Return to You and Your Beliefs Series
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"You
and Your Beliefs"--Bibliology, part 1[1]
Does it matter what a person believes?
There’s lots of rhetoric these days about a individual’s beliefs
being a personal and private matter. “I
have my beliefs, you have yours, and it’s okay that we differ.”
In some subjects that thinking may be appropriate: which ball team is
better than another—that’s subjective (until they play each other!); which
is better for you, butter or margarine (that’s subjective, until scientific
studies are run to give objective data comparing the health effects, etc); which
is a better political party; and on and on.
To allow for difference of opinion is fine—but even then, it’s one
thing to allow for difference of opinion, but we don’t naively conclude that
ALL opinions are legitimate ones. They
are tested, even debated.
And then we come to the most important subject of all, the subject of
eternity. And all the sudden popular
opinion says that ALL beliefs are acceptable.
As long as you believe something about God, you’re okay (and if you
don’t want to believe in God, that too is okay) because a person’s
“religious” beliefs are a personal thing.
I disagree. What you say you
believe must be tested. A belief
that is valid will stand careful scrutiny and examination.
In this series we are investigating and seeking to articulate what we
believe about a series of subjects…
Present
Series--"You and Your Beliefs"
Q: What do you believe
about...
1.
The Doctrine of God: Theology
Proper
2.
The Doctrine of the Scriptures: Bibliology
3.
The Doctrine of Jesus Christ: Christology
4.
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit: Pneumatology
5.
The Doctrine of Man: Anthropology
6.
The Doctrine of Sin: Harmartiology
7.
The Doctrine of Salvation: Soteriology
8.
The Doctrine of the Church: Ecclesiology
9.
The Doctrine of Angels: Angelology
10.
The Doctrine of Last Things: Eschatology
Where do you look in the Bible to find out what you should believe about
these topics? There is no one place!
God did not give us a book in the Bible where He listed what we should
believe per se. This is known as
"Systematic Theology."
Definition: "Theology is
the science of God, or more fully, thought and speech which issue from a
knowledge of God." (Bruce Milne, 11)
Systematic theology is the attempt to arrange systematically what we
believe about God and God's truth.
Review “Theological Pyramid” from last week…
Tonight:
The Doctrine of the Scriptures
Christianity is established upon the truth that God exists.
But we would know nothing about this God if He did not do something.
What’s that? Reveal
Himself.
Q: How has God revealed
Himself to Mankind? There are two
basic types of divine revelation…
1. General Revelation
Ps
19:1-3 "The heavens declare the glory of God..."
Rom
1:19-20 "...For the invisible things of Him from the creation...are clearly
seen."
In General Revelation, God reveals His character through His work, namely
through nature (Ps 8:3; 19:1), history, and conscience (Rom 2:15).
Problem: People cannot
comprehend the message of General Revelation.
Why not? Because of sin.
Sin has tainted our ability to draw the correct conclusions about General
Revelation.
E.g.--An unsaved man looks at the
General revelation isn’t bad, just insufficient.
That's why we needed a second kind of revelation...
2. Special Revelation
Q: What did God do in special
revelation?
A: God communicated to man
through acts and words so we could know Him properly.
The climax of God's special revelation came when?
Jn
1:1 "In the beginning was the Word..."
Jn
1:14 "And the Word was made flesh..."
Jn
1:18 "No man has seen God...the Son has declared Him."
Q: Where can you look to find
God's special revelation today?
A: God has given us a
permanent, written record of it. The
Scriptures!
Ps
19:7-11 "The Law of the LORD is perfect..."
Ps
119 *176 benefits of God's
Revelation from A to Z!!
The
Doctrine of the Scriptures
Allow me to pose some key questions.
How do we know the Bible is true? Can
we prove the Bible is God's Word? Where
did we get the Bible? Why does the
Bible have two testaments? Is there
a irreconcilable conflict between Science and the Bible?
Why are there so many translations? Are
they all the Word of God? What about
the apocryphal books?
When we answer these questions, we're addressing Bibliology, the Doctrine
of the Scriptures.
Discuss: How do you know the
Bible is true and is indeed the Word of God?
Let’s address that question together…
"I know the Bible is the Word of
God because..."
Here are four external witnesses…
1. Archaeology
Discuss:
What are some examples of archaeological finds that support the Bible?
Many! Read the journal Biblical
Archaelogy: The Dead Sea
scrolls, the discovery of Caiaphas's tomb, etc.
2. Science
I encourage you to read the materials provided by Answers in Genesis. It is possible to be a “Christian scientist” and not leave your Christianity at the door of the laboratory! There are biblical answers for many of the so-called contradictions between science and the Bible, and Ken Ham and his team at AIG offer good resources to help.
Augustine said: "If we cannot reconcile a contradiction (as between a teaching of the Bible and a piece of secular evidence) we are to suspend judgment, not doubting either the Scripture, or the results of human observation and reasoning, but believing that it is possible, given sufficient knowledge and understanding, to reconcile the apparent contradiction."
3. Fulfilled Prophecy
Discuss: Give some
examples…
4. Personal Experience
Key: One of the greatest
evidences to the authority of the Bible is that it does what it claims to do.
It CHANGES LIVES! "It
changed my life!"
Luther once said, "Talk about defending the Bible?
You might as well talk about defending a lion.
Let it loose. It will defend
itself."
Q: What does the Bible say
about itself? That's internal
witness...
The question again, how do we know the Bible is God’s Word?
Here are four internal witnesses…
1. The Witness of God's Word
I
know the Bible is the Word of God because it claims to be such. See
2 Pet 1:19-21
2. The Witness of the
Prophets
The phrase, "Thus saith the
Lord," appears over 2,000 times in the OT.
Heb
1:1 "God...spoke in time past by the prophets..."
Ps
119:89 "Forever thy Word is settled."
3. The Witness of Jesus
Christ
Jesus testified that God's Word was and is true…
John
10:35 "and the scripture cannot be broken."
Matt
5:17-18 "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the
Prophets..." (=OT)
Jn
17:17 "...Thy Word is true."
4. The Witness of the
Apostles
II
Tim 3:16-17 "All Scripture is God-breathed..."
Challenge:
Since this book is unique, how should we respond to it?
First of all, we ought to thank God for
His Written Revelation! We are a
blessed people to have His Word.
But what specifically should we do with it?
We must not view it merely as an academic textbook.
We must take heed to the exhortation in Joshua 1:8: "This
book...meditate in it day and night...do accordingly..."
Next
Week:
Q: What specifically do we
believe about the Bible? We’ll
examine some key terms relating to the Doctrine of the Scriptures.
The Bible is...
1. Inspired
2. Inerrant
3. Infallible
4. Authoritative
5. Sufficient
We’ll also explore some other related
issues:
1. Illumination of Scripture
2. Interpretation of
Scripture
3. The Canonization of
Scripture
4. Preservation of the
Scriptures (Modern Translations)
[1]
These unedited notes were prepared for use in a Wednesday evening,
discussion-oriented Bible study at