Greetings,
Today we are going to begin with the first of things that we as Christians are to know and to agree on: Authority of the Bible. Authority of the Bible is the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and has the right to command our beliefs and actions. (Randy Frazee)
The Bible is God’s gift of revelation of Himself to us. We believe that is “breathed out” of God and profitable to us today.
10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness…14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 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. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:14-16 (ESV)
What it is profitable for…
Teaching…sound doctrine…what is right
Reproof…exposes, conviction, evidence…what is wrong
Correction…rectify…how to get right
Training in righteousness…nurture…how to stay right
Why it is profitable (the reward)
…that we may be competent (complete in accomplishment), equipped for every good work.
Commitment
To accept God’s Word as our only authority.
I would like to end today by recommending a great article about God’s Word in Josh Harris’ blog. You can find the blog here: http://www.joshharris.com/2008/03/a_stepford_god_1.php
STEPFORD GOD
In chapter seven of his book, The Reason for God, Tim Keller addresses the common objection of skeptics that “you can’t take the Bible literally”. At the conclusion of the chapter he writes:
If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you. For example, if a wife is not allowed to contradict her husband, they won’t have an intimate relationship. Remember the (two!) movies The Stepford Wives? The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decide to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a marriage as intimate or personal.
Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it. —The Reason for God, pages 113-114
