Scripture: A Gift of Grace

If you have a Bible, just look down at it for a second and just think what exactly is it and how did it get in your hand tonight?

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What is the Bible?

Next week, Daniel is going to talk about a topic we call Bibliology.

It means like what does the Bible tell us about itself, which is really cool.

We don't make up stuff about the Bible.

The Bible actually tells us what it means and what it's for and etc.

So it will be kind of a follow-up from this.

But just think about this though.

What you have in your hands didn't just get there.

Remember, it's been a long, long process of even thousands of years to actually make it into your hand.

And there's a lot of countries, nations, languages even today that don't actually have anything what you have in your hand.

And so we're going to talk tonight just about how the Bible is a gift of grace.

It's grace. It's something that we don't deserve at all, but God has richly lavished it on us.

So just roll ahead.

Yeah.

Most people...

How many of you actually like to read, be honest?

Like to read.

I should have said, how many don't like to read?

Wow, that's what I thought.

No one was going to say that.

But, man, there definitely is like a trend these days where it's actually cool to actually not read.

Anybody ever picked up on that?

Like it's like you say you read books, you just automatically kind of sound like nerdy.

But we need to learn that reading is a gift.

It used to mean a lot more than it would now.

And we need to take advantage of this.

We need to dive into the Word.

And I hope that just even coming here and hearing the Word taught and et cetera is going to give you a desire to dive into God's Word even more.

So let's just talk just briefly about what the Bible's not.

Some misconceptions about what it is.

It's not a lucky charm.

It's not a magic eight ball where you just need a quick answer to something.

And you look and just pick some random verse out and then you start rolling.

That's not what it is.

It's not a lucky charm.

You don't read it to get something you want.

A boyfriend, a girlfriend, a car, money.

It's not something you go to for those things.

And it's not just going to have an answer that just pops up to you to any random question.

It's not those things.

It's also not an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a textbook, something like that.

It's much more than that.

It doesn't just have just random facts and information.

It has something a lot more important.

And a big one is it's not a big misconception.

It's just an outdated book.

Like it's not relevant to us today.

And nothing could be more untrue.

And the Bible speaks very clearly.

It's timeless.

Even an example of the Proverbs are filled with daily wisdom about how to live your life, which can apply to anybody today.

So let's say really quickly, just some things the Bible is not.

But let's go into what the Bible is.

So what is the Bible?

It's God's book.

If you want just a simple definition without a long explanation, I'll just give it to you.

It's the Bible is God's written revelation of himself and his mighty deeds.

The Bible is God's written revelation of himself and his mighty deeds.

It contains the knowledge of, the true knowledge, I'd say, of the living God.

It's in this book.

So does the Bible actually claim to be God's word?

Yeah.

Over 2,000 times you'll hear the phrase, the word of God, throughout scripture.

As if it was like him actually saying it.

And it appears 40 times in the New Testament alone, the word of God.

And thus says the Lord, you know, a lot of the times in the Old Testament as the prophets spoke.

So if you're still in 2 Timothy, just look at just a part of this.

2 Timothy 3, verse 16 says,

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness,

that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

So all scripture, it says, not just parts of it, is, some of your translations might say inspired,

which is not necessarily a bad way of saying it.

It can cause some confusion, though.

So what the word really is for inspired is God-breathed.

Theophanoustos is where you get your word pneumonia or pneumatic from.

And it's only used here, not in the rest of the scripture and nowhere else in classical Greek is it used.

It's only used right here as if Paul was like being very specific about what he meant.

He wanted to show you that the word of God had a divine origin.

So he puts those words together.

It's breathed out by God.

It affirms that it is God who gave us his divine origin.

So in scripture, though, the person of God and the word of God are used, are interrelated, they're interchangeable.

So much so that what is true about God's character is also true about his word.

God is truthful.

He's not a liar.

So when he speaks, he's not dispensing nonsense.

It's true, powerful, and relevant stuff.

And if God wrote it, then it also is without error because God does not make error.

And so one word that you're going to talk about maybe later is, Daniel may revisit this next week, but the word inherently, we believe in something called the inerrancy of scripture.

And what it doesn't mean is that here it says Jesus had a purple robe and here it says Jesus had a red robe.

Contradiction.

Now, that's not what it means.

It means that ever since the term was invented for the Bible, inerrancy has meant that the Bible is true in its message and what it's trying to say is consistent throughout the whole thing.

That's what it means.

It means that God's word is true and consistent in what it's saying.

Not that little random things that really don't change the point of the message at all.

That's not what it means.

So, God is true, perfect, and reliable, and therefore His word is.

So, flip just quickly over to 2 Peter.

Let's look at something there real fast.

As I'm looking at this, I'm trying to think of some things that kind of not include.

But 2 Peter 1, verse 19.

2 Peter 1:19

Let's just start there.

I might just start at the beginning, but let's just start at 19.

He says,

What he's saying here is God's word didn't come about by some man just saying, I want to speak for God today.

He just began talking, and then it happened.

It was God that moved them, not by the will of man, but God spoke through them.

And so, when we say that Scripture is inspired, which we were talking about just a minute ago.

All Scripture is breathed out by God.

Have you ever heard anybody say, God inspired me to write this song?

God inspired me to write this book?

Or have you ever heard that kind of phrase from people?

There's a level of truth to that.

Maybe God did.

But at the same time, there are certain levels of inspiration.

And no one is as inspired as the Bible writers themselves when God communicated what He wanted them to put down in words.

And what it doesn't mean also, inspiration of Scripture, doesn't mean that God is like, someone's just going about their business during the day, and then He just like takes them over, and they just mechanically just write something down.

God did it in such a cool way to where He used their own personalities, their own experiences, their own vocabulary, their own writing style.

You have so many different writing styles in the Bible, which we'll look at a little later.

It says they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, and that He used even their personalities and such to put out what He wanted on paper in Scripture.

So there definitely is mystery that abounds as to how He did that.

But I know a lot of you might say, man, if I could have just seen the Red Sea part, or seen Christ risen from the dead, I would have a lot more faith than just having this book in my hand.

And go back and look.

Maybe you can start at verse 16, where we are in 2 Peter, just read that later.

But Peter is like, we saw Christ in all His glory on the holy mountain, the transfiguration.

But then later on he says, but we have something now that's even better than that.

We can look back now and see how all those things were coming together into a bigger story.

They couldn't see that.

They didn't know how the stuff that they were writing was going to fit into the overall bigger picture.

So it's a blessing, it's a grace to have the Scripture.

And could go on and on about it.

But basically just remember those things, the inspiration of the Scripture.

That God Himself spoke through men, put it down on paper, what He wanted them to say.

God created the heavens and the earth by the power of His Word.

He definitely can get what He wants into a book.

He's not in heaven saying, man, Paul messed it up.

Or I tried to get this in there and they forgot.

He's not that kind of a God.

He'd be very angry.

And we'd be experiencing His anger if that was the case.

So, on to some fun stuff for sure.

How do we actually get the Bible?

Like, what was the process?

Some of you might have been here in the last few years where I'd probably lecture for an hour and a half on all that.

We're not going to go over all that tonight.

We're going to just revisit some of it.

So, how do we get the Bible?

Let's start.

Wait a minute.

I can't remember how I did this.

Go on.

Oh yeah, let's just read this.

This is something that Martin Luther said, talking about how the Bible is grace to us.

Oh, how great and glorious a thing it is to have before one the Word of God.

With it we may at all times feel joyous and secure.

We need never be in want of consolation, for we see before us in all its brightness the pure and right way.

He who loses sight of the Word of God falls into despair.

However, the voice of heaven no longer sustains him and he follows only the disorderly tendency of his own heart and the world, world vanity, which lead him to destruction.

Scripture tells you not to follow your heart.

It says that your heart is deceitful.

I can definitely speak for myself that my heart is lied to me.

I need like a more sure guide for life and to know God.

So, go on, John.

Sorry.

All right.

Books of the Old Testament.

How did you get...

Why is the Old Testament the Old Testament?

Go ahead.

Oh, that's funky writing.

Sorry.

It's a change of font when I move it to what that is.

But this is how the Old Testament is broken up.

You get the books of the Law, the Torah, the Instruction, Genesis through Deuteronomy, the History books, Joshua through Esther, books of poetry and wisdom, Job through Song of Songs, and then the writings of the Prophets.

That's how it's broken up.

Go ahead and flip to your table of contents if you know where that is.

Just use it in the front of your Bible.

Some of you might be new Christians and like, don't ever be ashamed to be like, table of contents.

We see you turn to the table of contents.

So, it's okay.

Go ahead and go to the next slide.

Okay.

So, the background.

So, when were these things written?

Okay.

Roughly between 1445 B.C. to 14...

Or, excuse me, 424 B.C.

Huge span of time.

And the authors, unlike a lot of other sacred books out there like the Book of Mormon or the Koran, etc.,

the Bible has a lot of different writers from different time periods and from different walks of life.

Really cool.

And there are prophets, kings, soldiers, poets, shepherds, historians.

You have different men writing in different ways.

Really cool.

So, just think about it.

Some of you are very poetic and artsy.

Like, God communicated truth to you.

Some of you don't like any of that.

Just tell me what it means.

And there's...

You have the law.

Men wrote that way.

Just clearly what they meant.

So, the main language, yep, Hebrew.

Maybe some Aramaic thrown in there.

Something about the Hebrew scribes really quickly.

Hebrew scribes were pretty incredible.

All they would do is just copy the scripture.

Copy the scrolls.

And they cared about it so much.

It was so sacred that even if they just...

Let's say that they were at the end of a scroll of papyrus or whatever and they messed up.

Like, they made like a little glitch or they spelled something wrong.

They'd rip the whole thing up and throw it away.

Like, it was that serious of a deal to them.

So, you can be sure that, like, what we have is what was there.

They didn't change it as time went on.

So, the canonization of the Old Testament.

The canon doesn't mean a big piece of artillery.

It means like a collection of books, accepted number of books into something.

So, go on to the next one.

Really quickly, there is...

This is Josephus Flavius.

He was captured by Titus in around 70 A.D.

When Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed, burnt to the ground by the Romans,

as Christ prophesied about.

And he was a Pharisee, but he was taken to Rome as a prisoner.

He actually was allowed to write.

And so, in the first century...

So, he had access to information that we don't now.

And this is what he said about the Old Testament scriptures.

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us,

disagreeing from and contradicting one another, like the Greeks have.

So, he's, like, making fun of, like, the ancient writings of the Greeks

and how they don't really connect or make sense at all.

But only 22 books, which contain the records of all the past times,

which are justly believed to be divine.

And of them, five belong to Moses, verse 5,

which contain his laws.

The prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was done in their times in 13 books.

And the remaining four books contain hymns to God,

precepts, and conduct for human life.

So, you may think, we have more.

Look at your table of contents.

There's more than, you know, 22 books.

And the reason we do that is we break up books where they wouldn't have.

We say, like, 1st, 2nd Samuel, 1st, 2nd Kings, 1st, 2nd Chronicles, etc.

So, also note, there are some Bibles out there.

The Roman Catholics have this included in their official canon.

A group of books called the Apocrypha.

And the reason that we don't include those in the Protestant canon

is because they're not named anywhere else in Hebrew tradition.

They're not cited as those books divinely inspired by God.

Even in the Hebrew Bible today, those books aren't included.

And no New Testament writer, apostle, Jesus himself,

they never quoted from it at all.

And so that's a really big deal.

And they have some value, but we just don't put them on the same level

as what we have divinely inspired here.

So, next slide.

So, what about the Old Testament manuscripts?

We had a problem for a long time because one of the oldest New Testament manuscripts

was 900 A.D.

That's bad, you know, because we have prophecies and things like that

that talk about Christ's coming.

So, it could be just all a scam, right?

So, how do we know about this?

And we need to know, how was it accurately translated since before the first century?

We need to know that.

So, God provided a really cool way.

Go to the next slide.

Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 discovered in the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea.

And they contained books from the Old Testament, all of them except for Esther.

And a lot of them date back to 125 B.C.

Really cool.

So, even cooler, you can take the ones that date that far back

and you can lay them right beside the ones that date 900 A.D.

They say the same thing, the exact same thing.

It's really cool.

So, it shows you how seriously they took the transmission.

So, they've been preserved for that long, 1900 years.

This is Josephus again.

They didn't play games with the Scriptures.

It was very, very serious to them.

He says,

We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own Scriptures.

For although such long ages have now passed,

no one has ventured either to add, to remove, or alter a syllable.

And it's instinct with every Jew from the day of his birth

to regard them as decrees of God,

to abide by them, and if need be, cheerfully die for them.

Time and again near now pass,

The site has been witness of prisoners, enduring tortures,

death in every form in the theaters,

rather than utter a single word against the laws and allied documents.

So, what he said about this is think about Rome.

They were seeing guys killed in the arenas.

The Colosseum wasn't built at this time.

It actually was built by Jewish slaves that happened after this conquest.

But they were being put to death,

and they would not back down from the Scriptures.

So, take them very seriously.

Go on to the next slide.

That's the Old Testament.

Let's get to the New.

Okay.

They date around the first century A.D.

Again, a variety of authors.

You have fishermen, rabbis, tax collectors, scholars, physicians.

I mean, really cool.

The language, Koine Greek, and some Aramaic, maybe here and there.

That was the language.

So, I go on.

That's how it's broken up.

The history books, letters of Paul, and then letters from other apostles.

This is a cool chart.

Don't lose yourself in all the stuff.

But what this is basically trying to say is,

you ever had someone say,

well, you don't have any of the original New Testament documents.

So, like, what's the point?

You don't really know that what's there was actually there.

So, they just kind of want to cast it aside.

The problem with their argument is that we don't have any, you know,

original copies of any ancient writing at all.

They're written on materials that decay and rot and have been destroyed.

So, but look at this, though.

We'll just do one example.

Most of you have heard of, at least, like the Iliad, Homer's Iliad.

It was written in 800 B.C.

A long time ago.

The earliest copies of it that we actually have in our hands today

are from 400 B.C.

There's a 400-year gap.

See that from the originals and the ones that we actually have?

And then there's the total number of copies we have

from all different time periods.

643, sorry, I need glasses.

So, then go down to the New Testament at the bottom,

written between 50 and 100 A.D.

The New Testament has the smallest time gaps

between the originals and the ones we have now,

and we have 5,366 different fragments and pieces

and whole books of the New Testament.

So, if you're going to throw that away, you've got to throw it all away.

It just doesn't work that way.

So, really cool.

We have, like, the biggest collection of writings of all ancient documents,

more than Plato or anything else.

So, go ahead, John.

So, how do we get the New Testament?

You hear people say,

well, the church left certain books out,

so I had that talk with a guy the other day

and didn't even know what he was talking about.

And so, how do we know that?

Some tricky church councils leave out certain books.

Well, the answer is, darn right they did.

There's a course like Wrong Teaching out there and Heresy

that really tried to corrupt the Gospel.

So, there are several councils that discuss this,

but the last one was Council of Carthurs, 397 A.D.

Carthurs was in Northern Africa.

And this was the criteria they used.

And so, all motives aside,

I couldn't personally come up with better criteria

for why we have what we have.

The first one was whether or not the document was written by an apostle

or one in close association with an apostle.

So, he was either Peter writing it or he talked to Peter.

It wasn't he said that he said that he said.

It was first or second hand and that was it.

Pretty cool.

So, there's a lot of books that don't meet that.

So, we don't really include it.

Secondly, whether or not the document was recognized as authoritative

by the early church.

So, there was, while the apostles were writing these books,

they would be aware if certain other writings were being taught

that were not true and that were corrupted.

And so, they would have kept them down.

I said, these are the books that we include.

Peter actually writes about Paul and says,

our brother Paul wrote to you about these same things I'm writing to you about.

Maybe it all kind of put together.

Then, thirdly, whether or not the document conformed,

let's put it right now, yeah,

to the highest standards and truths taught by already recognized Scripture.

So, we can say, we know that these are good.

Okay, we know that the Old Testament,

you know, these are consistent.

We know that the Gospel of John, Matthew, etc.

And we know that they teach the same things over thousands of years.

They all teach the same thing,

that there's this God who is holy and righteous and graceful

and that man is sinful and is in need of a Savior,

taught over thousands of years.

So, does it go against what we already know to be true?

And then they would exclude it if it was.

So, really good.

That's how you got the New Testament that is in front of you.

Good stuff.

Next.

I don't have time to get into all this, I don't think.

But, remember the Latin, okay?

Sola, scriptura, it means Scripture alone.

And during the time of the Reformation,

and arguably the end of the 1400s and the 1500s,

Martin Luther, John Wyclef, etc.

The Roman Church taught that an infallible book

needs an infallible interpreter.

And he's the only one that can interpret it.

And that was the Pope, the vicar of Christ,

the one who stands in the place of Christ.

And so, they stood against that.

And they said, no, the Bible is the final and ultimate authority.

And if we want to know what the Bible means,

we look at what the Bible says about a certain topic.

We don't, we don't, basically, Scripture is its own interpreter.

Scripture interprets Scripture.

And then finally, yeah, balance of Scripture and historical interpretation.

So, they didn't totally throw aside, like what,

of, like the method of historical interpretation.

If that was true, none of us would believe anything that was taught way back when.

So, you have to kind of weigh things as to what the Church has always taught.

If you come up with a new idea or a new thought

that's escaped the mind of every believer for the last 2,000 years,

you know, and then you look back and it's kind of been taught by

different heretics throughout the history of the Church,

then it's a good chance that you probably need to, like,

can your interpretation.

Probably.

Probably.

A good example of that, a long time ago,

around the 400 AD, something like that,

there was a guy who taught, a name of Arius,

who taught that Jesus is not God.

He was just another creation.

Sound familiar?

It's the same thing that Jehovah Witnesses and other groups teach today.

It's not anything new at all.

It's the same thing in different form.

So, yeah, Soda Scriptura,

the most refreshing drink on the planet.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh, man.

Last year, I lectured on each one of these people.

We're not going to do that.

But these people were all instrumental in getting us the English translations

that you have.

John Wakeliff,

William Tyndale,

he was the first one to really translate from the original Greek and Hebrew

and Latin text.

John Knox,

Scottish reformer,

great beards back then,

incredible beards.

Then, monarchs,

that also played a very instrumental role.

Whether they're believers or not,

quite debatable.

Maybe we'll be surprised.

See Henry eating the turkey leg in heaven.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But they were both instrumental

and kind of saying,

at least to Rome,

no,

like we're going to have

our own Bible

for our people

in the common tongue.

And they made it law.

So,

all those people were instrumental

in bringing us English translations.

Go ahead.

One translation,

particularly,

was the Geneva Bible.

Really,

really cool.

The Geneva Bible came

in 560.

That's before the King James Bible.

So,

King James Bible,

not a bad translation,

but it wasn't the first

English translation.

So,

the people with the signs,

you know,

in the King James only.

Just the language

that Jesus spoke in

kind of thing.

It's,

at the beginning of

the preface of the Geneva Bible,

awesome words.

It says,

the Bible is the light

to our paths,

the key of the kingdom of heaven,

our comfort and affliction,

our shield and sword

against Satan,

the school of all wisdom,

the mirror in which

we behold God's face,

the testimony of his favor,

and the only food

and nourishment

of our souls.

Really awesome.

That was written by people

who were exiled from England

during the reign of

Bloody Mary

after Henry

had passed away.

So,

it had study notes,

chapter breaks,

it's quoted by Shakespeare,

it was the Bible

of the pilgrims

that came over.

Really awesome translation.

That's actually a picture

I made

of the Geneva Bible

in Scotland.

It's pretty cool.

Next.

English Bible translations.

Okay.

Here we go.

So,

I'm going to try not to hate

on anybody's translation

tonight,

but there's

basically four kinds

of English translations.

The first is what's called

the formal equivalent.

And that means

they tried to like

get the closest

English word

that would correspond

to either the Greek

or the Hebrew.

It's more of a word

for word translation.

Literal,

if you want to call it that.

The most literal

we can be

in the English translation.

And that's

example,

so you see it over here

to the left,

word for word.

Intelnir means

like the Greek below.

So that's why

it's there.

But then,

the most literal

English translation

is the New American

Standard Bible.

And right over

from that

is ESV,

English Standard

Version.

Gosh.

Then,

even the King James

Version is a literal.

But,

we have more resources

available to us today

to come up with

a better,

more accurate

translations

than

the limited resources

translators had

in the past.

The dynamic equivalent

is,

example,

that is NIV.

That means that

the translators

look at

the Greek or Hebrew

and they say,

what are they,

what's the idea?

Like,

what are they trying

to say here?

What's the thought

they're trying to communicate?

And then they

wrote it out.

So,

it's not,

definitely not bad.

It has value.

But,

NIV is

an example of that.

And then,

then you have

the paraphrases.

New Living Translation,

the message,

and,

I'll say this to you,

because I do believe

that even the Trent,

the guys who wrote this,

would tell you that

this isn't

the Bible.

They would say

this is a paraphrase.

It's just kind of

talking about

things that

went on.

You can't really

get into a,

there's some passage

in the Bible

you need to look at

like the most literal

you can to understand it

because you can't

paraphrase it

in today's English.

It needs to be understood

where it was.

But,

as our culture

becomes more and more

illiterate

and we don't read anymore,

et cetera,

translation is going to get

dumber and dumber

further down the road.

And,

so,

if you don't have

a literal

numeric standard

or ESV or something,

I recommend you buy one

just to read alongside,

just to,

just to follow.

So,

next,

oh yeah,

I don't know why

I put that in there.

I thought it was funny.

Yes,

we typically use

the ESV here.

Next,

next slide.

man,

I had a cool

thing prepared for this.

I don't know if I have time.

Anyway,

I grew up in the 80s.

I actually remember

the latter part of the 80s.

I was born in 82,

but I remember

the latter 80s.

A big movie

that I actually still own.

I actually watched it

a few months ago

just for laughs.

Neverending Story.

Who's seen that movie?

Okay,

I don't feel stupid anymore.

Good stuff,

but it's about

this little boy

named Bastion

who's kind of

going through

a rough time in life

and he's being chased

by these bullies

that are hating on him

and he runs

into a bookstore

and he meets

this cool dude

that looks kind of creepy

and then

has a conversation

with him

and he's reading

a book

called

Neverending Story

and he

kind of like

sneaks it out

and he's like,

I'll return your book

later after I read it.

And then he goes to school

and he actually goes up

to the school attic

and he starts reading

the book.

He reads the rest of the day

and through the night actually

so he just couldn't

back off of it.

Pretty cool.

But he was told by

the guy at the bookstore

this book

is not safe

for you to read.

Like,

you'll see what I mean

if he was to read it.

So he

begins reading it.

It's about this magical world

called Fantasia

and he

goes on into it.

But anyways,

what ends up happening

is that

as he reads it

he finds that

the book is like

talking about him.

It's speaking to him.

He's actually one of the characters

inside of the book

and he's

kind of freaking out

at different parts

like,

whoa,

how did they

know that about me

as he read on?

And

he was kind of drawn

further and further

into it

and then eventually

he's brought into the story

as one of the characters

at the very end.

Pretty cool part.

Anyway.

And

so

on

not to sound cheesy

or

make a cool connection here

but

the Bible is not

a fake book.

It's

that actually happens

when you read the Bible.

You'll see that it's

talking about you

and talking to you.

You'll be like,

man,

that's me.

Like,

I'm like that.

One of the biggest things

that we know

is

that the Bible

is not myth

and it's not just legend

because people

are actually like

real people.

They have real problems

and serious,

nasty things

they get into.

They're not made out

to be invincible

characters at all

and the only one

that's,

the only character

that is invincible

is God himself.

So

that's what happens.

We

read the Bible.

We see that,

man,

we see how sinful

we are.

We see the need

for redemption.

We see the need

of a Savior

and it'll move you

and stir you

like no other book.

And so much so

that as you

start reading it,

you may not want

to put it down

and it

is literally

like a never-ending story.

It'll go on and on

through eternity.

Really cool.

So

why should we

read the Bible

real quickly?

Why study it?

I'll go back.

Sorry.

John,

Kyle,

yeah.

first of all,

turn to John 17

real fast.

Why should we

study it?

First off,

to know who

God is.

And

no better

person to tell us

about God

than

God himself.

He doesn't really

care what you

think about him.

he is a certain

way.

He's not going

to change.

And so

really cool here.

John 17

this is Jesus

praying.

He says,

When Jesus

has spoken

these words,

he lifted up

his eyes

to heaven

and said,

Father,

the hour has

come.

Glorify your

Son.

The Son

may glorify you

since you

have given

him authority

over all

flesh

to give

eternal life

to whom

all you

have given

him.

So,

look at that.

He's like

talking about

eternal life

here.

He says,

And this

is eternal

life,

that they

know you,

the only

true God,

in Jesus

Christ,

whom you

have sent.

So,

the good

news of

the gospel

is not

just we

all get

to go

to heaven

and have

a mansion

in heaven.

The gospel

is that we're

brought back

to God.

And without

that,

you don't

have a gospel

and you're

believing a

false gospel.

God is the

good news

of the gospel

that we're

brought back

into relationship

with him

and can glorify

him again

like we

could not

do before

that.

So,

to know

God,

that's the

ultimate goal

of the Bible.

Secondly,

to know

ourselves.

And like I

was saying

a minute ago,

as Bastion

was reading

that book,

he was being

drawn into it

and he thought,

this is about

me.

This book is

speaking to me.

And as you

do that,

you're going

to really

see who you

are in light

of who God

is.

And see

that you're

really not all

that and God

is everything.

He is glorious

and we're not.

And we're

in need of

him and

he's graciously

provided all

we've needed

to be brought

back to him

through Christ.

So,

Psalm 139,

some of you

turned there,

but I'll just

read it.

Search me,

O God,

and know my

heart.

Try me and

know my

thoughts.

And see if

there be any

grievous way

in me.

And lead me

in the way

everlasting.

Really cool.

So,

to know

ourselves.

Thirdly,

to bring us

eternal joy.

This is part

of the gospel.

It says,

it says,

in Jeremiah

15,

16,

your words

were found,

talking to

God,

your words

were found

and I

ate them.

And your

words became

to me a

joy and

delight of

my heart.

For I am

called by

your name,

O Lord,

O God of

hosts.

And in the

Psalms,

it also says

that in

God's presence

there is

fullness of

joy,

joy,

and at

his right

hand there

are pleasures

forevermore.

Forevermore.

So,

it's not just

something that

you have and

it ends like

the pleasure

here.

So,

to know

God is

to have

eternal joy,

to have

hope and

peace.

So,

go ahead

for the next

slide.

So,

God has a

goal and

a purpose

that he will

achieve to get

his word into

the hands of

all the

nations and

every tribe,

language,

and tongue.

And he will

do it.

He promises

that he will

do it.

He'll get

the truth of

his word

to the hearts

of people all

around the

world.

And so,

I was going

to just mention

one other

thing that I

forgot that I

just breezed

over that I

thought I

would.

This is going

to be like

in your group

time.

We're speaking

about the

inerrancy of

scripture and

how scripture

is without

error.

What we

mean by that

also is that

we're saying

that the

original

manuscripts are

completely

without error.

And so,

you might say,

well,

what about our

English translations

then?

Do they have

errors in

them?

And I guess

this is a

good example

of that.

I didn't

come up with

this on my

own.

But,

like,

we all could

go to

Washington,

D.C.

right now,

go to a

museum,

and see,

like the

Constitution,

like the

original

Constitution,

or Declaration

of Independence,

or whatever.

We can see it

right there.

That's the

original document.

But let's say

that a fire

happens and

it gets

burned up.

You know,

would we,

at that point,

go into a

panic and

say,

we don't know

what the

Constitution

says anymore?

Like,

would that be

a true reality?

No.

Well,

the government

doesn't obey

the Constitution

anyway,

typically.

Sorry.

But,

they would do

good to you.

It would be

out of a lot

of messes

that we're

in.

But,

anyway,

because why?

Because we

have copies

of copies

of the

copy of

the copy.

The same

thing.

And that's

the way it

is with

the Scripture.

We have,

we can be

sure that

99.9%

of what we

see is what

was intended

to be there.

Really cool.

So,

let's just

close in

prayer.

I know

there's a lot

more to say.

I was trying

to cram some

stuff together.

Then,

Alex and

Rishi can go

ahead and come

up.

Let's go.