20th Sunday after Pentecost, October 11, 2015, St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, Texas. This sermon was part of the Explore God sermon series.

Lessons for the Day: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

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Introduction

Let us pray.

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP Prayer 58. For Guidance.)

Gospel Story

Today’s gospel reading was once used against me to claim that I was a hypocrite as a Christian. You see, I had a nice job and a nice apartment in New York City and some nice things. According to this man’s argument though, I was not a good Christian because I had not followed Jesus’ command to “go, sell everything, and give it to the poor.” He thought that I (and all Christians) needed to take these words of Jesus literally.

I had a hard time with this when he said it. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know enough about the Bible to be able to make a good argument about why I didn’t think this was true for everyone. I would suggest to you that he was misusing and misinterpreting the Bible for his own purposes.

As I looked into it, I found that Jesus wasn’t teaching in a parable, where he was giving a timeless truth to all of his followers, instead he was speaking to this one man, the rich young ruler, about what was keeping him from a relationship with God.

What was keeping my friend from a relationship with God was that he didn’t believe the Bible was reliable, especially if taken literally. I was hurt by what this man had said to me, but I wanted to dig deeper and understand the Bible better rather than just throwing it out.

Explore God video quotes

In a video on the Explore God website, some people on the street were interviewed about what they thought about the Bible. Their answers reflect what a lot of people in our culture believe about the Bible and I would venture, what a fair number of people in our church believe as well.

When asked about the Bible, here’s some of what they had to say:

“I believe in empirical evidence…”
“The Bible is a guidebook.”
The Bible is “inspired by God, filled with inaccuracies.”
The “Bible is a literary text just like any other.”
“It’s a storybook, just like any book you can buy at the library, written by some people about some characters…”

At the end, one woman looks at the camera and says, “The Bible…, ooh, now that’s controversial.”

Introduce Explore God Sermon Series

So today, we continue our Explore God sermon series looking at the question “Is the Bible Reliable?”  It’s a question that we won’t be able to address comprehensively in one sermon in a way that will satisfy everyone. But if you’re struggling with this question or have doubts about the Bible, then welcome. We’re glad you’re here.

If you struggle with this topic or just flat-out don’t think the Bible is reliable, then let today’s sermon be the beginning of a conversation between you and God.

Examine the Question: Is the Bible Reliable?

What I want to do first as we ask this question, “Is the Bible Reliable?” is to look at the actual question and what we mean by it. Let’s look behind the question at what we bring to this idea.

Culture

In today’s culture, we live in a time of post-modern, post-Christian thinking. We are told that all truth is relative. Or that you can have your truth, and I can have mine, and they can even contradict, and that’s okay. We are told to be suspicious of exclusive truth claims. Inclusivity is held up as an ultimate virtue. Meaning is determined by how I respond to something. We are skeptical, skeptical of authority, of truth, of religion, and of God.

So when we think about reliability and certainty, we bring this idea of no certainty to the question.

Doubts

There are also other reasons people may have for doubting the reliability of the Bible.

Maybe you didn’t grow up in a Christian home or where the Bible didn’t hold a place or you didn’t know anything about it.

Or you have seen the characterization of Christians in the media and how they use the Bible to support their causes and you think this can’t be good.

Or you have been deliberately led astray by a Christian leader, maybe someone on television who is supposed to speak for the faith and yet speaks to contradict the claims of the Bible.

Or maybe you’ve been hurt by someone using the Bible against you like I was.

Or you have your own doubts or fears.

Presuppositions

We also all have our own set of presuppositions that we bring to the question, and all questions, really. Presuppositions are our deepest held convictions. We often don’t even realize what they are, but they influence everything we think and do. They are how we determine certainty.

So we bring all these things to this question, before we even ask it.

Let’s look at reliability though.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines reliable as something: “able to be trusted to do or provide what is needed : able to be relied on.”

So when we ask the question, “Is the Bible Reliable?” we want to see if it is able to be trusted to do or provide what is needed. We need to examine what the Bible is and what the purpose is that it sets out to do.

We don’t want to prejudge it based on what the culture tells us reliability should be, but we want to see if the Bible is reliable to do what it says it can do. Is it able to be trusted to do what its purpose is?

That’s what I want to look at today.

What is the Bible?

So let’s start at the beginning with “What is the Bible?”

The Bible is a collection of books, 66 books, written by 40 authors, in three different languages over a period of 1600 years.

It is made up of the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament tells us about the law of Moses, the history of Israel, and the foretelling of the Messiah. The New Testament tells us about Jesus, about his work in the world, his kingdom, and has letters of instructions to the early church about how to live out the gospel.

The Bible is a collection of genres. It has poetry, prose, narrative, apocalyptic literature, prophecy, wisdom, and letters. It is important to know what genre of the Bible you are in when you are reading it, so you can better interpret it. To be reliable does not mean that everything must be taken literally.

Now, the Bible did not just drop out of heaven, perfect as it was given. It was given to us through humans. God enters into humanity and gives us his word and tells us about himself and about what he is doing in history. Just as Jesus was incarnated, fully God and fully man, he entered into the messiness of life to redeem it. In the same way, God enters into the messiness of our lives, through human writers, to tell us about himself.

While the Bible is a collection of stories, it also has one overarching story of what God is doing in humanity. It is about his redemption of a people for himself, first for Israel, then, through Christ, of all the nations.

Let the Bible Speak for Itself

The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God.

My friend who accused me of being a hypocrite couldn’t read the Bible until he could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was reliable. He couldn’t believe it was the Word of God.

I want to push back on that idea.

If someone were accused of wrongdoing in our society and brought before a judge, we would allow that person to defend himself and speak for himself. In order for justice to truly be served, that person must be given the opportunity to speak for himself. So let’s let the Bible speak for itself and tell us what it is and what its purpose is. Let’s let it tell us what it’s reliable for.

The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God.

In 2 Peter 1:19-21 (NIV), it says “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, …For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Prophets speak from God, as carried along, or inspired by the Holy Spirit. It says that prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but in God’s.

Second Timothy 3:16 (NIV) says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God…” All scripture is breathed out by God. All of the Bible is God’s word. It’s all his, even though given through the lives of his people, the writers of scripture.

How does this happen? We don’t entirely know; there’s an element of mystery to it, and that’s okay.

So that’s what the Bible is, what it claims to be.

Purpose of the Bible

So then what’s the purpose of the Bible?

I want to put before you three purposes of Scripture. There are plenty of more, but let’s look at these for today.

God

First, the Bible’s purpose is to tell us about God. It’s how we come to know God. We see and learn about how God acts and interacts with his people. Pastor and author Tim Keller says, “The Word of God is the primary way we come to understand the truth about God.”

God wants us to know him, so he commands that his words be written down as something to be remembered (Exod 17:14). The Bible is a way we learn about who God is, because the writers have remembered what he has done and have written it down.

Jesus

Second, the Bible’s purpose is for us to know Jesus. It tells us about who Jesus is. We learn about God becoming man in Jesus, about his life and ministry, about his death for our wrongdoing, his resurrection, and his ascension to the right hand of God. The Bible is how we know about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Life

Third, the Bible’s purpose is to tell us about life and godliness. It tells us about salvation through Jesus, gives us wisdom and instruction. It’s purpose is to transform us into who God would like us to be. It’s so that we can truly live.

The 2 Timothy 3:14-17 passage, in full, says “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

The Bible’s purpose is to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ. It’s to teach us, to reprove us, to correct us, to keep us on course, to train us in righteousness. It does all this so that we may be complete. So that we may be equipped to do the good works that God would have us do. Scripture teaches us about life and godliness.

In our epistle reading for today in Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God 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.”

God’s word is alive. It is active. It was not just written for a people long ago, but it is alive today and has meaning for our lives today. We serve the living God, who speaks to us today through his Word.

So this is what the Bible is and what it says its purpose is. It’s to tell us about God and Jesus and how to live in godliness. It’s for our instruction, so we can grow in wisdom and knowledge, it’s to tell us of God’s work in the world and his plan for salvation through his son Jesus Christ. It is designed for our benefit and for our knowledge. This is what it sets out to do. This is what the Bible tells us its purpose is. This is what we should judge it on when we ask “Is it reliable?”

So, is it able to be believed to do what it says it can do…? Is the Bible reliable? YES! Yes.

Bible Is Not Reliable For?

So then what is the Bible not reliable for?

It’s not reliable to be a detailed scientific account, or an instruction manual on how to live life.

It’s not a medical manual for the treatment of diseases or a psychology manual.

It’s not an answer book that’s going to answer every question you ever have.

It’s not meant to be these things. It’s not designed to do these things.

Where Do We Go from Here?

So where do we go from here?

If you were already convinced that the Bible is reliable, then good, you’re in the right place, we’re glad to have you here. I want to encourage you to go deeper though. Learn more about the Bible.  Read it daily. Allow it to serve its purpose in your life. Allow it to transform you. Don’t just settle for living the status quo.

But if you weren’t convinced, you’re also in the right place. I imagine there are many of you who came in skeptical and will leave skeptical today. But as I said at the beginning, allow this to be the beginning of a conversation between you and God.

Allow yourself to explore, to read the Bible, to see for yourself. Let the Bible speak for itself and to defend itself. Examine your presuppositions and whether you’re allowing the culture’s definition of reliability to be your own, or whether you’re looking at what the Bible says it is meant for. Don’t let the question of whether the Bible is reliable or not be the one thing that keeps you, like the rich young ruler, from a relationship with God.

Either way, people throughout the centuries have found solace and refuge in God, in Jesus, and in His church. We invite you to enter into that community we have here. Sometimes we can feel the weight of the question of whether the Bible is reliable or not to bear down on us.

Listen to the words of singer/songwriter Matthew Perryman Jones as he describes it in his song “Refuge”:

He says,

“Lord, I feel the weight of a mountain
Pressing down inside my soul
I can see the pillars fallin’
There ain’t nothin’ left to hold

The reigns are broken too
I can’t steer this
There’s nothing I can do
Except to throw my arms out

Take me to
A place where love can mend these wounds
Where mystery can dance with truth
And the broken soul finds refuge”

We invite you to come to the place where the broken soul can find refuge, where God’s love can mend our wounds, and where mystery can dance with truth.

–Find more Sermons by Keeley

Listen to Refuge by Matthew Perryman Jones