Dr. Andy Naselli | What is the Bible and How Should We Treat It?

This discernment was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forest, North Dakota.

Good morning.

My name are we on?

We're on.

All right.

My name is Andy Nostelli, and it's a joy to be with you this morning.

My wife, Jenny, and I have been married for over 20 years, and God has blessed us with four daughters.

My oldest daughter, who plans to be a freshman at Bethlehem College in Minneapolis this fall, is with me on the front row this morning.

So it's a joy she could join me.

Pastor Jason shared that I get to teach systematic theology in the New Testament at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, where John Piper is our chancellor.

Maybe you've heard that name.

And recently we planted Christ the King Church with three other pastors.

I get to be lead pastor, lead preacher, and it's a joy.

So I'm thinking about them right now.

They're just meeting and worshiping the Lord right now, and uh, and it's a joy for me to be with you.

They commissioned me to come here to serve you.

And I I share with some of the pastors here some options of what I could preach on, and of those options, they said, talk about this one.

So I'm gonna introduce it in just a moment here, but I'd like to first start talking about Vince Lombardi.

I know I'm I'm not in Green Bay Packer territory, so this is maybe a sore spot for some of you.

Vince Lombardi is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

It's a team that won three straight and five total championships in the National Football League during the 1960s.

And his team also won the first two Super Bowls at the end of the 66 and 67 seasons, and then he suddenly died of cancer in 1970.

Maybe you've heard his name, uh the NFL named the Super Bowl trophy, the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

So, back up, uh, nine years, July 1961, Vince Lombardi met with his team for training camp.

They had just lost the championship game the previous season.

They're getting back to work to try to win a championship.

So he's addressing professional football players, elite football players, and one of his biographers describes what he did in that first day of training camp.

Here's a picture of him.

Quote, he took nothing for granted.

He began a tradition of starting from scratch, assuming that the players were blank slates who carried over no knowledge from the year before.

He began with the most elemental statement of all.

Gentlemen, he said, holding the pig skin in his right hand, this is a football.

That's how he started training camp.

And you might think, was he insulting the players by talking that way?

No, he was simply stating the fundamentals, and it's wise to remind each other about the fundamentals.

And that's why some basketball coaches start by teaching players how to tie their shoes.

The premise is that getting fundamentals right is crucial.

As the saying goes, how you do anything is how you do everything.

That's why in the military they'll teach people sometimes to make your bed well.

And let's work out from there.

So this is a sermon on the Bible.

And it's a way to recalibrate our lives to make sure we're keeping the main thing, the main thing.

So in this sermon, it's like me saying to you, brothers and sisters, this is a Bible.

And what I'm going to do in this sermon, God willing, is answer two questions.

What is it?

What is the Bible?

And number two, how should we treat the Bible?

Now, this sermon's unusual because I'm not explaining and applying just one passage of scripture.

I'm presenting a condensed, what I would call a systematic theology of the Bible.

So a systematic theology of a topic is when you ask, what does the whole Bible say about fill in the blank?

So in this case, what does the whole Bible say about the Bible?

I'm proclaiming to you what the whole Bible says about itself and how we should treat it.

So let's start with this first question.

What is the Bible?

I'll answer that question with seven statements, and then I'll respond to three popular objections.

Statement number one: the Bible is God breathed.

It's inspired.

So I invite you to open your Bible to 2 Timothy 3.16.

2 Timothy 3.16.

Very important passage to understand what the Bible is.

2 Timothy 3.16.

The first phrase of 2 Timothy 3.16 asserts all scripture is breathed out by God.

It's breathed out.

Maybe your translation says all scripture is God breathed.

It's a very good translation.

That does not mean that the human authors were not actively involved in writing scripture.

God did not dictate the Bible the way that some people dictate letters to their secretary.

I worked for D.A.

Carson for years, and he was an old school professor, and my office was next to his, and I'd sometimes hear him, he had a little cassette tape thing, and he would say, you know, dear so-and-so, semi-colonie line of language.

He would just he would talk that way, and then I wasn't that guy.

He had another assistant who did that who would type out the letters for him.

That's called dictation.

The Bible's not like that.

The Bible is different than dictation.

The human author's personalities are more like musical instruments.

So I grew up playing the trumpet.

So I and because I can play the trumpet, I can play some other valved instruments like a valve trombone or a baritone.

So if I were to pick up a trumpet and play, let's say the tune of amazing grace, it would sound different than if I played that same tune in the same key in a trombone or a baritone.

Because even though it's it's Andy breathed, it's going through the personality of the instrument.

It's going to sound a little different.

So all scripture is God breathed, it's from the Lord, and it's going through the personality of Moses and Paul and Peter and Luke.

It goes through all their backgrounds and their skills and their training and their research, even.

Luke 1, 1 to 3.

So here's a when I teach systematic theology, I'll ask this question to students.

You might not want to answer it out loud because it's a trick question.

So who wrote the Bible?

God or humans?

Someone said yes.

That's the correct answer.

That is the correct answer.

Okay, so now to supplement this, I'd invite you to open your Bible to 2 Timothy 1.20.

That'll fill out the nature of the Bible.

2 Timothy, excuse me, 2 Peter 1.20.

So 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy 3.16, what we just looked at presents the nature of inspiration.

It's God breathed.

Now I'm going to supplement that with 2 Peter 1.20 and 21 about the method of inspiration.

2 Peter 1, verse 20.

2 Peter 1:20

No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For, here's the reason for that, no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So the Bible is not the product of human invention.

The writers didn't think up what they wrote on their own.

Rather, the human authors spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And here's just a little point I teach my theology students.

I don't think it's precise to say that a particular author of the Bible, who's a human, like Paul, was inspired.

The scripture is inspired.

The person writing it is someone God's using to write the inspired scripture.

But that word inspired or God breathed is describing the product of inspiration, the writings.

The writings are inspired.

The writings are God breathed.

And this is how the Bible repeatedly refers to itself that God breathed out all the scriptures.

Here's an example from the Old Testament.

In Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, the Lord repeatedly speaks to Moses.

Those words in the Pentateuch are God's words.

In Isaiah, he quotes the word of the Lord over a dozen times.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel repeatedly say, the word of the Lord came to them over a hundred times.

Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah each open by announcing, the word of the Lord came to them.

Daniel recounts visions from God.

Malachi writes, says the Lord twenty-five times.

And the most important example of this pattern is Jesus himself.

Jesus repeatedly quotes the Old Testament as his final authority.

It is written.

It is written.

It is written.

Have you not read?

Scripture cannot be broken.

You're wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

Jesus repeatedly cites the scriptures.

Jesus believes that the miracles in the Old Testament actually happened.

For example, he refers to Jonah and the belly of a huge fish for three days and three nights.

He refers to Noah's flood.

He refers to Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt.

And to Moses and the burning bush and manna in the wilderness.

He cites these miracles as history.

The New Testament authors also refer to the Old Testament as God's words.

Paul talks about the Old Testament as the oracles of God, Romans 3.2.

The New Testament authors regard the writings of other New Testament authors as equally authoritative as the words of Christ, 1 Timothy 5.18, 2 Peter 3.2, and 15 and 16.

The New Testament writers recognize that their writings reveal God's plan more fully than even the Old Testament, Ephesians 3, Hebrews 1 and 2.

So that's number one.

The Bible is God breathed.

The next two qualities flow from that.

So second statement: the Bible is entirely true, without error.

In other words, it's errant and it's incapable of error.

It's infallible.

So follow this logic.

I'm going to give you a syllogism.

So a major premise, a minor premise, and then a conclusion that follows from the two premises.

So here's premise one.

He's without error, he's inerrant, and he's incapable of error.

He's infallible.

As Titus says, God never lies.

So that's number one.

Number two, the Bible is God breathed.

That's what I just tried to prove in the first statement.

The Bible is inspired.

What follows from that?

If God is entirely truthful and the Bible is God breathed, therefore the Bible is entirely truthful.

That is, the Bible is without error and incapable of error.

If the Bible contained errors, then God would be a liar.

The Bible is the standard of truthfulness.

Jesus says to God the Father, your word is truth.

The Bible's entirely truthful because God's entirely truthful.

Now, four qualifications are in order here.

Number one, the Bible's inerrancy does not mean that it is truthful only with reference to theology.

Some theologians get kind of squirrely here when they talk about this.

So the Bible is not a textbook for social, physical, or life science, but it's fully trustworthy about whatever it says about any subject.

If you can't fully trust the Bible when it discusses science and history, which are secondary matters that we can verify, how can you trust it when it talks about God and salvation, which are supremely important matters we can't verify in the same way?

So if you can't trust the Bible, you can't trust God.

And if you don't trust God, you've exalted yourself as the supreme authority over the Bible and over God.

Here's a second clarification about the Bible's inerrancy.

It doesn't mean that it's always precise.

Here's what I mean by that.

The Bible's origin is fully divine and fully human.

It never affirms what is false, and it has the marks of a human book.

So humans wrote the Bible with human personalities, with human languages, and the context of human cultures.

Here's an example.

I'm gonna pull out my phone and pull up my weather app in Grand Forks.

Okay, so here we are in the year 2025, and the weather app says sunrise at 7.22 a.m.

Sunset at 7.45 p.m.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna be silly for a minute to illustrate how some people treat the Bible.

This is ridiculous.

Everybody knows the sun doesn't rise and set.

This isn't a geocentric universe.

We're actually going around the sun.

The sun's not rising.

We're moving around the sun.

What kind of foolishness is this, right?

Well, we still say sunrise and sunset.

Why do we do that?

That's that's phenomenological language we all use, and we use it without implying something scientifically precise about that.

It's a it's a normal way of speaking.

And the Bible uses phenomenological language, and it's not, therefore, if you can point that out, a way of discrediting that the Bible's inaccurate or an error when it uses phenomenological language.

Like if I I'll do it again.

Um someone says, How far away do you live from from here?

And I might say, about 300 miles.

Well, if I pull up my my map here and I get my directions home, it's 324.9.

Did I just lie to you?

I said I live 300 miles from here.

Well no, that's it's like someone says, How old are you?

I say, I'm 44, and they look it up.

Actually, you're 44 in nine months and three days and two hours and one minute, liar.

Like this we we we have this way of talking where we assume rounding being approximate, and that's honest.

So sometimes people apply a level of precision to the Bible that's unreasonable.

So the Bible is always truthful, the Bible's inerrancy doesn't mean it's always precise.

We should give the Bible's human authors the same freedom we routinely give to others who use language in an ordinary way.

Number three, the Bible's inerrancy does not mean that copies of the original writings or translations of those copies are inerrant.

So copies and translations are inerrant only to the extent that they accurately reproduce the original writings.

God breathed out the original writings, he did not breathe out the copies and the translations.

Now, this is not sidestepping the issue.

This distinction is both accurate and necessary because errors in a copy or errors in a translation are not God's fault.

It's the result of human error.

And you might be thinking, okay, so what good is it if only the original writings are God breathed when we don't possess any of the original writings?

Well, a lot of good, actually, because it overstates the case to make it sound as if we don't really know what the original writings say.

Because the quality of the existing manuscripts of Scripture is so outstanding, far better than any other ancient document.

So consequently, existing manuscripts of the original uh existing manuscripts and and translations faithfully reproduce over 99% of the Bible's original writings.

And most of the less than 1% that is questionable is trivial stuff, like how do you spell a proper name, or about synonyms, or impossible misreadings, uh like obviously impossible readings.

So only about 1% of that less than 1% that's questionable affects the text meaning to any degree, and none of that affects major doctrines.

We should have very high confidence in the quality of our manuscripts and our translations.

And then number four, the Bible's inerrancy does not mean that there are no remaining difficulties or apparent discrepancies.

We can't perfectly interpret the Bible for two reasons.

One, we don't have all the data relevant to understanding the Bible.

Like archaeology discovers new facts, there are certain words that occur only one time in the Hebrew Old Testament or the Greek New Testament, and we're not 100% certain what those words mean.

And the second reason is there's a problem with us.

We are finite and fallible, meaning we're not infinite like God is, and sin affects even how we think and reason.

It's called the noetic effects of sin.

So we can't demonstrate inerrancy to everyone's satisfaction until all the facts are available and perfect interpretation is possible.

Until then, the only proper response is to trust that what the all-knowing, all-good God has spoken is completely true.

That's statement number two, the Bible's entirely true.

Now, statement number three, the Bible is our final authority.

This is called sola scriptura.

It's Latin.

So Jesus himself appeals to the Bible as the final authority, and that affirms that it the Bible is entirely true.

John 10, 35, Jesus says scripture cannot be broken.

Scripture cannot be broken.

God has supreme authority since he created and controls the universe.

So if the Bible does God breathe, then it carries the authority of God Himself.

And you might be wondering why that word final?

Why not say it's our only authority?

Solo is the scriptura.

Why is it solah?

Why is it our final authority?

Well, the Protestant reformers named it sola scriptura.

That doesn't mean it's the only source of truth in the world, but that it's the only inerrant and infallible authority.

So if I'm looking for an authority on uh how to uh rough in plumbing in my basement as I add a bathroom to it, I'm gonna have to go to other sources of information than the Bible, right?

Now, does that mean the Bible is is insufficient in some way?

No, no, no.

The point is uh that it will never contradict truth.

It's the final authority on any topic, but we have other authorities to help us in life.

But the Bible is supreme, it's ultimate, it's the final authority for every domain of knowledge, it's supremely authoritative, and it's like no other book.

Number four, the Bible is enough.

It's sufficient.

It's important here when you say the Bible is sufficient, you say sufficient for what?

It's sufficient not to give you step-by-step instructions on how to change the oil on your car.

It's sufficient to know and obey God.

That's what the sufficiency of scripture is about, to know and obey God.

And I'll highlight sufficiency in two areas.

So, first, I'll compare it to so-called other holy books, and then I'll consider it uh in light of other uh counseling that integrates worldly philosophies.

So, two fairly controversial topics about the sufficiency of scripture.

So, let's talk about other holy books.

I grew up Mormon, sort of.

Uh the first uh four or five years of my life, um, all of all of my relatives were Mormon.

My mom ended up divorcing uh and remarried Charles Naselli when I was like um six, I think.

And he had just become a Christian watching Jerry Fowell on TV.

So then from then on, I was in Baptist churches and hearing the gospel.

But um I mentioned that because I I have hundreds of Mormon relatives.

I've studied uh the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a good bit, just try to understand what I might have embraced.

And I found that the most fundamental issue that divides Mormons and evangelicals is what we believe about the Bible.

This dividing line is not unique to Mormons and evangelicals, it's the dividing line between just about all other religions and evangelicals.

And that's because we hold uncommon beliefs about the Bible.

We believe that the Bible is entirely sufficient for its purpose.

So in the Bible, God has given us everything we need to know to love and trust and obey God.

All scripture is God breathed, and the sentence goes on, and it's useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So the Bible doesn't answer every question we can ask.

That's not its purpose.

Its primary purpose is to reveal God, the God of the gospel, so that we can know Him and honor Him.

And the Bible alone is sufficient for that purpose.

Its supreme authority is exclusive.

So no other book is God's word, not the Apocrypha, or the Book of Mormon, or the Quran.

Giving books like that equal status with the Bible marginalizes the Bible and it demeans the Bible.

It marginalizes the Bible by not adequately emphasizing it, and it demeans the Bible by contradicting it.

For example, Roman Catholicism gives the Apocrypha and some church tradition and some papal pronouncements equal or even greater status than the Bible itself.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and the Covenants, that's another book, and the Pearl of Great Price, that's another of their books, and statements by its prophets equal or even greater status than the Bible.

And Islam gives the Quran superior status to the Bible.

Consequently, they don't adequately emphasize the Bible.

They don't think that the Bible is all the special revelation you need to know and obey God.

They think that you need more.

That additional revelation must supplement or even supplant the Bible.

Such additional revelation is not God-breathed, and thus it's neither inerrant nor authoritative, like the Bible.

So it's not surprising that their additional revelation contradicts the Bible in many ways.

Now let's talk about the sufficiency of scripture and counseling that integrates worldly philosophies.

So I'm an original signatory of a statement called the Sufficiency Statement.

It released online in 2024, and you can read it at sufficiencystatement.com.

I'm going to read a section of that to you on what the sufficiency of scripture means for biblical counseling.

So this is a statement by professors and pastors and authors saying, here's what we think the sufficiency of scripture means for counseling.

As this doctrine is applied to counseling, it means that Christians require no special knowledge or methodology drawn from outside Scripture to construct a system of counseling care.

Scripture explicitly claims to address our entire spiritual life, including the challenges faced in a fallen world, which are the same challenges we face in counseling conversations.

Counseling ministry does not stand in need of any insights from secular psychology, which views people, their problems, and the corresponding counseling methods primarily according to philosophies and practices that are opposed to the Bible.

The sufficiency of Scripture does not mean the Bible is a detailed and exhaustive catalog of all knowledge.

It does mean that what is given to us in God's Word provides all the truth we need to address our spiritual needs.

The Bible's rich treasure of wisdom and knowledge provides comprehensive information that applies explicitly or implicitly to every counseling issue in ways that are pleasing to God and good for people.

Any approach to counseling that attempts to supplement Scripture with secular resources is an error and will harm those it is meant to help.

Such attempts constitute an implicit denial of Scripture's authority and sufficiency.

Accordingly, such practices exist outside the stream of faithful biblical counseling and discipleship.

I happily sign that statement because I'm concerned that so-called biblical counseling ministries are smuggling in worldly philosophies.

And I'm sure that many people do this with really good intentions.

But I'm convinced that supplementing the Bible with worldly philosophies is counterproductive.

The principle here is that bad theology hurts people.

I really believe that.

That's why I'm a theologian.

Bad theology hurts people.

The Bible is sufficient to know and obey God.

So that's the fourth statement.

The Bible is enough, it's sufficient.

Number five, the Bible is understandable, it's clear.

If you read some theology books, there's another word for this called the perspicuity of Scripture.

And that's supposed to mean clarity.

It's like the worst word you can use for clarity because no one knows what it means.

So let's say it's clear.

So common saying that the Bible, a common saying about the Bible goes like this the Bible is like a deep, broad body of water, shallow enough for a lamb to wade in, but deep enough for an elephant to swim in.

I like that.

So not everything in the Bible is equally clear.

Peter himself writes about Paul's writings, and he says, there are some things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand.

And sometimes you feel like that when you're reading the Bible.

This is hard to understand.

But the Bible's central message about God's saving work through history is unmistakably clear, and it's easy to understand.

It's a basic storyline of creation, fall, redemption, consummation is something that a child can grasp.

God's communication in the Bible as a whole is accessible.

I'm not saying that it's all equally clear.

So take, for example, Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Can my seven-year-old daughter Eden understand that sentence?

Yeah, for sure.

And she does.

She knows that God is the creator of everyone and everything.

Now, does she understand it as well as her daddy?

Probably not.

I think I could add a little bit to that to fill it out and understand its literary historical context and how it fits for philosophical ramifications and etc.

But I also have some friends who've written PhD dissertations on the doctrine of creation and have thought about it more deeply than I have.

Some of them have been teaching about this for decades.

I'd say they know more about it than I do.

My point is you can know something truly, but not know it exhaustively like God does.

And some people can understand something more truly than others, but they still understand it truly.

Just because you don't understand it exhaustively doesn't mean you don't understand it correctly.

So the Bible is understandable, it's clear, even a child can understand it.

And you might respond, well, if we can understand the Bible truly, then why don't all humans completely agree with each other on what the Bible teaches?

Do you think the problem is with the Bible?

No, the problem is with us.

The Bible has no problem.

If we can't understand the Bible, it's not because the Bible is flawed.

It shows there's something wrong with us.

The problem is with us being finite and sinful.

Were it not for the effects of the fall on our heads and our hearts, we would interpret the Bible the same way.

But the point to stress here is that the Bible's central message is clear.

Sixth statement: the Bible is essential to know God.

It's necessary.

The Bible is necessary to know and trust and obey God.

You must somehow hear the Bible's message, whether by reading it yourself or hearing someone else read it and explain it in order to become a Christian.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3, the sacred writings, the writings, are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ.

And he writes in Romans 10, faith comes from hearing the message.

Then the message is heard through the word of Christ.

We've got to hear the words to know God.

And final statement: the Bible is powerful, it's effective.

The universe is everything that is not God.

My favorite way to define the word universe.

Everything that is not God.

And God created the universe merely by speaking words.

Can you create anything by speaking?

Like the closest we have is like talking to Siri or Alexa.

Don't come on, yeah.

So when when we we can speak with our words, but I can't say, you know, deck in my backyard patio, be painted.

Like nothing happens.

God's words are powerful.

When he speaks, things come into existence.

God's words are powerful not only in creating and sustaining the universe, but in softening hardened sinners.

So Jeremiah asks this question Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

If God's Spirit wants to transform a person's heart, his special saving grace is effective and powerful and invincible.

God's word is effective.

So effective, what I mean by that is it's successful in producing a desired or intended result.

When God speaks, he always accomplishes successfully what he intends to accomplish.

Here's uh an example from Isaiah 55.

For as the rain and look outside, and as the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, but they water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that for which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

I'm the Lord, I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed.

That's also, that was Ezekiel 12 at the end there.

God's word is powerful, it's effective.

Now, before that's what what the Bible is, before I transition to how we should treat the Bible, I want to respond to three objections to what I just taught about what the Bible is.

So some people hear this and they have some version of three different objections.

Objection number one is you're guilty of bibliolatry.

So you're guilty of worshiping the Bible.

And my response to that objection is no, we don't worship the Bible.

We worship God alone.

But we esteem the Bible as a unique book because God actively communicates through it.

To disobey the Bible is to disobey God Himself.

Objection number two is you derive your doctrine of the Bible from the Bible.

Isn't that circular reasoning?

Response to this objection?

Will, yes.

But that doesn't necessarily invalidate the reasoning.

Our doctrine of the Bible is no more circular than scientific theories.

So everyone uses circular reasoning to defend the ultimate authority for beliefs.

So while our ultimate standard of truth is God and his word, what is it for most other people?

It's themselves, right?

What they think is reasonable.

So the debates about whether the Bible is God breathed and without error hinge on this one issue.

Do you accept what the Bible claims about itself?

Do you accept what the Bible claims about itself?

Many useful arguments show that the Bible's claims about itself are reasonable.

So it's historically reliable, they're fulfilled prophecies, etc.

But ultimately, God's Spirit must convince you that its claims are true because sin has distorted how we even perceive reality.

So we can't prove that the Bible is God's word by appealing to any authority besides God Himself, including the Bible.

And the reason is such an authority must be superior to God, and there is no authority that's superior to God.

And final objection here: the word, notice the capital W, the word, that is Jesus, is what matters, not the word, the lowercase W, not the Bible.

Jesus is what matters, not the Bible.

Response to this one.

As pious as that sounds, it takes a different view of the Bible than Jesus himself.

Jesus repeatedly quotes the Bible as completely trustworthy and as the final authority.

So that's what the Bible is God breathed, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient, clear, necessary, and effective.

Now we're ready for our second big question.

How should we treat the Bible?

We should treat the Bible in at least seven ways.

And the first is believe the Bible.

Why?

Why should we believe the Bible?

Because the Bible is entirely truthful.

To disbelieve the Bible is to disbelieve God Himself.

If we trust God, we'll trust whatever he says.

Number two, love the Bible.

Why should we love the Bible?

Because we love God.

We don't worship the Bible.

We worship God who communicates to us in the Bible, so we love God's words.

We not only trust whatever God says is true and right, we love his words, all of them.

Even the ones that are unpopular in our culture.

My mentor, Dr.

D.A.

Carson, told me a story once.

He was meeting with a couple in his office, as a husband and wife, and they were not convinced about what the Bible teaches about God's good design for men and women in the home.

So they were embracing a version of feminism, egalitarianism.

And Dr.

Carson worked through text after text with them to the point where they said something like this: Okay, I concede the Bible teaches what you're saying, it teaches, it doesn't teach what we thought, but we still don't like it.

And Dr.

Carson replied, Okay, good, you're halfway there.

You see what he's getting at?

Is it's good to affirm what's true, but that's insufficient.

Where you want to be is not only affirming what's true, but loving what's true.

So pick whatever controversial topic there is today.

What does the Bible say about God's good design for men and women and what that implies for LGBT ideology?

Does that embarrass you that the Bible condemns that ideology?

Does it make you embarrassed to be a Christian because that's incompatible with Christianity?

It shouldn't.

We love without apology whatever is true, and God's design is beautiful, it's brilliant, and when you follow it, there's so much joy, it's wonderful.

We shouldn't be embarrassed at all about what's true.

We should love what's true.

Do you love God's words?

All of them.

So listen to the opening stanza of the book of Psalms.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And on his law he meditates day and night.

That's what we should be like.

And if you want to respond with an objection, I still am uncomfortable saying, love the Bible.

Love God, yes, but love a book.

Just consider a few samples from Psalm 119.

I will delight in your statutes.

I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

So loving the commandments.

I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love.

The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Oh, how I love your law.

I love your law.

I love your testimonies.

I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold.

Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.

I hate and deplore falsehood, but I love your law.

Great peace have those who love your law.

My soul keeps your testimonies.

I love them exceedingly.

That's just a sampling.

You still want to argue about it?

Okay, yeah.

So it's it's a biblical way to speak to say we should love the Bible.

That's number two.

Number three, submit to and obey the Bible.

Why?

Because the Bible has the authority of God Himself.

So your attitude about what the Bible says reveals your attitude about God.

If you disregard God's words in the Bible, then you are disregarding God Himself.

So we don't get to pick and choose which parts of the Bible we follow and which parts we ignore or discard.

So imagine a situation where my wife and I go on a date and we decide to leave the children at home.

It's easier now because they're all 16, 13, 12, so they're they're able, and the seven one needs a babysitter.

But when they were younger, this was this was more challenging.

But uh sometimes I might write on a sticky note or something to the oldest child, you know, Kara, uh please uh after dinner make sure you guys clean up the kitchen and uh I'll I'll take showers and brush your teeth to get in your pajamas.

You know, something like that.

And I left that on the on the refrigerator.

What would you think of my daughter if she argued, I love my dad.

My daddy, I honor him, I love him.

But those words on that sticky note on the fridge, that's not my dad.

That's that's his words on a piece of paper.

I don't have to I don't have to believe those and follow those.

I don't have to obey those words.

I have to obey my dad, but not those words.

Well, what do you think her dad would say if he came home and she made that argument?

You know what I'd say.

Those words are my words.

Those words on a piece of paper carry the authority of your daddy.

It's like I spoke them out loud while looking at you in the eyes.

That's what the Bible is for you, as a as a believer and as an unbeliever.

These are words from the Lord to you, and we need to submit to them and obey them.

Brothers and sisters, one of the metaphors the Bible uses for us is slaves.

We are slaves of Christ, and what a glorious privilege it is to be a slave of Christ and not a slave of sin.

Christ is our benevolent master, and a characteristic of God's people is that we respect and submit to and obey God.

What he says is true for our good, even if we don't fully understand why.

Number four, be grateful for the Bible.

Why?

Because we don't deserve it.

It's only because of God's great mercy and kindness that He communicates to us in the Bible.

Further, just think about how unusual it is in the history of mankind for us to have such easy access to so many out.

Outstanding translations of the Bible in our heart language.

It's amazing.

So some people don't have a translation of the Bible in their native language.

There are about 3,100 unreached language groups in the world right now.

They don't have a Bible in their heart language.

Some people don't have an accurate and understandable translation of the Bible in their native language.

So how many good contemporary English translations do we have today?

It's embarrassing.

My favorite way to have it is with the Hebrew or the Greek, and then I'll have the New American Standard and the Legacy Standard Bible and the ESV, the English Standard Bible, and the NIV, and the NIRV, and the CSB, and the NET, and the NLT, and I just benefit from all of them.

They have different strengths and weaknesses, and I learn from those.

It's really remarkable.

And then not just how many good translations we have, how many copies of the Bible do we have?

Have you ever counted how many Bibles you own?

I did this again last week just because it's uh it's a good reminder of how rich we are.

So I I still don't know the exact number of how many I own because I have them in, you know, they're print, they're electronic, and they're some audio Bibles, and I probably missed some, but as far as I can tell, currently, I own 115 English Bibles, 59 Greek New Testaments, 24 Hebrew Old Testaments, 31 Greek translations of the Old Testament, seven Latin Bibles, 24 modern language Bibles, 17 audio Bibles.

That's 277 Bibles.

That's ridiculous.

That's embarrassing.

Right?

Like, think about people in the history of the world and their access to the Bible.

And we've got unparalleled access to the Bible in our heart language right now.

That's something to thank God for, isn't it?

Be grateful for the Bible and for your access to it.

Number five, read the Bible humbly.

Why?

Because the Bible teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains us in righteousness.

So we are finite and sinful, so we need teaching, we need reproof, we need correction, we need training.

The Lord says in Isaiah 66, this is the one to whom I will look.

He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

So we should not approach the Bible flippantly, proudly, arrogantly.

We should tremble at God's words.

Number six, read the Bible carefully and prayerfully.

Why?

Because the Bible reveals God and his ways, and because there's no other book like the Bible.

So, in one sense, we should read the Bible like any other book, in that it has different styles of literature that express truth according to what the authors intended to communicate.

But we shouldn't read the Bible merely like any other book because it's unique, it's God-breathed.

So there's an affirmation of faith that John Piper drafted for the elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

It's now the statement for the school I teach at, Bethlehem College and Seminary.

The elders of my church have adopted it as our elder affirmation of faith.

Here's a section from it, it's a paragraph.

The process of discovering the intention of God in the Bible, which is its fullest meaning, is a humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture what the human authors intended to communicate.

Limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often obscure biblical texts.

I would say the text, it doesn't obscure the text, we have the problem that make it seem obscure.

It seems obscure.

Therefore, the work of the Holy Spirit is essential for right understanding of the Bible.

And prayer for his assistance belongs to a proper effort to understand and apply God's word.

So a fitting and appropriate prayer to say to the Lord when you're studying the Bible is from Psalm 119, 18.

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

So the doctrine of illumination is not that God would illuminate the Bible, but that he would illuminate our dark minds and hearts so we can see what's really there.

So illumine us as we look at your words.

Carefully reading the Bible is worth devoting your life to.

And I don't say that because I'm a professor who teaches biblical interpretation.

I say it because I'm a Christian.

I believe these are God's words for all God's people, and there are hundreds of good resources to help you here.

I would suggest starting with a really good study Bible, like the ESV Study Bible.

It's a fantastic resource.

And finally, our high view of Scripture won't matter much if we don't actually read the Bible.

So we need to read the Bible routinely.

Now, this issue is a sticking point for some of us.

So I'm gonna press in here with some application, and I'm gonna address two excuses people give for not reading the Bible routinely.

Maybe you can guess what they are.

What do you think are the top two excuses for not reading the Bible routinely?

Excuse number one.

Oh, I don't have the slide up.

Where'd it go?

Okay.

Uh yes.

Oh, did we just lose it?

A while ago.

A while ago.

So I've just been drawing on my iPad.

Okay.

You guys.

Well, while it's thinking, excuse number one is I don't have time to read the Bible.

I don't have time to read the Bible.

Let me just press in here and ask you: are you wisely stewarding the time that God gives you?

So all of us have the same amount of time.

Nobody's is richer in time than other people.

We all have the same amount.

Now it's common for literature on productivity to present a four-quadrant time management grid.

You guys seen this before?

Okay, so we got urgent, not urgent, important, not important.

So if you're typical, you want to spend most of your time in quadrant two.

Important and not urgent.

So these are long-term strategies and development.

But what happens is you actually spend most of your time in quadrant one, important and urgent, so immediate and important deadlines, or more embarrassing, quadrant, actually, I would say next should be quadrant three.

It's not important, but it's urgent, you know, like a phone call or a text message or something.

But then when when you feel pressure to complete urgent tasks, so this is all urgent, that tempts you to unwind by escaping to quadrant four, which is not important and not urgent.

It's like what you do when taking a break from important activities.

So it may be you're furthering time away with social media eye candy, like you know, another cat video or a prank or you know, headline news that's no one's gonna remember in 10 minutes, or something like that.

And social media can be like a magnet that pulls you into quadrant four that pulls you in and keeps you longer than you want to stay.

So that's why productivity gurus emphasize you should do important things first.

There was uh one guy named Stephen Covey who would uh have these seminars and he'd have a table and he'd have a big glass cylinder and he'd have all the stuff on the table.

So you have different size rocks and uh you know, glass of sand and glass of water.

And the test was who can fit all the stuff in the glass cylinder?

And people would try to put it in, and the only way it could all fit is if you put the big rocks in first, then the medium-sized rocks, then the little rocks, then the gravel, then the sand, and then the water, and it goes right to the top.

But if you start with the littler things first, it doesn't all fit.

And that was a a metaphor, a picture for trying to get things done in your life.

You you're most productive if you put the big rocks in first.

So the big rocks, I'm thinking of things like well, you're a Christian, you're a Christian man or a Christian woman with a vocation.

What is entailed in all of that?

So for me, the big rocks are Bible intake, loving my wife, shepherding my kids, and being a faithful pastor and professor.

Like all the other stuff that could I could do, and there's a zillion other things, it's important, but it it comes after those things.

Uh and I would put even uh physical fitness to some degree up in the top as well.

I have that in there five, six days a week because I want to be a good steward of my body for decades, and I don't want to get in my 60s and I can't lift up my grandkids.

So don't forget grandkids.

All right, so so that's why uh uh for Christians, where do you think Bible reading goes?

Which quadrant?

So Bible reading, would we agree it's important?

Yeah.

Is it urgent?

No, it's easy to not do.

It's important and not urgent.

So Bible reading would be quadrant two.

And you say, well, I've I've been making the case while it's why it's important.

Hopefully you're convinced of that by now.

If it is what I've said it is, those seven qualities, and if we should treat it how I've said we should treat it, we need this regularly.

And that need never goes away.

We need the Bible like we need food.

Like you drink liquid and eat food regularly.

You need the Bible like that.

You should be reading it, hearing it, meditating on it, hearing it taught, studying it, applying it.

You want to say with Job, I've treasured the words of God's mouth more than my portion of food.

So if you really believe that, you really believe that it's important, then how should it be part of your daily routine?

That's a question you need to think about.

It's one of the big rocks.

And if you need help, just maybe your life's a wreck with time management.

My favorite book, and I've probably read, I probably wasted time reading productivity books, uh, my favorite book on productivity that's as simple and easy to understand, is by Tim Chalys called Do More Better, a Practical Guide to Productivity.

Maybe that would be a resource to you to help you uh focus and be a good steward of your time.

So that's excuse number one.

Excuse number two is I don't feel like reading the Bible.

So this is different than I don't have time.

This one is I don't feel like doing it.

So my question to you is, well, do you always feel like doing what you should do?

And does that mean you do it or not?

Like kids don't always feel like doing their homework.

But what do we parents tell our kids?

Oh, you don't feel like doing it?

Okay, you don't have to do it.

Is that what we say?

Not if you're a good parent.

Like you teach them a work ethic.

And you do what you need to do even when you don't feel like it.

Parents don't always feel like doing what God's called them to do as parents, like to discipline their children when they're squabbling, for example.

A physically healthy employee might not feel like going to work, but responsible people go to work.

I don't always feel like reading the Bible.

But I don't let that feeling dictate whether or not I read the Bible.

Now, this my testimony here might be helpful to you, hope it's encouraging.

I learned this when I was 14 years old.

I'm 44 now, so 30 years ago.

Um, my parents taught me, my youth pastors taught me, my pastors taught me that we need the Bible every day.

So I thought, okay, it's that important, let's make it a routine first thing in the morning.

And for the last 30 years, the first thing I do when I wake up is read the Bible.

For like the last five or eight years, it's been an audio Bible.

So I wake up, put an earbud in, hit play.

And I start the morning with the Bible.

And I just work through audio Bibles that way.

It's wonderful.

I also study the Bible with my eyes for much of the day, every day.

So I don't want that to count.

I want I want to also be taking it in just as food and not just as part of my job.

And that's a way that uh has consistently nourished me.

Now, it may take discipline to do what we always don't feel like doing.

And a strategic way to approach those kind of activities is to is to develop a healthy pattern or routine or habit.

And people have different statistics.

Some say it takes 66 days in a row to make a habit routine.

But what I'm talking about is you wake up and you don't ask yourself, am I gonna read the Bible today?

You've got a routine, it's what you do.

So I've got routines.

I'm a uh I'm a routine guy.

So if I wake up on Monday, it's Bible, and I'm getting ready to do strength training in my gym, and I don't debate, am I gonna listen to the Bible or am I gonna do strength training?

It's Monday.

That's what I do.

So it's automatic.

I don't debate it, I do it.

So this takes some planning for you.

It might mean you have to plan when to go to bed and when to get up.

Once you get that routine going, oh, the increased efficiency you can have for getting the big rocks in your schedule goes up, up, up, up, up.

And reading the Bible is so important because it's how we enjoy God.

It's one of the richest ways that God satisfies us.

It's a spiritual discipline, it's a means of grace that God is designed to satisfy us with God Himself.

Now, before I move on here, I want to give you quickly four suggestions to add Bible reading into your routine.

First, start small.

So if you have not been consistently reading your Bible, don't think, all right, I'm gonna do ten chapters a day now, I'm gonna work through the Bible once a month until I die.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

That's like saying, I'm out of shape, I'm gonna run a marathon every day.

No, you're not.

So start small and work up.

So, like in the physical area, maybe you can't run a lap around the track, but could you walk around the track?

Start feasibly, so maybe that's five minutes a day.

Just start with something so you get and you're getting regular intake.

Second, choose a feasible plan.

And there are a lot of reading plans to choose from.

My wife, along with some people in our church, follow a reading plan called To the Word Bible Reading Challenge.

That's the one you're doing, right?

So you can jump in at any time.

Don't worry about getting behind.

There are details at Bible Reading.christkirk, K-A-R-K dot com.

Uh that's it's an excellent program.

Or you could uh listen to an audio Bible and you're thinking, does that count?

Of course it counts.

It's it's I audio Bibles are an incredible, wonderful invention.

I love them.

So there are all kinds of amazing audio Bibles out there.

Some are dramatized, different translations.

Uh some of them are free.

There are Bible apps where it's free.

Some of them you have to pay for, like on Audible, but whatever you end up using, just benefit from that regularly.

And then I would say study a portion of scripture in depth.

That's another option.

So you might take a year on the Pentateuch or Isaiah or Paul's letter to the Romans.

And when you go deep like that, you can read multiple translations and maybe even a commentary, have a Bible study with some others about it.

And number three, stick with it.

Set aside a small block of time every day to read the Bible and don't miss a day.

Try for a hundred straight days, be consistent.

And then finally, read with someone else in your church.

Team up with a friend or group of friends where you can say, Hey, what'd you think about that reading from Ezra this morning?

And you can talk about it, text about it.

It would be a layer of accountability as well.

So to summarize, we've answered two questions: what is the Bible, and how should we treat it?

The Bible is God breathed, entirely true, our final authority, enough, understandable, essential to know God, and powerful.

So how should we treat it?

Believe it, love it, submit to it and obey it, be grateful for it, read it humbly, carefully, and prayerfully, and routinely.

And with God's help, you can consistently read the Bible.

There's no substitute for reading and studying the Bible over and over every day.

It's what feeds you, it's what sustains you, it's what grounds you to reality.

It's God's words for you.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for revealing yourself to us in the Bible.

Please increase our trust in you, increase our love for you, increase our obedience to you, increase our gratefulness to you.

And please give us grace to read the Bible humbly and carefully and prayerfully and routinely.

And please continue to satisfy us with yourself for Jesus' sake.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Pre Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jews.

You can learn more by visiting our website.