How Did We Get the Bible | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. So I just want to welcome all

those who are here. I appreciate you being here.

We have a lot of folks sick and so just thanks so much for being

here. Just continue to pray for church

members. We've had as many as 6 or 7

deaths in the congregation, relatives and or church members

over the break and even today. And so just continue to lift up

one another. Here's what we're going to do in

this study for those who are listening online and those of

you who are here, we're we're looking at one of our seven

essentials, which is engaging the Bible with a humble and

teachable spirit. And I want to encourage you to

do a couple things. One, is there going to be some

new podcasts that are coming out?

One of them is with Doctor Aiken and Jordan and myself.

And then there's another one where I'm just leading you

through how to have a personal Bible study.

So kind of guiding you look, much like we've done with some

prayer times in the past, there's a podcast out there that

you could listen to while you're having a quiet time, actually

guide you to ask certain questions as you're looking at

scripture and how do I interpret this and how do I apply this in

my life? And so think about that.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to do some introductory

work tonight, but it's very important work.

Maybe there'll be some things you already know and probably a

few things you don't. I bet it's kind of how tonight's

going to go. And then next week I want to

talk about some translation issues.

I've had questions about that and we're going to talk a little

bit about that. And then we're going to be

diving into over the next several weeks.

I'm going to use the word hermeneutics.

I don't want that to bother anybody.

In other words, how do I actually dive into the Bible

and, and actually work through it to get the most out of it I

possibly can? And so it's going to be a deep

study on Bible study and, and how do I observe it as well as

to interpret it, apply it. Now for those who are new and

haven't been here for sessions, there's an old session that I

did a while back where I talked about the doctrine of authority

It back in the summer. It's probably about August ish

or so. You can find it online where I

talk about the issue of the authority of Scripture,

inspiration of Scripture, revelation of Scripture, things

like that. I'm going to assume tonight that

we believe the Bible's the Bible.

And so I'm going to move forward with this.

What I really want to talk about is how in the world did we end

up with what you hold in your hand?

Because it's quite a miraculous story and how did it we go from

the earliest writings to something that I can actually

hold in my in my hand. Next week we'll talk even more

about language, etcetera. So I want, I want to do that.

And so some of this will be a little introductory, but but

let's review it and then we're going to walk through a lot of

this together. And so in your on your handout,

you see a three pager. Don't let that worry you.

But you have basically 66 books of the Bible, some debate about

how many years it took to write these.

Depending upon some date issues, somewhere between 1500 and 1800

years is how long it took for these books to come together.

It's quite fascinating that you have over 40 authors who range

from fig pickers and farmers to kings.

It's, it's quite a, a menagerie of people.

They come from several different countries across the Middle

Eastern culture. And, and what we recognize is,

is that these men from different backgrounds who wrote for these

1800 years or so do so without error and without contradicting

one another in their, in their words, which is an unprecedented

type miracle when you look at ancient writings.

And so it really is a miraculous inspired work when you begin to

think of it that way. And we'll talk more about that.

But the word Bible itself comes from a Latin word, Biblia, which

is which I mean, excuse me, it's a Greek word, not Latin Biblia,

which means little books. And so you think of bibliography

and, and, and words like that. And, and it was originally

written on separate pieces of writing material.

And so I just want to walk through this for a second.

And these different pieces of writing material were actually

would be, would be circulated separately in the very beginning

independently and eventually collected into a volume.

So you see obviously 2 testaments.

In Latin, the word testament would be would mean will.

In Greek, it would be covenant or an agreement or a settlement

of some kind. And so we recognize that in the

beginning there was a thing called the codex.

Now prior to the codex and the codex is important, and I'll

help you understand that in a minute.

But ancient books were originally written on papyrus or

on leather and they would glue the sheets in to end.

And so you would have scrolls often as long as 35 feet long

and so and they could be 9 to 12 inches thick by the time you're

done. And so in the beginning, that's

how a lot of the writing took place and that's how these

writings began. And they were usually only

written on one side. And, and obviously as long as

that roll method was used, for example, you would think about

the book of Luke and the book of Acts was between 32 to 35 feet

long in that original, in that original version.

So you can think about carrying that around with you to church

on Sunday. And so which is why they were,

they were originally written in two volumes and they had to

eventually be separated. But as long as that role method

was used, each of the Gospels and Acts and perhaps some of the

longer letters of the New Testament would have had to

circulate by the individually, you know, there's no way you're

going to have this massive role. And so in the beginning, it was

done that way. And so but eventually papyrus

gave way to Parchman and the role form that scroll form gave

way to what's called the codex. And the codex is actually a

Roman writing tablet, which is a book on both sides and then

eventually becomes a book with leaves, much like we would think

of a book today is what the codex is.

And the codex is very important to us because it allowed for

them to make one book for the four gospels and one for Paul's

letters and and then later A1 big book for the whole Bible.

And so the initial form of that book would have been in this

codex form. In fact, the common use of that

would have been driven by Christianity and the desire to

have the Bible in a book. So our earliest extant, that

word means still in existence. So in other words, part of the

issue that we're often talking about, we'll talk more about

this maybe next week, is the original manuscripts which were

written are no longer in existence that we know of.

So our earliest versions, earliest manuscripts of the

Bible are in these codex forms, especially of the New Testament.

You do have some Old Testament scrolls obviously still, which

we'll talk more about later. But for the New Testament,

they're written in codex. And by the 2nd century, that was

just the way they did everything.

And so the codex becomes the early form of the Bible.

So enough of that physical stuff.

Let me just remind us of what Second Timothy 49 and 13 say,

and it'll kind of give you this image.

So this is Paul writing, and he's asking them to bring him

things in prison. And so he says, do your best to

come to me soon. Then verse 13, when you come,

bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas.

Also the books and above all the parchments.

So the parchments were probably Old Testament scrolls and the

books would have been some of the early letters as well as Old

Testament as well. And so you see this mixture in

his day and time of both the codex and the scroll probably

still taking place. And so these are these earliest

versions that we have. And so eventually what we see is

that the Bible reaches its present state through a very

gradual process. And according to Scripture, at

first, God is communicating with man in an oral form.

You you see God speaking to Adam.

You see God speaking to the early figures in the Bible, not

necessarily writing things down. So he spoke directly to Adam in

Genesis chapter 1, and he would speak directly through the

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

patriarchs and even the prophets.

But the time came when it was necessary for his word to be put

into more of a permanent form. And one of the reasons for this

would be that he wanted his revelation to be made available

for the seceding generations. This needed to be preserved.

It needed to be something that not just those people alive who

are hearing him speak would know it.

But what would bored about their children and their

grandchildren? So you begin seeing God's word

being written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit

as God's revealing this. And the first person mentioned

in the Bible is writing anything, of course is Moses.

And so Moses is mentioned often and you see several passages

there where Moses is mentioned as an author.

So then the early books of the Bible, many of these are

attributed to his hand. For example, Exodus 24 four

says, and Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, he rose

early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the

mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of

Israel. And so the first five books of

the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch.

And it's fairly commonly believed and attributed by other

biblical writers that Moses is the one who wrote these five

books and recorded the law of God.

And others throughout the Old Testament will testify to this.

For example, Joshua chapter 8 verse 31 says, just as Moses,

Joshua 8:31

the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel,

as it is written in the book of the law of Moses.

And so you'll see various testimonies and then others

eventually begin to write as well.

So Joshua was writing, you'll see writings in the book of of

in in for example, Samuel and Jeremiah.

First Samuel 1025 says then Samuel told the people the

rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a

book and laid it up before the Lord.

And then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his

home. And so you see people beginning

to write as God leads them, writing these things down,

writing prophecies down, writing down parts of the Old Testament,

and then later generations to testify of their authenticity,

to testify of their divinity and their inspiration would actually

begin to refer to these writings as authoritative.

And so you'll see that in the book of Daniel, you see that in

Nehemiah, we're studying Nehemiah.

So Nehemiah 81 says, and all the people gathered as one man into

the square before the Watergate. And they told Ezra the scribe to

bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had

commanded Israel. And so they begin to, to quote

these things and to recognize these things as actually the,

the word of God and the, the, the, the, the words that he

wanted for generation after generation to be able to, to

reference. And so one of the things that we

recognize is by about 400 BC, which is about the time of Ezra,

the Old Testament, the collection of these Old

Testament scriptures was pretty well established.

So the Old Testament has a long standing testimony to the books

that belong there. And so and so the Jewish

authority, Josephus even said he was a 1st century Jewish

historian would say that that no book was added to the Hebrew

Scriptures after the time of Malachi.

And so the the Old Testament is we have it in our English

version was pretty well set, even though the Hebrew Bible is

a little bit different. And I'll talk about that in a

minute. So, but but we recognize that

God has worked and preserved these this early form for us.

Now I want to I want to move and talk about this idea of Canon

for a second. Hang in there with me.

And then and then we're going to look at some really important

details about this. So the word Canon means read

Reed because reeds were used like yardsticks and so are a

ruler, and so a Reed was a measuring device.

And so the Canon, the word Canon came to to mean a measure or a

rule. And so the canonization of

Scripture is how they decided which books were in the Bible

and which books were not, in which books were inspired by God

and which books were not. And this is quite a process, and

a lot of people don't understand this process.

And a lot of people will question the authenticity or

authority of Scripture because they don't understand the

process. And so it's helpful for us to

have some awareness of how canonicity and authority go

together. And so the Canon or the

canonicity of a book depends upon its authority.

And so these books are books that have been regarded as

having divine authority, and they comprise what we consider

the Canon or the Bible. And so a book first had to have

recognition of divine authority based on its inspiration.

First Corinthians 1437 says if anyone thinks that he's a

prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am

writing to you are a command of the Lord.

In other words, these are divinely inspired by the Holy

Spirit and not just creation of man.

And there'll be others obviously, who are going to test

that. So, So one of the things that

you'll see is that a book is accepted into the Canon because

of its general acceptance of of that authority.

Now by the time Jesus comes along, the Old Testament Canon

had been fixed. So in other words, by the time

the New Testament rolls around, 400 years or so after Malachi,

by the time Jesus is there, what they considered the Old

Testament was already fixed. They were not debating that.

They weren't questioning that anymore.

It was already done for years before that.

And and Jesus himself will identify Old Testament

scriptures and demonstrate obviously their fulfilment in

him. One of the great passages to

read is Luke chapter 24 after the resurrection, when he is

Luke 24 · chapter mention

explaining to his disciples how all of the Old Testament is

pointing to him. And so he sees this Canon as a

whole. And then throughout the New

Testament, authors are recognizing the Old Testament as

Scripture. So in the New Testament, when

somebody says the Scriptures or the Holy Scriptures, they're

referring to the Old Testament because that's the Bible as they

would have had it. And so one of the ways they're

sharing the gospel is by using the Old Testament passages.

And So what we see here is we see these references to the

Scripture, to the Scriptures. I mean, Jesus himself would say

in Matthew 2142, Jesus said to them, have you never read this

in the Scriptures? The stone that the builders

rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in her eyes.

So Jesus is quoting the Old Testament as authoritative.

He's quoting the Old Testament as the word of God.

You see Paul doing the same thing in these other passages.

And so again, Josephus, this historian in the 1st century,

wrote about the Scripture of the Jews.

And what he's referring to is what we would now consider the

Old Testament. And so he's, he's recognizing

the Old Testament much like we would today.

You've got to understand that the Old Testament is actually

used by three major world religions.

And so Islam uses the Old Testament, Judaism uses the Old

Testament as well as Christianity.

And so it's a, it's been around a long time in its current

state. So Josephus, this is story in

this 1st century guy he named, he listed, actually listed 22

books that were contained in the Hebrew Bible.

And so in the Hebrew Bible, you had the five books of Moses, you

had the 13 books of the prophets, and you had four books

of hymns and precepts. And Josephus's number of books

was confirmed later in the 3rd century by early Christian

writers. And so now it's interesting

because he talks about 22 books. How many books does our Old

Testament contain? 39.

And so one of the things you have to recognize, don't let

that throw you. That's not a mistake.

It's not an error, it's not a contradiction.

You've just got to understand the Hebrew Bible is arranged

differently than our English versions.

And so all 39 books in the English versions are contained

in the 22 books of the Hebrew Bible.

They just have combined many of the books in ways that we have

separated them. And so all the same content is

there. There's no difference, There's

no contradiction. It's just a different

organization. And so all 39 of our books are

included in the 22 books. This is a Hebrew Bible and this

is Greek, sorry, this is a Hebrew Bible right here.

And, and it's just arranged differently and it always was.

And there, there's some reasons for that.

I'll talk about that either later tonight or next week.

But in the Hebrew, it's just, it's all there all the same.

It's just going to be combined in ways that we would separate.

And So what we recognize then is that this Old Testament was

complete. Well, what do we do then?

It's going to take a minute, which is why I've been trying to

get here. So this is called the Jerusalem

Bible. Now, it's not the only one of

his kind, but this Bible is a Bible that would be used by the

Catholic Church. And the Catholic Bible has

different books in it than what our evangelical or Protestant

Bible has in it. So why what in the world's going

on? Well, it's called the Apocrypha.

And so the Apocrypha came along and the word apocrypha kind of

means concealed is kind of what it means.

It actually began eventually to mean non canonical.

In other words, these aren't part of the Canon, but they're

included for devotional benefit, ethnic, or ethical reading.

And and other and, and history and things like that, but

they're not considered the inspired word of God in the same

way. So what you have in the

Apocrypha are a whole bunch of other books.

And if you've never seen the names, I have them listed there

for you just because some of them are interesting to read.

If you've never seen the Apocrypha or understood the

Apocrypha, then then you see these historical books.

There's some legendary books, there's some prophetic books,

there's some ethical devotional books in there, but these books

were never accepted as a whole into the Hebrew Canon.

And I'll tell you why. So, so the, and also there are

some doctrinal issues that are unique to the Roman Catholic

Church that come out of the Apocrypha.

For example, purgatory. The idea of purgatory comes from

the Apocrypha. And so, but these doctrines and

these books were rejected or at least not included in the Canon.

There are some books in the Apocrypha that are just

historical. You have the Maccabees that tell

the story of a Jewish revolt. It's a historical book,

interesting reading, but it's not it's not going to help you

lead your life in the same way, but it's just a history book.

And so there are books in there, but they were rejected because a

number one, and it's very significantly, they were never

included in the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament.

So when the when the original Old Testament was formed, these

books were not in it. These were added much later by

others. And so in the original Hebrew

Bible, these were just not a part of it.

Secondly, they were never accepted by Jesus and the

apostles. They were never accepted by

Jewish writers of the 1st century or early Christians.

These they show no evidence of any intrinsic, intrinsic

qualities of inspiration and to and I'm trying to be kind, but

objections about these books can't be overruled by some

authority outside of scripture. In other words, papal or papal

authority is not enough to declare something a scripture.

And so that's how some of these books came to be included.

The church itself put them in to support some of the doctrinal

conclusions that they wanted to reach.

So there's a little proof texting going on with the

Apocrypha along the way. And so in fact, in fact, there

was a church council in, in the year 90 that worked very hard

to, to analyze and to discuss and, and to basically overrule

and not include the books of the Apocrypha.

And so I don't know that some of the books of the Apocrypha would

do you no harm necessarily to read.

Some of them might confuse you. And so I don't necessarily

advise studying the Apocrypha as your as your devotional life,

but if you're just interested in literature, maybe there would be

some things that you might find interesting.

So just to kind of finish up the Old Testament, then to recognize

that the Old Testament today in the English version basically

has five books of the law from from Genesis to Deuteronomy, 12

books of history, Joshua to Esther, five books of poetry or

wisdom from Job to Song of Solomon.

And some debate whether Job should be included in that or

not, depending upon how literal you think Job is it or not,

which scholars debate. And then 17 books of prophets

from Isaiah to Malachi, which are often divided into 5 major

prophets and 12 minor prophets. And then the arrangement though.

So why is our English Bible different than the Hebrew Bible?

I'm glad you asked. Thank you for asking that

question. I know you're on your edge of

the seat to know this. So we, our English version came

from the Vulgate, which was the Latin version, and the Latin

version came from the Greek version version of the Old

Testament. Does anybody know what that was

called? The Septuagint.

So the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the

Septuagint, and it's called that because there was a whole group

of 70 scholars who worked together on that.

Then that was translated into Latin and then our English

order, not words, but our our English order followed that

Latin version. And so sometimes people say, why

is the Old Testament arranged the way it is?

For example, why are the prophets in the order that

they're in? Does anybody know why the Old

Testament prophets are in the order that they're in in the Old

Testament in our English Bible? Anybody know?

It's a really deep theological reason.

They go from largest to smallest, so it can be quite

confusing. And my preference would have

been that they would have been put in chronologically.

And so that's why when you're studying, especially Old

Testament prophets, for example, I mentioned Sunday that if

you're going to study Nehemiah, it's great to study Ezra with

Nehemiah, but it's also great to study Haggai and Zechariah with

them too. But if you don't know that

Haggai and Zechariah are in the same time frame with Nehemiah

and Ezra, you're going to need some study helps or something to

show you that or read carefully to even understand where it fits

in, in the timelines. And so in our personal Bible

study, we're going to talk about, so how do we figure this

out down the road? It's going to get to be a very

practical thing after tonight to where, how do I take this Bible

and how do I observe this? How do I ask the right

questions? How do I analyze the text and

how do I interpret the text and how do I apply the text in my

life? We're going to break that down

in very significant ways over the next few weeks.

I, I don't know if you've ever been through a study like that

or not, but it'll be really helpful to you.

And then how do I teach others? So for those of you who are

teachers, there'll be a section at the end on homiletics.

How do I actually teach others? So there's kind of the Old

Testament in a nutshell. So let's spend a little more

time on the New Testament. So the New Testament is

fascinating because in the New Testament you spent the 1st 30

years or so in what we would call the oral period.

All right. And so the early emphasis of the

apostles was not in recording anything.

It was proclaiming everything. And so you walk through this

time period to where, you know, Jesus never wrote a book.

And so his apostles would eventually write the Gospels.

But they actually come quite, quite a bit later because in the

beginning it was all about proclaiming this message, right?

Because the early emphasis was on that.

So they utilized two major sources in the beginning to to

convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

And the primary source they were using up front were

eyewitnesses. The apostles were still alive

and they were testifying and, and you had eyewitness accounts

of others beyond the disciples, the 12 who had seen Jesus, been

healed by Jesus, seen miracles of Jesus.

And so you had all these eyewitness accounts.

Remember, after the resurrection, he didn't just

appear to the 12. The Bible says that he appeared

to hundreds, and so you had hundreds of people testifying

about this. Think of a Lazarus and think of

other people along the way, Mary and Martha, and all these people

along the way who've been touched by the Messiah.

And so these personal witnesses of Jesus were sharing and then

they were also utilizing the Old Testament Scriptures to show the

fulfilment of prophecy when it came to Jesus, especially the

book of Isaiah. When you, when you start reading

in the middle part of Isaiah and you start reading the suffering

servant passages, as I've mentioned to you before, one of

the greatest ways to share the gospel with somebody from a

Jewish background is take them to Isaiah.

And there's no question that Isaiah is talking about Jesus in

the suffering servant passages. And so they would use these

prophetic passages. Jesus fulfilled over 300

prophecies. And so they would use the

fulfillment passages and these other passages to point to him

because the Old Testament was their Bible.

And in the beginning, I don't think they're thinking about we

need to write another part of the Bible, right?

I don't think God had led him to that yet because in the

beginning it was all about proclamation and spreading the

gospel around the Roman Empire, as we saw in the book of Acts.

And, and there was probably even a sense of resistance to writing

things down for several reasons. One is they thought Jesus was

going to come back. And so they really expected the

eminent return of Jesus Christ. And so at any minute now he's

going to come back. And so in fact, Paul had to kind

of get onto the Thessalonikins for sitting on the hillside

staring at the sky. And so, you know, Jesus is going

to come back at any moment. There's no reason to write this

down. We've got to share about him as

much as we can. And then boom, the end of time

is going to come. And so that was one of the

things that was what was part of the deal.

And then and then I think they they preferred to speak rather

than write. In fact, second John verse 12

says this, though I have much to write to you, I would rather not

use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you

and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete in their

cultural context, relationship and community where everything

and so in this original in these original days, early days, they

would miss rather meet together and talk through this together.

It was a very oral. You got to think about these

guys were were raised in a very non literary segment of of

culture. So it wasn't like these

disciples were great scholars and authors in their in their

natural states. And so and it was wasn't that

common to think about writing a book.

And so they were very non literary.

They were oral. This is an oral culture.

And so they're meeting together and having these oral

conversations. Now the Pharisees would preserve

their teachings and, and they would preserve them both orally.

And then, and then sometimes they would begin to write that

down. But you got to recognize that

Jesus himself was not writing things.

Everything was oral. And so you have to see in the

beginning and, and just remember that because these Apostolic

witnesses were still alive, they were still available.

They were still there. The thought of we need to hurry

up and write this stuff down was just not in their immediate mind

yet. The Holy Spirit hadn't pressed

that on them yet. And so then we enter into what

we would call the writing period and three different events I

think really come into play to, to, to that I think the Holy

Spirit impressed upon these folks.

You need to write this stuff down in in this inspired way.

And one of them was the death of the apostles.

So these apostles are dying. They're dying in persecution.

They're dying in martyrdom, many of them except for John.

And so they're dying. And so these eyewitnesses are

beginning to disappear. And so we need to preserve their

eyewitness testimonies for generations to come.

And this is the process that God is using.

You also then also see the spread of the gospel to non Jews

who have no Old Testament backdrop.

And so they don't have that concept, they don't have that

bridge of fulfilment of the Old Testament in their heads.

So they need this gospel story preserved for them and written

especially doctrinal writings with Paul so that they can

actually understand the truth because they have no they have

no foundation in that. And then the third thing would

be the rise of persecution. And so because of persecution

and because of the death of the apostles, we recognize that that

during the century after the death of Jesus, the 27 books of

the New Testament were written and then slowly collected into a

volume together as God preserved this knowledge and inspired

people to write it down. So the first book, and this is

debatable, but the first book of the New Testament was probably

written somewhere around the year 47.

And then the last book somewhere probably between 95 and 100, as

as John writes the revelation and as the Holy Spirit leads him

to do that. And So what we recognize is that

this is quite a process that takes a long time.

And then eventually what happens is first comes 1st come some of

the letters that Paul would write and others would write and

remember that these were addressed to to real churches

and real people about real problems, and they were written

to these individuals. But from the beginning, these

writings were looked upon as distinctly authoritative.

They understood that there was something special about these

letters being written and that they were divinely inspired, and

so they were read publicly. First Thessalonians 527 says I

put you underoath before the Lord to have this letter read to

all the brothers. They were also exchanged and

shared between churches. And so Colossians 416 says, and

when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in

the Church of the Laodiceans and see that you also read the

letter from Laodicea. So they're exchanging and and

sharing letters and doctrine and truth that are written from

church to church. And so as these things are

exchanged, they're beginning to be combined into volumes and

collected in these sets that would travel.

And then eventually comes the the, the embodiment in writing

of the central events of the life of Jesus.

And so the Gospels begin to take form.

And so you might say, well, how, why are the Gospels different

from one another? It's because they're written to

different audiences. And so you'll see a Matthew

written very much to a Jewish audience, which is why you start

off with the genealogy the way you do.

And you'll see Luke being written to him a much more of a

gentile audience, a very different audience.

And so it has a different and, and John is approaching this

from a theological perspective because John is fighting false

teaching all along the way as well.

And he's trying to show, he's fighting Gnosticism and he's

fighting false teaching both in the Gospel and his first, second

and third John letters to where he's fighting false teaching.

So it's a very, it's much more of a theological, doctrinal type

approach. And so these, these these

gospels are different, not because they're telling

different stories, but they're just different perspectives and

different angles that the Holy Spirit is preserving through

these men as he's using them to write these things down.

And so the the Gospels started as eyewitness accounts, and as

these witnesses died, the need for this authoritative written

narrative was inspired by the Holy Spirit to help him.

In fact, John 20 verses 30 through 31 says this.

John 20:30–31

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples

which are not written in this book.

So there's an acknowledgement. Not everything was written down

in John. Now, it may be that some of

those things were in Mark or Luke or Matthew, or some of them

may have not been written down at all because we didn't need

them today. God knew we didn't need them

right now. And so he's given us what we

need. And it says there.

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is

the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life

in his name. So there's no question that

these authors and readers are considering these as

authoritative and inspired words of God.

So after the letters came the Gospels, then the book of Acts,

and then finally the last one written would have been the book

of the Revelation. And so you see this progression

as they're gathering often because in our English Bible we

see the Gospels first. We think, well, that's the first

thing that was written down. Well, it wasn't.

Paul's letters would have been earlier in writing than the

Gospels would have been. And so then the Gospels come to

be. And so these things travelled in

sets and in multi volumes and then eventually one volume and

then eventually you're able to put together the whole thing in

this miraculous book. And some of that is also

technologically driven. You've got to think that one of

the greatest tools of the great spiritual awakenings, believe it

or not, one of the greatest miracles of the great spiritual

awakenings is the printing press.

And so you, you got to recognize, and we'll talk more

about this next week, but these things had to be hand copied.

Everything was hand copied and, and until the printing press

came along and then you can start mass producing the word of

God. And so the printing print, the

invention of the printing press is actually a key to the great

spiritual awakening as the Bible was able to go out to the masses

in language for the first time in human history.

So it's amazing what God does even with some practical things

like that. And so then along the way there

are testimonies. How in the world do we know this

is really scripture, etcetera? So along the way there were

early witnesses to the New Testament books and I have a lot

of names they're written, which I'm not going to go through all

that with you. But just to recognize that there

were testimony after testimony after testimony of these, what

we would call the early church fathers.

These are church leaders. These are, these are Christians,

bishops, leaders that wrote, leaders that met in councils and

they were evaluating and testing the word of God and the, and the

doctrines all along the way and testifying to the authenticity

of, of these books. And then there were a lot of

books that were not allowed in. And sometimes they still raise

their interesting heads. So every now and then you'll

hear about some brand new, brand new hidden manuscript that

somebody's found. And there'll be a book at the

airport bookstore about it. Or there'll be a documentary on

The History Channel about this new gospel that nobody ever knew

about, like the Gospel of Thomas or something.

And I promise you, none of those are new.

They've been around since the before the 2nd century and they

were dealt with back then. They were considered heresy in

those days or considered non inspired in those days.

After church council, after church council, after church

council, after church council. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

There's nothing about those that would show any evidence of being

inspired. So there's nothing new.

So these brand new revelations, brand new hidden discoveries

that people get all excited about on social media, they're

not new. They're quite ancient.

And have been dealt with a long time ago.

So, So what are some of the bases?

What, what are some of the reasons that they would actually

say, OK, this, this is something that ought to be included and

this is something that doesn't need to be included.

And so let's talk about this for a minute because it's very

important. And so one of the basis for

understanding whether or not a book ought to be in the New

Testament, for example, was whether or not it was used and

accepted by the Orthodox congregations.

So the church, the use by the church and what the church did

for it was one of the one of the ways that carried some some

weight in these decisions. And so these books were used at

a very early date and various parts of the Roman Empire.

And so most of the books of the New Testament were acknowledged

as Apostolic. They were authoritative

throughout the Church before even the close of the 2nd

century. And so even though they might

not have been formed into a Bible as we know it, yet they

were being used and they were considered authority from very,

very early days. And so that's one of the one of

the basis of it. Another one would be doctrinal

consistency. So the church had to struggle a

lot with heresy early on. They had to struggle again with

Gnosticism or, or, or many others.

There's a long list that I could read to you, but that we won't

bother with that. But, but there are a lot of

these heresies about Jesus and about the Word.

And so any of these books that hinted that those kinds of

heresies that they were dealing with were rejected.

So there had to be a doctrinal consistency to where the Word of

God is not going to contradict itself.

The truth is going to be the truth.

A huge issue that was Apostolic origin.

In other words, many of the books that we would consider in

the New Testament today were attributed to an apostle.

So an apostle either wrote it or somebody was writing it for an

apostle. For example, the Gospel of Mark

is often considered the words of Peter that Mark met with Peter

and, and was actually recording what the apostle Peter would

say. And so we recognize that that

this Apostolic origin is, is a huge factor when it came to

these early church fathers and these early church councils to

make these decisions. And then obviously the issue of

inspiration. So the ultimate test where they

gave evidence of being divinely inspired, giving evidence of of

having authority. The Holy Spirit was guiding the

church discerning between genuine and and counterfeit

writings. And a period of time was needed

before the church in the various parts of the empire could

actually come to unanimous decision concerning the 27

books. And so, but from from early on,

they reached this conclusion that these 27 books that we have

in our New Testament were the books.

And you'll see a list of some of the council's that came along

later to affirm that. And by at least 367, all books

were accepted. Those 27 books, some of the

books were disputed a little longer than others.

The Book of James was one of them.

Some people felt like the Book of James was too practical.

Even some people in the Reformation didn't necessarily

like the book of James because they felt like it was a little

too practical. But the church fathers and the

church councils accepted James and and included it.

And Hebrews itself is sometimes controversial because of the

authorship. But by the time you get to these

these councils in the two hundreds and three hundreds,

you'll see that everything is ratified and everything is

finally in place in its final form.

And so what's interesting then is, is that when you, when you

move to the New Testament today and you think about the modern

book is as we know it, We see these five books of history, as

we might call them, 21 books of doctrine, one book of prophecy

as well. And, and in our version today.

Now it's interesting because when we talk about, and we'll

talk more about this next week, but when we start talking about

the languages and translation, we recognize that you have at

least three languages that the book the Bible was written in

and its original manuscript form.

You have Hebrew and then you have Aramaic.

Aramaic came into fashion. The exile had something to do

with that. But but there are many parts of

Daniel, for example, are written in Aramaic.

It's very likely that Jesus actually spoke Aramaic.

He would have probably he would have been able to speak Greek

too in his world. But most of the New Testament

written in Greek other than quotes of Jesus in Aramaic and

parts of the Old Testament are in Hebrew and Aramaic.

And so you have translation issues that come into play along

the way. And but one of the things that

we've mentioned before and I, I want to spend a few moments

before we close this out today. And I appreciate your patience

with this. I just want to lay a foundation

because when we start talking about what does it mean to begin

to observe and then interpret the word of God, we need to have

an understanding of how the word of God came together for us.

And so even though God used men to write this, this, this

document for us, this, this word that we have today, the the

primary issue is that this is inspired in a miraculous way by

the Holy Spirit. So we acknowledge what Second

Timothy 3 says, where it says all Scripture is breathed out by

God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and

for training and righteousness, and the fact that the

inspiration of Scripture makes all the difference.

And so even though when you look at original language and you

look at these authors, you recognize there's a background,

there's personality involved, there's vocabulary and grammar

choices that we're still, they're still visible.

Paul wrote differently than John wrote, for example.

John wrote differently than Mark and their use of vocabulary and

grammatical structure and things like that.

So you see, you see, the reality of a human being being used by

God, but the content itself is being divinely inspired so that

it's trustworthy and that we don't have to question whether

or not the Bible is truly the word of God or not.

And so the way that we then deal with it as we trust not only

what we believe the Holy Spirit is showing us today, but we also

trust this history of, of, of Christians throughout the ages

who, who were used by God to heavily evaluate and to deal not

only with whether or not a book of the Bible should be included

or not, but whether or not heresy is being addressed.

And the fact that they scrutinized this over and over

and, and over again. And so even though we may, we

may wonder at times about how certain things came together.

One of the great miracles of Scripture is, is that I don't

know of another ancient document that is put together in a way.

And I'm not talking about the inspirational side of it, but

even the practical side of it, to where you have such a

consistent story from beginning to end.

It's all pointing to the same place.

And so even throughout the centuries you had, by the Middle

Ages, the Roman Catholic Church comes into power and in a sense

has supreme authority over a lot of ecclesiastical issues, which

is where some of the Apocrypha and some of these other writings

come into play. But then with the Reformation,

we see them going back to to the original versions of Scripture.

And Luther once said this, He said the Scripture only, without

tradition, was the single and complete source of doctrine.

And he also said that the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament and

acknowledged books in the New Testament ought to be admitted

as authoritative. And so even though he was part

of the Catholic Church, he recognized the problems and

fought that. And he and Calvin actually would

go back and forth a little bit during the Reformation debating

on whether a book should be considered Scripture or not.

Well, beyond all that, I also rest in a truth that we depend

upon, and that is the fact that the the word of God is living

and active. Amen.

And because it's living and active, it's sharper than any 2

edged sword and it's able to Pierce and see.

This is what makes it different. This is not just a collection of

writings. In my undergrad program, I was

AI had a minor in literature for a while, had multiple minors for

a while and and would study the great anthologies of literature,

both British literature and American literature, and would

had to read all the great works of writing that were collected

over the years. And there would be a book about

this thick, these anthologies of literature that you would read

and and those are interesting writings, but there was nothing

alive about that, nothing living, nothing, nothing

convicting, nothing piercing about that.

And the word of God is is is not a dead book.

It's a it's a book that able able to Pierce to the very

depths of your being and is also coming to convict you, but it's

also going to correct you and it's also going to guide you.

And so over these next few weeks, what I want us to do is

next week, I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about the

different translations. Some of you have expressed your

great disdain for the ESV and we'll talk about that.

And I'm going to talk about the King James Version all the way

through some of the modern versions and why there are

different versions, why the different English translations,

What do they mean? How do you pick one?

Why do I use what I use, etcetera.

And then we're going to dive into how do I actually approach

the Bible. And so I, I know tonight was

very introductory. So don't just come tonight.

You, you got to come for the rest because tonight the idea

was as I wanted you to see how this came together in this

miraculous way. Then I want us to recognize when

I open my Bible in my living room or my bedroom or my prayer

closet or wherever I am, how do I actually approach this book?

How do I treat this book? How do I read this?

How do I observe the text? What are the questions I ought

to be asking? How do I actually decipher what

this means? And to have an understanding of

how it came together I think will prove more helpful to you

than you might know tonight. But one of the things that I

hope you always appreciate is the fact that you can hold one

of these things in your hand in a language that's your heart

language. And I've shared this with you

before that out of the 11 to 12,000 languages on the planet,

this exists as a whole and very few, just a few 100.

And all around the world, there are people who have no ability

to hold an entire Bible in their hands.

And so one of the things that I hope that you'll cherish is just

the very fact that this exists. And it really is quite amazing

that you can take a good English translation.

I can hold it up to the Greek and the Hebrew and, and

recognize how absolutely accurate these these good

translations are. I can read Greek.

My Hebrew is not as good. I can still translate Greek.

But to recognize that the English translations, the

accuracy and the fact that this is centuries old, thousands of

years old, and the fact that it's been preserved for us in

the way that it has with such accuracy, that alone the Bible

is a miracle and the existence of it is a miracle.

And its power is miraculous. It changes lives.

It does not return void. It can actually change who we

are. And so I hope that you won't

take for granted the privilege you have of personally being

able to study the Word of God, but that also you'll understand

the privilege of corporately coming together in a connect

group. You didn't think you're going to

get away with that, did you? Or a worship service.

And to systemically study the Word of God and to feed on it.

And my friends, just to understand the people I know

around the world. Teresa and I had the privilege a

few years ago of being in Istanbul, Turkey, and I should

have brought it in here. I have it in my office and and

being there when the Iranian Bible Society, which operates in

diaspora, in other words, they are not allowed to exist inside

the nation of Iran right now. Now, I was talking to Combes

today, who has internal insights into the protests happening in

Iran, and there's a hope and a belief that this protest is

going to actually come to some fruition.

His plan is to move back to Iran as soon as possible and start a

seminary there. But the Iranian or Persian Bible

Society operates in diaspora. Dear friends of mine, Monsieur

and his wife are the leaders of this Bible Society.

And Teresa and I were actually there in Istanbul with people

from Iran and other Iranians from around the world in

diaspora who came to Istanbul for a graduation, but also for a

dedication of an entire Bible with a up to date brand new

translation in Farsi of the entire Word of God that was

being sent back into Iran in large numbers, both on hardcover

and digital, to spread in the Iranian church.

And to watch these people. There was a pile of them, and

they came and laid hands on that pile of Bibles, just weeping and

and singing and rejoicing over the fact that they could have

one of those. And so part of what I wanted

tonight to be was just a night of appreciation, a night of

recognition of what a privilege we have of being able to gather

in a place like this and study this word.

And many of you have multiple copies of this at home.

Many of you would have more than one.

And that I pray a day didn't go by that you don't take it.

Go listen to those podcasts. How do I study this?

How do I get the most out of this?

How do I, how do I have the richest, deepest personal Bible

study in my life? How do I, how do I make this

book written over thousands of years by all these different

people from all these different places with all these different

languages? How God was the binding, the

unifier, the inspirer, the one that brings all that together so

they can still change somebody today and change somebody's life

tomorrow. I hope that you appreciate the

fact that when I stand up in that place on Sunday mornings

that my prayer is real simple. Teresa hears me pray this

sometimes, that you all hear what you're supposed to hear

from Him, not necessarily anything from me, because it's

His word that will change you. It's His Word that will grow you

and his word that'll convict you.

So I hope we have a deep appreciation of it.

And I, I look forward to these days ahead.

It's going to be a great study. It's going to be some different

things than you've probably ever seen before.

We're going to dive deeply into some hermeneutical study and I'm

going to help you with that. Don't let that word scare you.

It's just how do I best study the Bible?

OK, That's what we're going to do.

How do I engage in it? So I just want to pray.

I want to thank the Lord for his word.

I want to spend a few minutes in prayer about that and then we'll

close out. Father, I'm so thankful.

Father, thank you for the folks who've come tonight.

Thank you, Father, for the Bible.

Father, it's an amazing thing how you wanted to preserve your

revelation to us. Father, you reveal to us that

about which you that we need to know.

And Father, you want us to be able to remember what you reveal

to us. And so thank you for inspiring

these these writers over the years to record your inspired,

perfect, infallible, and errant word.

And that, Father, because of your miracle and the way you

guided that process, I don't have to worry about whether it's

accurate. I don't have to worry about

whether they're errors or not because Father, you guided the

process. So the Father, I believe in that

and I believe in you and I believe in your word.

And so, Father, help me to cherish your word.

Help me to cherish the privilege of reading the Bible in an

easily understood language. Use that word to convict me and

change me, to teach me, to convict me.

Help me, Father, to expose others to that word because it

has the power to change lives. And Father, forgive me, Father,

when I take it for granted or I take it lightly, or I take it

flippantly. And Father, I pray that this

will be the authority in my life.

Father, I thank you for the conversations, even in the

doctoral seminars this week about the authority that we have

to have in our lives and that the only trustworthy authority

is this one. The world's going to throw so

many others at us, Father, And by faith, by your grace, Father,

we have to recognize that this is the only source of authority

upon which I can depend. And so, Father, I just want to

say thank you. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for entrusting it to us to share with others.

So I pray that we'll be faithful studiers.

I pray that we'll be faithful sharers and teachers.

Thank you, Father, for the way that you've used your Word to

change my life and the life of others.

And Father, we just pray, Lord, that as a church, that Father,

we will be a people of the Word and we'll depend upon it to

guide us. So, Father, thank you for the

opportunity of being here tonight.

I do, Father, continue to lift up those who are not feeling

well and those who've suffered loss who could not be here

tonight. Father, I look forward to the

gathering on Sunday that we might honor you and worship you.

And Father, in the meantime, we do lift up our friends overseas.

The Father, you would work in a miraculous way.

And Lord, we look forward to giving you the glory for that.

So, Father, guide us, protect us, be with us the rest of the

night in Christ's name, Amen. Thank you all.

God bless you all. Thank you so much for listening

today, and I also hope that you'll go to

[email protected] as well as our app and find many

other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.