that and actually specialize in biblical archaeology. In other words, we've been able to take things in the Bible, places that are mentioned in scripture and use it as a basis for research because there's so much evidence.

just one example, there's, there's really hundreds of examples, but it used to be that there was no archaeological evidence for the city of Nineveh. And it was actually one of the attacks on scripture was the Bible speaks of this place called Nineveh. no Nineveh has ever been discovered and so this must be poppycock. All of a sudden, we find Nineveh, and now there's just so much data on Nineveh.

It, you can just go on Google and, and, and find so much about the Assyrians. There's actually a lot of data these days about the Assyrians, about Nineveh, the grand, city that it was and how advanced it was, and so on and so forth. Same thing with Hittite culture, the Bible speaks of Hittites. it wasn't until the 20th century that there was any discovery of the Hittites and so on and so forth.

And so, so we'd say yes, the New Testament is different and yes, we can trust the New Testament. However, as we're gonna be arguing this morning, we don't trust the New Testament merely because archaeological evidence corroborates. Yes, archaeological evidence tells us that we're not just crazy people, but archaeological evidence isn't the ultimate basis for why we trust the New Testament. We're gonna talk about what the ultimate basis is here a little bit this morning.

And, and while archaeological and external evidence can be a tool in our witnessing and apologetics, we do have to remember, what the ultimate power is in changing people's hearts to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. we can demonstrate lots of different facts. In fact, one of the One of the things I, I do, on, on Thursday nights, I have a number of students I interact with that, on a regular basis, a weekly basis, they, they, they deliver apologetic speeches. I don't know if you remember several years back, we brought in a bunch of students that did apologetic speeches for us on a weekly basis.

We had a guest speakers come into our Sunday school class back at Linden Street. And a lot of these, these students do really, really well. but when it gets to the, the authority of the New Testament or the authenticity of the New Testament, one of the things I'll notice some of the students do is they'll they'll just, they'll point to something in the New Testament, Old Testament. They'll show how it's corroborated in history, and then they'll make this, this conclusion.

Therefore, the Bible is the word of God. You see the argument? They'll look at, they'll, they'll point out, say, Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament. Then they'll point to external evidence that Sodom and Gomorrah really existed, and they'll say, therefore, you should believe that the Bible is the word of God.

And what is the average non-believer gonna say? I don't believe the Bible is the word of God. OK, you've shown me that Sodom and Gomorrah really existed. You've shown me that the Hittite people are real people.

You've shown me that Nineveh has been corroborated in history. So what? So we, archaeology and the type of stuff, some of the stuff that we're gonna talk about this morning, I think it's helpful for Christians. It, it can bolster our faith and it can give us, some, conversation starter with unbelievers.

But if we think that people are suddenly gonna fall down and accept Christ because now they realize that Sodom and Gomorrah was a historical place, we are sorely mistaken as to the powers of sin and Satan. that Satan has blinded the eyes of the unbeliever. He had taken them captive to do his will. As we will, as we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the natural man, what does not understand the things of the Spirit, nor can he.

For the natural man to be able to understand the things of the spirit, there's something that has to happen, and that is a spiritual awakening, OK? So, all that to say, we are gonna look at some external evidences, but we don't wanna put so much emphasis on that, that we think that that's gonna somehow convert people. So let's, let's do, just do a, a, just a short bit of review. Anything stand out about last week's lesson?

Those of you guys that were here. This is where you get to make me feel good. Or make me feel like. I don't know how to teach Anything stand out at all about last week's lesson?

No pressure, yeah. Simeon's connection with Old Testament prophy. Yeah. So Dan says Simeon's connection with Old Testament prophecy, yeah, pretty amazing.

this is a guy that was looking for the consolation of Israel, right? And then has this baby in his hands. Is able to pronounce that blessing. Say it again.

I couldn't died. Yes, he says, I can die in peace. I've seen the consolation of Israel. Cool.

Any other items stand out to you guys? I'll say, some feed, the feedback I got from you guys, some of you later in the week, some of you last Sunday, is, Some of you guys are really appreciative of some of those Bible apps and opportunities that we have to, to get the word in our hearts. I downloaded another one this week. I'm always like investigating new audio Bibles.

Anybody ever heard of the word of promise audio Bible? OK. The Word of Promise, there was, it cost a million dollars to put together this audio Bible. It has, actors like Richard Dreyfuss, the main actor in it is Jim Cavieel for Jesus.

And, what's really impressive about this particular audio Bible is the orchestration. live orchestra was, was put together for the whole Bible. I don't know if you, some of the older audio Bibles, they'll throw in music and they just have these generic tracks that they try to throw in and you'll notice like there'll be this really sad scene, but then the music in the background's really happy and then there'll be this happy scene and then sad music and it just, it's like, shut the music off.

But in the Word of Promise Audio Bible, the orchestration is just amazing.

It really matches the scene. And, so if you wanna check it out, it, it, it, it's not cheap. It's $40 to download the app. Or no, the app's free and you can listen, but you can only listen to the book of John.

$40 if you want Old New Testament, and it does, it highlights the scripture as you're going along. But it's just really pleasant to listen to. I don't listen to this one if I wanna move through lots of scripture quickly because it's an, it's a very, these guys are very dramatic and they're speaking very slowly. It takes about twice as long as some of the other audio Bibles.

They really try to do, each chapter is like its own scene, but it's very enjoyable to listen to. so I'd, I'd really recommend it. You can actually listen to it for free on YouTube just to get a feel. the whole thing's on there for free if you wanna just do it on YouTube at a lower quality, but I like having the app on my phone that I can plug in while I'm driving around.

And yeah, it's a killer. So it's called the Word of Promise. Yeah, Justin. Oh, I did.

Yes, yes. So it's not cheap. So you can get the New Testament, I think, for 19 and then 29 for the old, but, they always make it where it's cheaper if you put them together, so I couldn't resist. And But yeah, really, really well done.

You can research it if you want and decide if you wanna do it. OK, so, let's, it is New King James. That's the other reason why I like it is cause I tend to read out of the New King James. And so, I just like the sound.

I, I like the way the New King James flows off the tongue. I know that there's better translations for study purposes, but I like the way the New King James sounds. So, Of course, I'm like a literature snob, so it's just the way I am. New American Standard, I don't know if you guys have heard like the critiques of the New American Standard.

It's just like it's very literal, but it reads like you have peanut butter in your mouth. It's just, and you can't get this, these words out. it's not a good reader for out loud reading. and the New King James people, they, these were scholars that did, they, they really, they didn't just think about how it, to translate it, they did that, but also how to make it sound good when you're speaking it.

It's just one of the reasons why the King James is, it's lasted so long. King James, New King James. OK. So let's go ahead and, so here's our seven C's.

We're in the middle. We're actually on the back end of the seven C's of history. Remember, on the left-hand side, you have creation. Then the skull is corruption.

Then you have catastrophe, that's the flood, then confusion, Tower of Babel and everything. The rest of the Old Testament is classified as confusion. Then, right there we have Christ who's the 5th 1, so he's actually his birth, so Christ, and then the cross, and then consummation of the back end. So, so right now, we're, we're on the, moving right into the New Testament with Christ.

And the cross. So let's go ahead and open up first of all to 2 Peter. So the big burden today. is to demonstrate or to try to just ask the question, can we trust The Bible, which begs the question, what is the Bible?

How does it think of itself?, in a cornerstone and in our understanding, in the church for really 2000 years. There's been the idea, the concept that the Bible is not just written by men, it's written by God, but it's not just written by God, it's written by men. We call it dual authorship. God used people to write his word.

And he kept them from error as they did so. He did not overcome their personalities. So when you read, the apostle Paul, it really sounds like the apostle Paul. When you read John, it sounds like John, but it's God speaking through these individuals, dual authorship.

And so an analogy can be used that, so when God was speaking through the apostle John, he picked up a pencil and he begins to write using a pencil. When he was going to speak through Luke, he picks up a calligraphy pen and he writes through Luke. He's still getting his word across, even though one's in pencil and one's a calligraphy pen. That's just an analogy.

And the way the analogy works is if you read Luke in the Greek, this guy is a Greek scholar. He's writing almost classical Greek. His, his Greek construction. Anybody studied a little bit of Greek in here?

A few of you guys, OK. So, if you guys have studied a little bit, when you, seminary students never start with Luke because Luke's Greek is complex and for beginning Greek students, you don't understand what he's doing cause his word orders all over the place. Where you start is First John and, and the writing is John. Why?

Was John's first language Greek? No, what was John's first language? Hebrew, and probably some Aramaic, right? And so when he's writing in Greek, he's writing as somebody who Greek is his second language, and what he, the words he, choices he's using are very simple.

Still God getting his word across. God is using a man to get his word to us, but his words are easy for some, some of us new, younger Greek students. We can read John. We like John.

And then when we think, we start feeling really good about our Greek and then we turn over to the book of Luke and Acts, we're like, I have no idea what I'm doing. and so the Lord uses, he's speaking through men. So in light of that, let's read starting in 2 Peter 1. We'll start in verse 12.

We're going to read the text and we're going to ask some questions of the text. I'm reading from the New King James. For this reason, I will not be negligent, Peter says, to remind you always of these things. Though and are established in the present truth.

Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly, I must put off my tent just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you also have a reminder of these things after my decease. OK, so what's popping up? What's the term that's popping up?

Several times so far in these first three verses, say it again. 10th, 10. OK, yeah, good. So tent is a play is something that's popping up.

What else? What's another word that's jumping out to you guys? Remind. So yeah, he wants to remind us of things before he leaves the tent and before he's deceased.

So verse 16, for we did not follow cunningly defies fables. When we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we're eyewitnesses of His Majesty. We were just telling fables like the Greek and Roman tales, right? Remember this is set in the Gre Greco-Roman period.

we're not just telling old, fables of different people in the genealogies. The Jews would love to take just a word or two in the genealogies and create a little fable about somebody that was in the genealogies. No, we were eyewitnesses. Verse 17, for he received from God the Father, honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory.

This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And when we heard this voice, which came from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain, what is Peter referring to? Transfiguration, right? So they were there, Peter, John, and James were there, they heard the voice, they saw Christ, they were eyewitnesses.

Now you would think, man, eyewitnesses, that's gotta be the highest form of truth. That is, it is something that corroborates what Peter's about ready to say. We weren't following fables. We were eyewitnesses.

We heard a voice from heaven, that's pretty cool. But look at verse 19. So, we have the prophetic word made more sure. which you do well to heed as a light that shines in the darkness, dark place until the dawn, day, the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Knowing this, that no prophecy of what? Scripture is of any private interpretation or private origin is probably a better understanding there. For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by The Holy Spirit. OK, a lot going on here.

Let's just break it down and, and make a few observations. We can't, we're not gonna execute the entire section here, but I do wanna draw you guys' attention. So, to a couple of things. So we have, this word prophetic or prophecy.

Prophecy is being used, and in verse 20 what prophecy Do you think Peter's talking about? Yeah, this is the prophecy in Scripture. Yes, he's talking about the Old Testament, and it's prophecy that gets inscripturated. Now there's this old joke that goes around cornerstone here from years ago that inscripturated is not a word.

It's a word that I made up about 10 years ago, but it is not a made up word. This is a word that you can find in theological dictionaries, even though you can't find it in Webster's inscripturated. So you have in verse 20 knowing first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private origin. OK, so let's, let's break that down a little bit.

In the Old Testament, we have all these prophets, right? Let's set the false prophets aside for a second. There's lots of true prophets that come from Yahweh, correct? let me ask you a question.

Do you think that every single prophecy that was ever delivered by a prophet made its way into the Old Testament? No. OK, so there were prophecies that were delivered that never made it to Scripture. There were prophecies that were truly from the Lord that were never in scripturated, correct?

So we have words of the Lord, and then we have words of the Lord that get scripturated. So verse 20, let's go back to it, knowing this verse that no prophecy of scripture is of any private origin. Part of what Peter's wanting us to see, hey, I saw a vision, I, I saw the Lord. I heard the voice.

I was an eyewitness of these things. But what? There's something better than that. And it's not just prophecy.

That's from the Lord too. It's prophecy that's been put to scripture. In prophecy, we know that prophecy has been put to scripture doesn't just emanate from the prophet, it comes from the Lord. The Holy Spirit, in fact, look at verse 21, for no prophecy implied prophecy that gets inscripturated, ever came by the will of man, but holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

And there's a, I won't go into all the textual issues, but there are a couple of different ways that the words could be ordered there. But the basic idea is this. When somebody speaks a prophecy. That doesn't just come from them, a true prophecy, it comes from the Lord.

And when that gets inscripturated, that's from the Lord. They're moved by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the idea here that's being used is they're moved by the Holy Spirit in the same way that a wind moves through a sail. you guys probably maybe heard that analogy from this passage before.

Wind comes, it fills a sail, and then it causes the boat to do what? Move. The Holy Spirit comes and fills an individual, a prophet, moves the prophet, the prophecies get written in scripture, and so the Holy Spirit is getting a boat to move. He's getting his word written.

And so, the big idea here is, is the Bible, what Peter is, has been reporting, he's an eyewitness of it. He was there. He saw and he heard it with his own voice. But it didn't just stay in this verbal tradition, it got put into scripture, and now we have something that's been even more sure and made more firm than our own personal experiences.

Peter's he's, he's grateful that he had that personal experience of seeing the Lord and hearing the word of God. But what is more firm is the fact that it's in written form by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In other words, if I understand this passage correctly, What Peter is saying is that scripture is the basis for interpreting experience, even the experience of an apostle, even the experience of an apostle. and so, so this is what lays the foundation as we ask the question, can the New Testament be trusted?, part of our answer could be, what, the writers of the scripture were eyewitnesses.

That's part of our, our theology as we develop our doctrine of the Bible. but we also understand that God was active, the Holy Spirit, these weren't guys that just decided to stand up and just make something up, like Joseph Smith, right? These are people that were moved by the Holy Spirit, and then they wrote these things down. So that's the first thing as, as Christians we need to remember is that the Bible is a, there's a authorship that's going on that involves both the Holy Spirit and the individual prophet that results in scripture.

What do we call that authorship? What's the theological term for the type of authorship we see in scripture? OK, it is inspired. And there's 2 people involved, dual authorship, yeah, so we would talk about dual authorship.

It's not like the Holy Spirit, it's not like everything is dictated. The Lord uses the personality and individual to profit to get his word written. OK, so let's go ahead and, let's look at another passage. Let's look at Hebrews 10.

15. To help develop this, Really, this theology of scripture. 10:15. And we'll read a 10:15 to, down to 17 there.

For by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us. For after he had said there before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts, and so on and so forth. Look down at verse 18. Now, where is, where there's no remission of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

let me ask you guys in verse 16 and 17, where, what is being quoted here? This is Jeremiah. Anybody, any Bible or one of people? What part of Jeremiah is this?

What chapter? Which one? 31 gold star for Brian. Yeah, this is chapter 31.

This is the famous statement of the new covenant that's being prophesized by Jeremiah. But notice, so let me, let me set this up right. So this is in Jeremiah. So what human being wrote this section of scripture?

Jeremiah According to verse 14, I'm sorry, verse 15, who is attributed as the author? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit also witnesses to us. Notice that the Holy Spirit's witness is something that's in scripture, right?

So let's, let's track this line again. Jeremiah is a true prophet. We're all, do you think all of Jeremiah's prophecies were inscripturated? Probably not.

But Jeremiah was moved along by the Holy Spirit. He did write Jeremiah 31, even though back then it didn't have chapter 31 that came much later, but he wrote that section of scripture. And, and so this section of scripture is attributed to both Jeremiah and attributed to the Holy Spirit. We have dual authorship.

And so this helps further establish our doctrine of scripture. Dual authorship, men, or, and, and at times women being moved along by the Holy Spirit, getting accomplished exactly what the Lord wanted to accomplish. Now, let's turn to 2 Timothy. 3:16.

And we'll hit, another idea that many of you may, may be very familiar with the concept of what we call inspiration, all scripture. That's right. Now, when I heard the word inspiration for the first time as a young person, I didn't grow up in the church. And so when people start talking about inspiration, what came into my mind as a person who did not grow up in the church is like.

Britney Spears was inspired to sing the song. Michael Jackson was inspired. To write a certain song. The Jackson Five had to be inspired when they sung and wrote the song ABC, right?

That's an inspired song. ABC, right? If, what could not be inspired about that song? is, but that's really not what our word means, right?

Not growing up in the church, that's the way I, that's what I thought it meant. The real idea, let's read the passage and then we'll talk about what this word really means. Verse 16. All scripture, this is our Greek word graphe, same word that was used over there in 2 Peter, is given.

By inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction of righteousness, that the man of God, OK, that's used in the masculine, but that's a, in biblical terms, it's a generic masculine, so it can be read as the man or woman of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Let's go back and tear us apart. All scripture, OK, Paul is writing before the New Testament is completed, so he's probably referring to what scripture at this point?

Old Testament, right?

We know that by application, it's eventually gonna refer also to the New Testament. By interpretation, he's specifically speaking of the Old Testament at this point probably. All scripture is given. who has the NIV?

Who could read the first couple of lines of the NIV? Yes, Heather. OK, great. I like that.

Is God breathed helps us. Oh, she said, all scriptures, so NIB is all scripture is God breathed. That actually helps us understand, I think the Greek behind the English a little bit better than inspired, at least the way we typically think of inspired today. The big idea here for this word is God breathed out all scripture.

All scriptures given by inspiration of God, the idea, he has breathed it out. He's breathed out the scripture himself. And so this is putting the focus on the divine authorship of scripture. All of it's been breathed by him.

He breathes out. Now, notice, when we talk about inspiration, this is another place where we can get confused. A lot of times when people talk about inspiration, they'll say something like this, Paul was inspired. Is that what we mean by the doctrine of inspiration that Paul was inspired?

No, what do we mean? Inspired by OK. OK. Is Paul, when we talk about the doctrine of inspiration, are we just saying that the apostle was inspired by the Holy Spirit?

Is that what we're saying that the apostle was filled up with the spirit. No, it's not what we're saying. It's more than that. In fact, what we're really saying is that it's the scripture that was breathed out.

It's the scripture that's inspired. So a lot of times we'll get confused. We will, you'll hear people all the time talk about the apostle being inspired, Peter being inspired. Really, when we talk about the doctrine of inspiration, we're talking about the text itself has, is inspired.

It's been breathed out by God. So God breathes His word out through the apostle, or the prophet, right? Old Testament prophet. But what's inspired is the text.

Does that make sense? It's the text itself. Paul made mistakes and when he wasn't being used to write scripture, he wrote air, right? He spoke air.

These guys were not protected from air in every respect of their lives. I have no doubt that Paul made mistakes in many different times in his life. But when he was, when God, the Holy Spirit breathed out through Paul onto the pages of Scripture, the result was inspired God breathed text. Does that make sense?

And so it's the text itself that is inspired, and it's the text itself, the graphe that is profitable, OK? So it, when we talk about something being profitable, We mean that this, it works. All right. Scripture has an effect.

It is effective. Does anybody have effective in their translation? Is that ESV or somebody? Nobody has effective?

OK. It's the Mike Berry version. It's effective for 3 things, doctrine, that's teaching, reproof, correction, instruction of righteousness. I think there's actually 3 levels of of development that are happening that Paul uses these terms very purposefully.

That what happens is, as we come into contact with the inspired text, we're reading scripture, Old Testament, it's probably what Paul's talking about, but now the whole Bible, as we're reading scripture, we get taught doctrine. Starts off with teaching doctrine. As we come into contact with that doctrine, suddenly we realize I've got some problems. I need, I'm, I'm being reproved by the text that I'm interacting with.

I've got, I've got things that are wrong with me. But the Bible doesn't stop there. It doesn't leave you in a place of seeing that something's wrong with you. It does the next thing, it corrects you.

Here's what's wrong, now here's how it can be corrected. And then as we do that over a long period of time, over a lifetime, we get trained in righteousness or instructed, that's sanctification. So the Holy Spirit speaks through apostles, inspires this text. We come along, we're reading this text, we, we, we, we'll talk about illumination in an upcoming lesson.

We get illuminated by the Spirit to understand the text. What happens? We get instructed, we're learning doctrine. Suddenly we're like, ouch, that hurts.

Something's wrong with me. And the Lord says, OK, don't stop there. Here's the solution, look to Jesus, look to Christ. Oh, now I'm getting corrected.

Here's how your behavior can be changed. And then we do that by faith over a lifetime, and we get trained in righteousness. By the way, this is an aside. The training in righteousness is on the far side of the lake, not the near side of the lake, right?

We get into the boat of scripture and we start rowing. And guess what? The idea of sanctification is not always that things happen like right away. many times, what we're, what we're, what we're rowing towards by faith is on the far side of the lake.

We're rowing, sometimes we see some real big sins drop off right away, and then we find ourselves, like in my case, I'm 49 years old. I've been married for 23 years. I have a seminary degree. I've been studying the Bible since I was 14, and I still have sin.

And I still have sin problems. I'm like, Lord, What's the issue here? He keeps reminding me by faith, hey, it's on the far side of the lake. Keep rowing, keep trusting, keep humbling yourself and listening to counsel, listening to scripture.

Right? So that's like, that's really discipleship 101 is taking this scripture that has been authored dually and inspired verbally. And we're imparting it to one another. We're reading it, we're teaching it, and then we get corrected.

We, we get, we hear doctrine, we get corrected, we get encouraged, and then we keep doing that over and over again. We grow in righteousness. What, so, we don't just stop reading the scripture because we don't see the results right now. By faith, we keep, we keep going.

Any of you guys are familiar with David Brainard? Raise your hand if you're a David Brainard fan. OK, who he is. OK.

It used to be back in the old days that everybody knew who David Brainard was. and, but it's not surprising that we don't know who he is anymore because he lived in the 1700s. but he was a missionary to Native Americans around the 1730s, 140s. He died when he was 29.

He, he was only a missionary for about 4 years. But this guy had such impact. It was just amazing. The reason we know about him today is because Jonathan Edwards wrote a big book about David Brainard, published a lot of his letters and stuff like that.

And, But one of the things that you see in his letters is how that he's constantly struggling with sickness, depression, discouragements, and yet how he keeps taking these depressions and discouragements to the Lord and keeps looking to heaven. He's scriptures just all over his letters. And he just keeps reminding himself of the end goal and what life is really about, that it's not about finding pleasure in this world, it's about the next. And yes, even though I'm coughing up blood and I'm trying to ride this horse, 10 miles, 1520 miles a day to go reach different Native American tribes, and I want to give up and I'm very depressed, Christ is worth the goal and heaven is worth it all.

I just say that, that David Brainard, he's one of these guys that sets the example of just not giving up on continuing in the scriptures because life circumstances get hard or life circumstances, you get sick and discouraged and depressed. you could go, I, I was just this last, weekend, I was listening to somebody on YouTube read like a bunch of his letters. He just reads them. Just look up David Branard.

This guy reads about 10 of his letters and it's just really encouraging to listen to this guy write to, different people. Let's, let's turn over to another passage, let's go back to a 2. Peter 3. OK, so we're, the big idea that we're getting here is that our doctrine scripture, again, we're trying to answer the big question is can we trust the scripture?

The ultimate answer is yes, because it is authored by God and he superintended as it was written through people, and they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so let's look, 2 Peter 3. verse 14 and following. Therefore, Peter says, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace without spot and blameless.

And consider that the long suffering of our Lord, is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you. OK, so Peter's talking about which other apostle. And Paul had done what? According to the end of verse 15.

He had written to you. as also in all his epistles, so now Peter is referring not just to any writings, he's referring to epistles which we know have made their way into our New Testament, right? So he's talking about inscripturated writings. speaking in them of things in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the way.

Scriptures. The English word scriptures, what's behind that in the Greek is graphe. By this time, this is a technical word for inscripturated prophecy, particularly the Old Testament. So what's happening here?

Peter is putting Paul's writings into the same category as the Old Testament. You get that? All scripture is inspired, the graphe is the Old Testament. Here, he's saying that some people twist Paul's writings as they do, and the word to focus on is the rest of the scriptures.

In other words, Paul's writings are included with the rest of the scriptures. And so we have an affirmation from Peter that Paul's writings are indeed scripture and should be thought that way. Yes sir. Well, I just think it's amazing that we're talking about, an apostle of Christ, a disciple of Christ talking about the persecutor of the church.

Oh my goodness, and that, yeah, it is when you think of the turn of events, right? Peter's talking about a guy who used to kill Christians, right? Did we talk about the Apostle Paul movie last week? Did anybody see that yet?

The apostle Paul? Oh man, I was just in tears at the end of that thing. I don't wanna blow it, but I don't, I, I won't tell you guys. I'm just bawling at the end.

Anyway, let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians 2. When I was in high school. I, I wasn't raised in the church. But when I became born again, I started going to a really, really good Bible teaching church and.

Just really fell in love with the Word of God. But then a couple of years later, it started to dawn on me, some questions started to come to my mind. I'm just living in a non-Christian home. I'm, my parents and family members, they're asking questions, always on me about different things.

So one of the things that occurred to me is, man, did, did the apostle Paul know that he was writing scripture? Did he know that? Or was he just writing letters and then later on, everybody said, oh, that's scripture. And I remember going to my youth pastor at the time, who was, he was still, I think he was still finishing up his degree at Viola.

And so I went to my youth pastor and said, hey, did the apostle Paul know that he was writing scripture? And at that time, my youth pastor said, Mike, that's a great question. Keep seeking the Lord, and He will answer you. And I was like, thanks.

He gave me no answer. And, I, it's no bag on him, he was, when I'm in high school, he seems really old, but really, he was a pretty young guy at the time. And, but in years following, I'm like, man, why didn't he just direct me to first. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 or other passages like this.

Let's read it together, 2:13. Paul says, for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of men, but as it is, in truth, the Word of God. Which also effectively works in you who believe. So did Paul know that he was given prophecy directly from the Lord?

Definitely. He goes, you receive my prophecies as if they were from, now this doesn't, we are making a little bit of a logical leap here because it seems like he's talking about the prophetic verbal word in this context, and that as they were preaching by inspirational Holy Spirit and giving out prophecy that they received as a word. But we also know that from what Peter says and, and obviously what we have in our New Testament. That many of Paul's prophecies made it into scripture.

And so did Paul know that he was prophesying from the Lord? Did he know that he was writing scripture? No doubt. In fact, the 1 Corinthians, where is it?

You guys might be able to tell me 11, where he says, I just want to tell you that, by the way, the things I'm writing to you are from the Lord. So he's, he, he just pulls a a one-ups, I'm writing you different things. Anyone wants, anybody wants to reject this? This isn't just Paul, this is from the Lord Himself.

Mr. Westbrook, did you have a comment, question? We're talking about 15 and 16. Yes.

Totally. Yep. Yes Yes. Totally.

Yeah, so the, Peter is affirming Paul's writings. Paul's affirming his own writings. we'll also see in First Timothy, I, I don't know if we have time to go there, that Timothy affirms Luke's writings, as he, Luke is, is giving a verse that, is called scripture. It's put into the same category of scripture.

What we call this, this is called the, we argue that the, the scriptures are self-attesting. And so, let me cut to the chase on some of this because we're running out of time. Remember Jesus? When he was speaking to the apostles in the book of John, he says, when the Holy Spirit comes, he'll guide you into what all truth.

Guess what? That's not a promise to me. I've, I have not been guided in all truth. And all you gotta do is talk to my family, right?

They'll say, no, Dad has not been guided in all truth. But that was a promise to the apostles that when the Holy Spirit came, that he would guide the apostles into all truth, particularly as they sat down to write the scriptures. And also there's a promise. Jesus says, and I will cause all things to be, to come back to your remembrance, right?

He says, I'm gonna remind you of all these things, and I'm gonna guide you into all truth. So part of what Jesus was doing is he was telling the apostles of what was going to happen to the Holy Spirit after he left. Now, I've used that verse in math tests and said, bring back to my mind all things, and I'll get you what, I didn't get 100%. It's, it just didn't work.

So either those scriptures don't work, or there's a different interpretation, and the different interpretation is they're meant for the apostles as part of the inscripturation process. Then the apostles go out and the associates of the apostles, they're writing scripture, they're corroborating scripture, the New Testament is being recognized by the church as the Holy Spirit is helping the church recognize the various books, the Old Testament, New Testament, and so on and so forth.

So we call this that the, the New Testament. And we would argue for the Old Testament too is self-attesting.

Which is very important if we understand that the argument from ultimate authority, if you guys have been back with us a couple of years ago, we talked about the authority of scripture. And the Bible argues for its own authority based upon its own authority that it comes from God. Jesus says, thy word is what? Truth.

He, he, you don't just compare the Bible to other things to prove that it's true. The Bible is truth. God's word is the standard of truth. And you guys probably remember when we looked at the Hebrews 3 in the past, that God, in the book of Hebrews, it says, when God could swear by no one, no one other, he swore by what?

Himself. If God wants to try to prove something to you, can he swear by something higher than Himself, if he wants to prove it to you? No, he is the highest authority in the universe. And so if he wants to prove something's true, he has to swear by himself because there's no higher authority.

So this all, if, if you guys have taken any philosophy classes back in the day that you've probably all since forgotten about, this is basically the, it's, it's the argument for first things, right? A prior arguments. Everybody has to start with the first thing, right? If somebody says, I believe that, Our reason is the ultimate standard of truth, man's reason.

How are you gonna prove that? How do you prove that reason is the final source of authority? You have to say, because it's reasonable, right? If you appeal to anything else above reason, then reason is not your highest source of authority.

How do you prove that, logical consistency is the highest source of authority? Because it's logical, right? How do you, how do you prove that the five senses that empiricism should be our highest source of authority, right? Descartes says, I think, therefore I am.

That's, that's rationalism. I'm sorry. So empiricism, how do you guys, how, how are we gonna prove empiricism? As a final source of authority.

You have to say because I've never seen anything other. So you always have to appeal to a higher, the highest source of authority to establish your first things. This may, this is just a, it's a basic rule of, epistemology or, start our starting place for philosophy. So if, if we're going to try to ultimately demonstrate that the Bible is the highest source of authority, and it can be trusted, then it makes sense that we would start with that source that it's self-attesting, and that our starting place is, if the Bible claims to be the truth, then we appeal to the Bible to demonstrate its truth.

People say, well, that's circular reasoning. All arguments for first things are circular by nature. Does that make sense? If you appeal to something higher than your ultimate source of authority, you've, you've, you've falsified your claim.

And so we have to stick to the scripture is the highest source of authority. Now, does that mean that there are no outside reasons to corroborate our highest source of authority? That's where we are different from Mormons. Mormons want to look at the, the Book of Mormon and say that we have a burning, we read the Book of Mormon, we get a burning in the bosom, therefore, it's the word of God.

We say, we look at the Bible, the Holy Spirit corroborates with our hearts. Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice. When I'm reading the Bible, I hear the voice of Christ, the Holy Spirit. But the Bible is corroborated also in my experience.

As I look out at the world, I see, yes, what this book is saying is the real problem is the real problem. What this book is saying is the solution, is the real solution. And by the way, it is historical. When we look out at the various, facts we have in history, we're not just pretending here, there's a historical corroboration.

But what we have to be careful of is that the Bible does not, we do not place the Bible on the foundation of historical reliability. Right, if we place the Bible on the foundation of historical reliability, then what's your ultimate source of authority? History. And guess what, folks?

History is all over the map as far as how people wanna interpret it. All you gotta do is turn on the History Channel, and you're gonna see everybody and their brother trying to deny different aspects of scripture, and they never wanna bring in the good conservative scholars, right, to debate them. They always bring in the liberals and they leave out all kinds of stuff, and it just makes me mad. I wanna throw things at the television.

And because the answers are there, they just choose to be very selective with the evidence. It's kinda like a museum curator. The museum curator brings out what they want you to see and they leave all the other stuff that violates their viewpoint in the back, right? And so that's, so when we ask the question, can we trust the New Testament, We have to say, yes, we can.

First of all, based upon what the New Testament says about itself, that's called self-test attestation. And then secondly, there are external reasons, external sources. There is proof externally from the scripture. And John Calvin is just excellent on this whole concept.

Raja, have anybody read any of the Calvin Institutes? All right, a few people. That if you read the section, if you don't read anything else in Calvin's Institutes, read what he says about Scripture. It's not a very long section.

It's a section on bibliology, and he develops this whole concept really well that there are sufficiently firm proofs outside of scripture to demonstrate that it can be trusted, but that, we cannot place our foundation on that. because that's, that only brings probability. What brings certainty, he says, basically what he argues is what brings certainty is the Holy Spirit. We call it numatological certainty, numatological certainty.

And this is where we'll probably have to end. I don't know if I, I might have to show, I'm sorry, you guys, I might have to show that video next week. I'm trying to make you guys work on that and then probably not show it. Let's, let's end on this.

1 Corinthians 2. Numatological certainty is the idea that we can achieve a level of probability. About certain things that we have in the Bible. But you can never achieve 100% certainty without the Holy Spirit.

It's kinda like, I don't know if you guys have this experience, but this is happening more and more to me. When I drive away from my house, I'll get about halfway down the block and I'll say, Did I close the garage door? And I think I did, but I just don't know. I'm the one that hits that thing every morning.

I'm like, I can't, I don't remember if I did it. And more often than not, I turn around, I go back and I look, and yes, it's closed. But I just don't know, right? Unless I go and I go check it out.

and we can come to a fair amount of cert, probability that the scriptures are true and there's historical corroboration. Yes, Jesus was a historical person. But how can we really know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world, that he died for my sins, and he was raised from the dead, and I've been justified. That cannot happen in a scientific laboratory using the scientific method, folks.

That is a metaphysical question that needs the Holy Spirit. So let's end on this. 1 Corinthians 2. So, Paul says, we'll start like right in verse one.

I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God, for I determined, to know, not to know anything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I didn't come with all kinds of philosophical arguments. I just came with the gospel. Verse 3, I was with you in weakness and fear, much trembling in my speech, my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom.

But the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, I'm giving you the preached gospel word and I'm giving you prophecy. Verse 5, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. now look down to, verse 10, but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God, for what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man, which is in him, even so, no one knows the things of the Spirit of God except the Spirit of God.

Oh, where am I at?

Oh, no, OK, so look down at verse 14. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are what folly, foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. We always need to keep this in mind, the natural man does not receive the things of spirit, and he can't. That's a will word.

It's, he is unable to receive the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Because they're spiritually discerned. But he verse 15, who is spiritual judges all things, and so on and so forth.

We always need to remember when we're talking with our friends and family. they're not rejecting. Christ. merely because, you haven't presented enough evidence.

I used to think that when I was younger, man, if I just would have said it a little bit better. My dad would come to know the Lord by now. If I could have just maybe if I wouldn't have gotten so irritated when we had that discussion. And he said this and I said that and then all of a sudden we have this little argument and it's like.

Man, I blew it and now the light's gonna stay off. My dad's not gonna get saved. No, my dad, he was a natural man. At this point, is a natural man.

He cannot know the things of the Spirit of God until the Holy Spirit comes and opens his eyes. I didn't get saved because I studied every single religion and all of my objections have been answered, and then suddenly I cried out to Christ. I heard the gospel preached by Chuck Smith on channel 13 on KDOC back in the day. It was a very simple message about the rapture and the return of Christ.

And I'd heard the gospel a million times, but that day my eyes were opened. I went into my room and I got on my knees and I cried out to Christ for the forgiveness of my sins. That it is as simple as that. The gospel, the Holy Spirit used the gospel to open my eyes.

Once my eyes were opened, now the Bible began to come alive to me and I believed it. And yes, I had questions, but I wanted to find the answer to those questions as somebody who is aligned with Christ and loved Christ. Big difference, right? So, let's go ahead and pray.

So I'll be, I'll be up here for final questions. I hope this is somewhat of an encouragement to you. Yes, look for historical backdrop, but do not think that that's somehow gonna rescue all your unsafe friends and family. we need to get back to the gospel as quickly as we can because that's the power of God unto salvation.

Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much that we have, we are not those without hope. I just think of some people that I know that are running around sharing a hopeless message from the Book of Mormon and others that are sharing legalism, from the Jehovah Witnesses and people that are just lost and in darkness and haven't been taken captive by the devil to do his will. We thank you, Lord, that we have this firm foundation in your word and that you have chosen to give us your word that we can rely upon.

And if we know nothing else but the scriptures and the gospel, Lord, we have everything that we need for life and godliness. So help us to take advantage of what we have in our own hands. Help us Lord, to study it, to know it, first for ourselves and our relationship with you, and then so we can be armed and equipped to share with our brothers around the world, our sisters, human sisters that need Christ. we just thank you for this opportunity that we have in this church to study your word freely.

We pray for those around the world that do not have that opportunity, Lord, that they would come into contact with the gospel. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen.