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“This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book”
Revelation: God making known to man what otherwise would not be known
Two types of revelation- all revelation is the revealing of what we would otherwise not know
- General Revelation– in that God has spoken but in hidden or secondary ways. – Creation shows His power, character, design, intelligence, and majesty (rom. 1:20)—Image of God-being created in the image of God causes us to know Him internally to a degree. We have a moral agency (conscience), and a sense of His presence.
- Special Revelation-in that God has directly made known what he wants us to know
-God at various times have spoken directly to men
-God has spoken through OT prophets
-God sent His Son to live among us
-God has given us The Bible
Bible: Greek for book, biblos. Canon- a measuring stick. Testament- to give evidence of.
Evidence of the Bible:
Internal evidence- clearly stated in Scripture. Deut 6:6-9, 17-18, Josh 1:8, 8:32-35, 2 Tim 2:15, 1 Pet. 1:23-25, Matt 5:17-18
The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eye witnesses during the lifetime of other eye witnesses which report supernatural events that took place of specific prophecies and claim that their origins are divine rather then human origin. –Voddie Baucham
- The Bible is a reliable collection of Historical documents- 40 authors, 3 different continents, 3 different languages written in 1500 years (not just one individual making the claim).
- Over 25,000 archeological digs that have been related directly to the Bible, not one has contradicted what we find in the Bible.
- At least 300 eye witnesses to the resurrection were still alive when 1 cor. was written.
- “Idea that the Bible is not reliable because its been translated so many times”
we have documents that date back to AD 120
- 6,000 portions of manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek. Far more than any other ancient documents
- to compare we have less than a dozen of Aristotle’s poetics, over 1000 years after Aristotle was alive
- if the Bible isn’t considered accurate as Historical literature then no other old document can be
- We see THUS SAYS THE LORD all over the Old Testament because men weren’t claiming to have the ideas, they were saying it was divinely inspired
Many claim they cant believe the bible because of “science”. But you can’t use science or the scientific method to disprove the bible. Scientific method means something must be observable, measureable and repeatable. It is never used to prove Historical events. The evidentiary method is used for historical events. This is when you ask about reliability of sources, collaboration of sources, internal and external evidence that supports these sources, who are the witnesses. 40 different authors, most of whom never met each other, with collaboration and coherence in such a day that the intelligent man cant look at all the evidence of the Bible and say its not true.
Inspiration: the process of God communicating truth through special people (God breathed)
-involes one of the antinomies (anti law) of the Bible for it is God breathed and completely accurate yet God chose to use normal men to write it. He breathed out of them the very words of God while using their experiences, vocabulary, emotions and thought process.
Theories of inspiration:
- Partial- the idea that only parts of the Bible are inspired usually leaving out the miracles, saying of Christ and supernatural events.
- Mechanical- which teaches that God simply said to man “take down what I tell you”
- Concept- which teaches that God only gave them concepts and they took it on from there.
- Naturalistic- which teaches that it is like any other book with great men writing it.
- Gracious- which teaches that these men were men of God, spirit filled, and could in themselves know the mind of God
- Neoorthodox- which teaches the Bible is only the means to truth the truth is in us, we are inspired by the Bible.
Correct view: which teaches that inspiration is:
- Verbal- word for word God directed
- Plenary- full inspiration of everything in it.
- Inerrant- contains no mistakes in the original
- Infallible- not able to be wrong for it is of God
- Authoritative- it alone has the final say on truth
Interpretation (hermeneutics) the process of understanding what the Bible means. To do this there are certain rules that we must follow.
- Remember the purpose of the Bible as a whole.
- The particular message of that book.
- To whom is the author writing and how would they have taken it.
- The context of a passage is so important for interpretation
- Are there similar teachings elsewhere in the Bible?
- Accurate exegesis (the meaning of the words).
- Guard against prejudice or forcing a meaning on a passage.
Two key passages:
2 Timothy 3:16- All Scripture (OT & NT) is given by God (God breathed) and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
2 Peter 1:21 “For the prophecy came not in the old time by the will of men: but Holy men of God spoke as they were moved (carried by a burden that God gave them) by the Holy Spirit.”