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- If God could
speak, what would he say?
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What would he tell us about the world?
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What would he tell us about himself?
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If God could speak, how would he speak?
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Would he tell us everything at once?
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Would he have an angel bring
heavenly books to Earth?
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If God could speak, would we understand?
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Would his language be so far beyond us,
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would his intention be impossible to see?
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When God speaks, what does he say?
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- The Bible's a revelation
of the character
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and the will of God.
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It tells us who he is and how we can live
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in a relationship with him.
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That's the primary thrust,
I think, of the Bible.
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It's interesting the Bible starts in Eden
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and it ends in Eden, so
it's all about living
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in a relationship with him,
and what that looks like.
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- When we ask the question
what the Bible is,
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the best way to say it is the Bible
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is God's written relation to his people.
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Now, God reveals himself
in all kinds of ways,
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and he actually speaks in
ways outside the Bible,
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in days of old to prophets
and to the people of God,
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and so you'd hear the voice of the Lord
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and call it the word of the Lord,
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but over time, that became inscripturated,
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became written down into his word,
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and over time we've collected the books
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that contain those words
into 66 smaller books
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that collectively we call the Bible.
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- The Bible is a collection
of divinely-inspired texts
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that document not only what God
has done throughout history,
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but also what that means.
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So it interprets what those events mean.
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- You have a book written
by 40-some authors
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over 1,500-plus years, and
dozens of different topics
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that have absolute unity.
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Most of the people didn't
know each other who wrote it,
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so it has amazing unity
within great diversity,
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which is best accounted for by deity.
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- But here we have this
grand narrative that is meant
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to bring us back into fellowship with him.
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To bring us into a harmonious
fellowship with one another,
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where we live together,
reflecting his character.
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And ultimately, a redeemed humanity
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in a new heaven and a new Earth.
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- Here is the one who made
us, addressing us about how
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life should be lived and
how we should approach life.
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It's full of wisdom.
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It's full of discernment.
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It's full of direction and guidance.
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In some cases, correction.
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And so, I think to get a good
look at who we really are,
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as people, the image and
metaphor that's used about
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the Bible is that it's a good mirror.
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It helps us to see things
as they really are.
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- I often tell people that one of the ways
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that I know that the Bible is true
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is the way that it diagnoses my sin.
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I'm often reading through
a passage and I'm thinking:
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this was written 3,000 years ago,
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and yet it perfectly diagnoses the state
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of the sin of my heart.
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How could human beings
have been able to do that?
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And the only way that can
happen is if my creator
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is actually the author of the book.
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- We read books so that
we might understand them.
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But when we read the Bible, we
realize that it is describing
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who we are and what we are.
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It's also unique in that it
provides the only satisfying
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answer to the question
of our human existence.
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It tells us why we're here
and where we're going.
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And why it matters.
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- You need God, specifically,
in propositional language,
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telling us certain facts about
reality, including himself.
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You can get some of
those facts from nature,
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but you can't get all of them.
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You can't get that God is triune,
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you can't get the plan of
salvation from the stars.
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You can only get it from
special revelations.
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So if we're gonna be saved and sanctified,
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we need the scriptures.
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- The study of the word
of God, at any level,
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is the study of God, himself.
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There's some kind of identity
between God and his word,
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and yet, to say that the study of the word
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as words and propositions on a page,
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is not an end in itself, because
it's to drive us to Christ.
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To God, himself.
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- In the upper room, in the
great intercessory prayer,
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Jesus prayed for the
sanctification of his disciples,
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and he said: sanctify them by thy word.
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That's the means by
which we are sanctified.
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Then he went on to say: thy word is truth.
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- So the scriptures should dominate
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everything that the church does.
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It shouldn't be an aside
to what the church does.
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The foundation of what
the church should do
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should be about advancing
the message of scripture.
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- Where you find a
healthy biblical church,
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by definition, you're going
to find a church happily,
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faithfully, living under
the authority of that word.
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Understanding that the
most historic formula
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for the Christian church has been this:
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when the scripture speaks, God speaks.
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And if you understand that rightly,
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then everything else
simply falls into place.
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- Language is an
incredible mystery, really.
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What is it that makes human beings
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able to communicate in word?
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Personally, I think that
is the image of God in us.
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Because God speaks right at
the beginning of the Bible.
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God spoke the world into existence.
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- You know, you think about
words and whether or not
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their important, and we
realize we can't even have
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a conversation without words.
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What's really interesting is that we can't
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even think to ourselves without words.
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We can't explain ourselves
to ourselves without words.
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Now, that's either an accident
of evolutionary biology
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and development, or it is evidence
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to the fact that God made us in his image.
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And so, here the Bible
tells us that we are
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God's creatures, made in his image.
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And what distinguishes
us from other creatures?
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Well, at least in part the use of words.
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- And because he's made
himself accessible,
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through speaking to us
and through the display
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of his character in what he's made,
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he's made himself accessible,
that means that truth,
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also, is accessible.
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Now, that includes ordinary
truths like two plus two
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is equal to four, but it
also includes the truths
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about who God is, that he's everlasting,
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that he's all powerful,
that he's supremely good.
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- So for God to speak is for God to engage
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in self-revelation; we only know God
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because God has
condescended to speak to us.
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So one of the first
things we say about God
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is that he is a speaking God.
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We would not know him,
except that he speaks to us.
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- And the beautiful thing, really,
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what makes life worth living and gives us
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the ability to, with hope, with joy,
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with tenacity, make it
through the valleys of life,
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is the fact that the
eternal god who created us
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can be personally known.
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He's with us, and according
to one passage of scripture
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in Hebrews, chapter 13, if we
will commit our lives to him,
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he will never, never
leave us or forsake us.
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- The Bible is essentially
God's self-revelation,
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and God doesn't just reveal himself
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in terms of what you must do.
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That is the consequence of who he is,
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and the way in which he wants
us to understand his world.
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- If God created us,
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then he sets the terms of his revelation.
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What we know, when we know
it, how it is revealed,
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it's all dependent on him.
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But it seems so strange.
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An eternal God, tying
himself to human history?
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Illustrating his character
in law, prophecy and wisdom?
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What happens when he appears?
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When he steps down into
history and speaks?
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- You know, the question that
always exists in people's mind
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is simply this: what is God like?
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And are there many gods,
or is there one God?
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Of course, left on our own,
all of these are mysteries.
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What you have at Sinai is very remarkable.
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You find, for example, that
the people were to stand back.
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God says: stand back.
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No animal was even to touch the mountain.
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If an animal touched the mountain,
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it was to be put to
death, but not directly
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with the human hand; it was
to be shot with an arrow.
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Because God says: I'm coming, stand back.
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Get out of the way.
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What God was revealing
there was his holiness.
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So when we think of the 10 commandments,
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they were not simply given
for a certain point in time.
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They really are, let me
use the word omnitemporal.
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By that I mean they exist
as the basic law of God,
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throughout all eras.
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And God is really saying,
in the 10 commandments,
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this is what I'm like.
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- And so there's no other words
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like them in all of scripture.
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Jesus speaks in the New Testament, God's,
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but nowhere else does God thunder words
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to the entire congregation
of the people of God.
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These obviously are of
fundamental importance
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to God's covenant with these people.
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- God speaks in an audible
voice to the people,
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but then he writes it down
in the 10 commandments
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in written form; it was
written the first time
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by the very finger of God,
God himself did the writing.
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That's hammering home the fact
that this original writing
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was the very word of God,
and had the authority
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of the same God who
spoke in thunder and fire
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at Mount Sinai, but that written
form of the 10 commandments
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was the first piece of what we call canon.
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That is, it's the body of
things that God set aside,
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of his own word, for impermanent form.
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There's some things that
God said that he said
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to particular people,
and they weren't recorded
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in written form for posterity.
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That's okay; there are
many things, for instance,
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in Jesus's earthly life that he taught.
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Not all of those have been written down.
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It would be overwhelming
if we had all of those.
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But God purposed that
there would be a selection
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of those things that would
be there in permanent form.
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- If God wrote a book,
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would it be a history book?
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The transcendent being
interacting with creatures
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who are separated by sin,
distanced by unbelief.
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What would he write about these people?
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Would bh paint grand pictures?
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Would he hide the embarrassing details?
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Is human experience beyond him?
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- It's been said that
the Bible is not a book
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that man would write, if he could write,
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or could write if he would write.
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Every now and then, I'll be in a debate
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at a university, and someone will say:
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well, the Old Testament
is merely pro-Israeli,
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Zionistic propaganda.
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It's just the Jewish people were trying
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to feel good about who they were.
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But that claim falls
apart upon closer look
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at the content, because look, you've got
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one of the greatest
kings of Israel, David,
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was an adulterer.
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Abraham twice lied about
the identity of his wife.
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So one of the things that
bears the ring of truth
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is the thing that we
probably would have excluded,
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had the Bible been a
merely human invention.
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The sin, the foibles, the failures
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of many of the Bible's great figures,
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we probably would have left out.
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- The Bible's appeal to
prophecy and fulfillment,
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before and after, all of that depends
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on historical progress, on continuity,
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on the sequence of time.
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00:14:08,042 --> 00:14:10,661
So God himself doubtless
inhabits eternity,
249
00:14:10,661 --> 00:14:13,295
and is, in some sense,
above space and time.
250
00:14:13,295 --> 00:14:15,118
In that sense, he's transcendent.
251
00:14:15,118 --> 00:14:16,682
That's what we mean by transcendent:
252
00:14:16,682 --> 00:14:19,178
not limited by space and time.
253
00:14:19,178 --> 00:14:21,918
Yet, at the same time, he
discloses himself to us
254
00:14:21,918 --> 00:14:26,257
in space and time, that
is to say, in history.
255
00:14:26,257 --> 00:14:29,381
- Now, one of the things to
understand about the Bible
256
00:14:29,381 --> 00:14:33,838
is that it talks about
God's plan through the ages.
257
00:14:33,838 --> 00:14:36,575
And we call it: redemptive history.
258
00:14:36,575 --> 00:14:38,575
And the Bible is intrinsically
259
00:14:38,575 --> 00:14:41,498
connected to that, in two ways.
260
00:14:41,498 --> 00:14:45,562
One is that it gives a lot
of attention to explaining
261
00:14:45,562 --> 00:14:47,898
how God was dealing with the human race,
262
00:14:47,898 --> 00:14:51,082
from creation onwards, the fall into sin,
263
00:14:51,082 --> 00:14:54,332
and then various periods of redemption.
264
00:14:55,861 --> 00:14:58,238
So it talks about redemptive history,
265
00:14:58,238 --> 00:15:01,258
but the second way is that it's given,
266
00:15:01,258 --> 00:15:04,078
progressively, in history.
267
00:15:04,078 --> 00:15:06,638
God didn't have it just drop from heaven,
268
00:15:06,638 --> 00:15:08,495
at one point in time.
269
00:15:08,495 --> 00:15:10,618
There's some people who
practically treat it
270
00:15:10,618 --> 00:15:13,781
as if it was that way;
it is a book from God.
271
00:15:13,781 --> 00:15:16,762
But it's a book where he addresses people
272
00:15:16,762 --> 00:15:19,615
where they are in history,
273
00:15:19,615 --> 00:15:22,618
and he doesn't reveal
everything all at once.
274
00:15:22,618 --> 00:15:25,998
His plan of redemption keeps pace
275
00:15:25,998 --> 00:15:28,915
with his speaking about redemption.
276
00:15:31,198 --> 00:15:33,838
- Redemptive
history moves forward,
277
00:15:33,838 --> 00:15:36,878
through prophets, priests, and kings,
278
00:15:36,878 --> 00:15:40,341
to an ultimate prophet, priest, and king.
279
00:15:40,341 --> 00:15:42,762
But people need proof.
280
00:15:42,762 --> 00:15:46,602
How can we be confident that
Jesus is the fulfillment?
281
00:15:46,602 --> 00:15:47,861
How do we see it the way his
282
00:15:47,861 --> 00:15:50,528
earliest followers would see it?
283
00:15:52,058 --> 00:15:54,218
- When Jesus came and
the disciples preached,
284
00:15:54,218 --> 00:15:56,897
there wasn't a New Testament to appeal to.
285
00:15:56,897 --> 00:15:58,977
They were dealing with
promises that were coming
286
00:15:58,977 --> 00:16:01,775
out of the Old Testament,
tied to the great covenants.
287
00:16:01,775 --> 00:16:04,238
The covenant of Abraham,
that God was gonna bless
288
00:16:04,238 --> 00:16:05,962
the world through Abraham's family.
289
00:16:05,962 --> 00:16:08,458
The covenant to David
that there would be a king
290
00:16:08,458 --> 00:16:12,202
and a line of kings that would
represent the way of God,
291
00:16:12,202 --> 00:16:13,882
and then finally, the new covenant,
292
00:16:13,882 --> 00:16:17,061
the idea that God was gonna
write his law on our hearts,
293
00:16:17,061 --> 00:16:19,178
put his spirit within us, and
that we were gonna do that
294
00:16:19,178 --> 00:16:22,122
in the context of having
our sins forgiven.
295
00:16:22,122 --> 00:16:24,922
And the story of Jesus
steps into those promises,
296
00:16:24,922 --> 00:16:29,089
made centuries before, and
addresses really the reconnecting
297
00:16:30,165 --> 00:16:34,581
of God to us in what had
been a broken relationship.
298
00:16:34,581 --> 00:16:37,119
- You know, the very first
book of the New Testament,
299
00:16:37,119 --> 00:16:40,958
Matthew, opens with
the genealogy of Jesus.
300
00:16:40,958 --> 00:16:43,530
And the purpose of that
genealogy is to affirm
301
00:16:43,530 --> 00:16:45,418
that Jesus is the fulfillment
302
00:16:45,418 --> 00:16:48,168
of the whole Old Testament story.
303
00:16:49,061 --> 00:16:51,402
It's crafted very, we
could go into detail,
304
00:16:51,402 --> 00:16:53,722
but there's not time,
very carefully crafted,
305
00:16:53,722 --> 00:16:56,442
to show that he fulfills
the whole history of Israel,
306
00:16:56,442 --> 00:16:58,732
the whole story of the Old Testament.
307
00:16:58,732 --> 00:17:00,238
As we look through the New Testament,
308
00:17:00,238 --> 00:17:03,297
I mean, he fulfills everything
in the Old Testament.
309
00:17:03,297 --> 00:17:05,338
He is the revelation of God that fulfills
310
00:17:05,338 --> 00:17:08,741
God's revelation in Moses, and
brings it to its completion.
311
00:17:08,741 --> 00:17:12,181
He is the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world,
312
00:17:12,181 --> 00:17:14,741
the lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.
313
00:17:14,741 --> 00:17:17,578
That fulfills all the
old sacrificial system
314
00:17:17,578 --> 00:17:19,328
in the Old Testament.
315
00:17:21,063 --> 00:17:24,238
- I would imagine that Jesus
probably knew the whole
316
00:17:24,238 --> 00:17:28,261
Old Testament off by heart,
so that when he, then,
317
00:17:28,261 --> 00:17:31,898
in the synagogue in
Nazareth says, you know,
318
00:17:31,898 --> 00:17:34,122
this is about me.
319
00:17:34,122 --> 00:17:37,455
He is able too say "this is
about me" because he knows
320
00:17:37,455 --> 00:17:40,537
what this is about, and
that the prophecy of Isaiah
321
00:17:40,537 --> 00:17:44,537
was revealing who and
what the messiah truly is.
322
00:17:45,962 --> 00:17:48,448
- I would talk about these
prophecies, and a professor
323
00:17:48,448 --> 00:17:51,118
would say: well, I don't
believe this ever happened,
324
00:17:51,118 --> 00:17:53,057
I don't think these prophecies
in the Old Testament
325
00:17:53,057 --> 00:17:55,695
were written down until Jesus was born,
326
00:17:55,695 --> 00:17:57,301
and then they were written out so they
327
00:17:57,301 --> 00:17:59,301
would coincide with his life.
328
00:17:59,301 --> 00:18:01,039
I said: wow.
329
00:18:01,039 --> 00:18:03,135
That's amazing, that sounds pretty good.
330
00:18:03,135 --> 00:18:05,038
Unless you wanna think.
331
00:18:05,038 --> 00:18:09,205
I would say: look, if you say
there's not a 500-year gap,
332
00:18:10,895 --> 00:18:13,855
minimum, from the completion
of the Old Testament
333
00:18:13,855 --> 00:18:16,218
and the time of Christ,
I said, you got a problem
334
00:18:16,218 --> 00:18:19,338
with the Septuagint, the Greek translation
335
00:18:19,338 --> 00:18:21,877
of the Hebrew Old Testament,
documented in history,
336
00:18:21,877 --> 00:18:26,211
that was initiated right
around 250 years before Christ.
337
00:18:26,211 --> 00:18:28,974
- Well, first of all, the
Septuagint is the ancient
338
00:18:28,974 --> 00:18:31,970
translation of the Hebrew
scriptures into Greek.
339
00:18:31,970 --> 00:18:34,233
It was probably the first translation made
340
00:18:34,233 --> 00:18:36,190
of the Hebrew scriptures.
341
00:18:36,190 --> 00:18:39,490
It was begun in the third
century before Christ,
342
00:18:39,490 --> 00:18:41,694
with the Pentateuch being translated,
343
00:18:41,694 --> 00:18:44,931
probably in Alexandria, Egypt.
344
00:18:44,931 --> 00:18:48,793
Tradition has it that there
were about 70 translators,
345
00:18:48,793 --> 00:18:52,626
so it was the Bible of
Greek-speaking Judaism,
346
00:18:54,627 --> 00:18:59,150
before Christ came, and because
Greek was the lingua franca
347
00:18:59,150 --> 00:19:02,750
of the Mediterranean world,
when the apostles go out
348
00:19:02,750 --> 00:19:07,630
to preach the gospel, they
naturally preach in Greek,
349
00:19:07,630 --> 00:19:10,947
because their language, Aramaic, probably,
350
00:19:10,947 --> 00:19:15,114
wasn't widely used outside
of first-century Palestine.
351
00:19:17,250 --> 00:19:20,389
- If the Old Testament
is composed of 39 books,
352
00:19:20,389 --> 00:19:21,913
written across hundreds of years
353
00:19:21,913 --> 00:19:24,633
from a diversity of
authors, how do we know
354
00:19:24,633 --> 00:19:27,550
that these are the
books that God intended?
355
00:19:27,550 --> 00:19:29,134
Would Jesus even recognize
356
00:19:29,134 --> 00:19:32,384
the Old Testament we hold in our hands?
357
00:19:33,470 --> 00:19:36,149
- The books that were
being discussed as possibly
358
00:19:36,149 --> 00:19:37,934
a part of the Old
Testament canon by the time
359
00:19:37,934 --> 00:19:40,894
we get to the first century
are books like Lamentations,
360
00:19:40,894 --> 00:19:44,850
Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes,
works like that.
361
00:19:44,850 --> 00:19:47,673
And maybe a few other works
that end up showing up
362
00:19:47,673 --> 00:19:50,110
in what we call the apocrypha.
363
00:19:50,110 --> 00:19:52,547
Wisdom, Sirrac, those kinds of works.
364
00:19:52,547 --> 00:19:56,945
But the works that everyone
recognizes were seen
365
00:19:56,945 --> 00:19:59,810
as inspired and a part of the
Jewish scripture at the time
366
00:19:59,810 --> 00:20:02,371
include the Torah, the first five books,
367
00:20:02,371 --> 00:20:06,039
Proverbs, Psalms, your major prophets,
368
00:20:06,039 --> 00:20:09,385
most of your minor prophets, and so,
369
00:20:09,385 --> 00:20:11,961
if we don't know the exact
limits of the Old Testament canon
370
00:20:11,961 --> 00:20:13,971
in the first century, which is possible,
371
00:20:13,971 --> 00:20:16,105
it may be that it was
already decided by then.
372
00:20:16,105 --> 00:20:18,025
That's also conceivable.
373
00:20:18,025 --> 00:20:20,999
That which is being excluded
doesn't really represent
374
00:20:20,999 --> 00:20:23,097
any significant portion of the text
375
00:20:23,097 --> 00:20:25,899
that the New Testament's interacting with.
376
00:20:25,899 --> 00:20:28,219
- We all know now that, if
we have Catholic friends,
377
00:20:28,219 --> 00:20:30,323
their Bibles will generally
be bigger than ours
378
00:20:30,323 --> 00:20:33,885
because they contain a number
of books in the Old Testament.
379
00:20:33,885 --> 00:20:36,359
Book of Maccabees, for example,
380
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:38,859
that Protestant books exclude.
381
00:20:40,003 --> 00:20:42,825
And they're excluded, by
and large, on the grounds
382
00:20:42,825 --> 00:20:45,582
that we don't find them in the Hebrew,
383
00:20:45,582 --> 00:20:50,483
they don't seem to have
the kind of longstanding,
384
00:20:50,483 --> 00:20:53,650
universal acceptance within the church
385
00:20:54,777 --> 00:20:57,350
prior to, say, the Council of Trent,
386
00:20:57,350 --> 00:21:00,441
that one expects from canonical books.
387
00:21:00,441 --> 00:21:02,601
- One of the primary reasons
we don't use those books,
388
00:21:02,601 --> 00:21:04,382
or don't view those books as scripture,
389
00:21:04,382 --> 00:21:07,145
is because Jesus and the
apostles did not use those books,
390
00:21:07,145 --> 00:21:08,963
or view those books as scripture.
391
00:21:08,963 --> 00:21:10,665
That's a very basic way of putting it.
392
00:21:10,665 --> 00:21:13,017
If those books, indeed,
were viewed as scripture
393
00:21:13,017 --> 00:21:15,262
and that people were using
them widely as scripture
394
00:21:15,262 --> 00:21:18,302
and they were considered part
of the Old Testament canon,
395
00:21:18,302 --> 00:21:20,521
we would have expected Jesus
and the apostles somewhere,
396
00:21:20,521 --> 00:21:23,262
sometime, at least once, using
at least one of those books
397
00:21:23,262 --> 00:21:25,283
as scripture, and the fact is,
398
00:21:25,283 --> 00:21:27,283
we don't see that even a single time.
399
00:21:27,283 --> 00:21:29,465
- They were respected and utilized because
400
00:21:29,465 --> 00:21:33,145
they were regarded as helpful
Jewish sources of material
401
00:21:33,145 --> 00:21:35,342
and information, particularly about
402
00:21:35,342 --> 00:21:37,342
what was called the Maccabean War,
403
00:21:37,342 --> 00:21:39,842
in the case of the
historical apocryphal books,
404
00:21:39,842 --> 00:21:42,211
which is a very traumatic
period in Israel's history,
405
00:21:42,211 --> 00:21:45,886
when she was almost wiped
out by Antiochus Epiphanes,
406
00:21:45,886 --> 00:21:49,065
and had the Jews not
won the Maccabean War,
407
00:21:49,065 --> 00:21:51,038
we may not have Judaism today.
408
00:21:51,038 --> 00:21:53,486
It might have been
extinguished from the Earth.
409
00:21:53,486 --> 00:21:55,662
- It's true that some
of the apocryphal books
410
00:21:55,662 --> 00:22:00,526
are found bound within some
of the biblical manuscripts,
411
00:22:00,526 --> 00:22:04,193
but not all of them,
and not in every codex.
412
00:22:06,243 --> 00:22:10,862
And I don't think that
that necessarily entails
413
00:22:10,862 --> 00:22:12,425
that they must be canonical.
414
00:22:12,425 --> 00:22:15,261
If you look at our
Bibles today, we've got,
415
00:22:15,261 --> 00:22:17,363
between the cover's called the Holy Bible,
416
00:22:17,363 --> 00:22:19,182
we've got essays, we've got maps,
417
00:22:19,182 --> 00:22:21,406
we've got indices, we've
got reader resources,
418
00:22:21,406 --> 00:22:23,422
we've got study notes on
the bottom of the page.
419
00:22:23,422 --> 00:22:25,603
There's lots of material
in our modern Bibles
420
00:22:25,603 --> 00:22:29,865
that none of us would consider
canonical or inspired.
421
00:22:29,865 --> 00:22:32,723
- It's noteworthy, for
example, that Jesus disagrees
422
00:22:32,723 --> 00:22:36,019
with the Pharisees and
Sadducees over a number
423
00:22:36,019 --> 00:22:38,261
of different issues,
theologically and doctrinally.
424
00:22:38,261 --> 00:22:40,926
They debate all kinds of
things, all throughout
425
00:22:40,926 --> 00:22:42,728
the pages of the gospels,
but one of the things
426
00:22:42,728 --> 00:22:44,766
that's noteworthy is
they never debate about
427
00:22:44,766 --> 00:22:46,478
which books belong in the canon
428
00:22:46,478 --> 00:22:48,381
and which books do not
belong in the canon.
429
00:22:48,381 --> 00:22:50,163
Jesus refers to the
scripture, and the Pharisees
430
00:22:50,163 --> 00:22:51,966
seem to understand what
books he's talking about.
431
00:22:51,966 --> 00:22:53,625
Jesus refers to the
Old Testament writings,
432
00:22:53,625 --> 00:22:55,763
Sadducees seem to be fairly
content that we all agree
433
00:22:55,763 --> 00:22:57,998
on which books are in
and which books are out.
434
00:22:57,998 --> 00:23:00,425
There's no oddity of them saying:
435
00:23:00,425 --> 00:23:02,563
well, you're quoting from a
book that's not in the canon.
436
00:23:02,563 --> 00:23:05,612
And Jesus never says that
to a Pharisee or a Sadducee,
437
00:23:05,612 --> 00:23:08,170
and there seems to be
every good reason to think
438
00:23:08,170 --> 00:23:11,927
that that issue was relatively
settled in the time of Jesus.
439
00:23:22,969 --> 00:23:24,851
- You know, of course, one
of the most favored verses
440
00:23:24,851 --> 00:23:28,009
in all the Bible is
John 1:1, where it says:
441
00:23:28,009 --> 00:23:30,509
in the beginning was the word.
442
00:23:31,867 --> 00:23:34,807
The Greek word is "logos".
443
00:23:34,807 --> 00:23:38,089
We could say: in the beginning was logic.
444
00:23:38,089 --> 00:23:41,273
And why is that word used
and applied to Jesus?
445
00:23:41,273 --> 00:23:45,947
As John later says in verse
14: the word became flesh.
446
00:23:45,947 --> 00:23:49,070
First of all, because the
word had a great meaning,
447
00:23:49,070 --> 00:23:52,407
in those days, and
there's some debate as to
448
00:23:52,407 --> 00:23:55,550
whether or not it's based on
the Greek or other meanings,
449
00:23:55,550 --> 00:23:58,800
but here's the idea: Jesus is the logic
450
00:23:59,763 --> 00:24:02,346
and the intelligibility of God.
451
00:24:04,930 --> 00:24:08,513
- The word signifies
God's self-disclosure.
452
00:24:09,790 --> 00:24:11,913
The word is God's self-revelation.
453
00:24:11,913 --> 00:24:14,663
It's how God makes himself known.
454
00:24:15,534 --> 00:24:19,513
So it's profound and immensely significant
455
00:24:19,513 --> 00:24:24,450
and actually quite logical
that Christ would be called
456
00:24:24,450 --> 00:24:27,950
the word made flesh, because now, visibly,
457
00:24:29,102 --> 00:24:33,269
before our eyes, we have the
revelation of God, himself.
458
00:24:34,473 --> 00:24:36,814
- As much as I love the book of Hebrews,
459
00:24:36,814 --> 00:24:39,587
if I were marooned on a desert island
460
00:24:39,587 --> 00:24:41,854
and could only have one biblical book,
461
00:24:41,854 --> 00:24:43,971
it would be one of the gospels.
462
00:24:43,971 --> 00:24:47,054
Because it's there we meet Jesus.
463
00:24:47,054 --> 00:24:51,250
It's there that the narrative,
the story, the account,
464
00:24:51,250 --> 00:24:55,570
of the actual incarnation of
the son of God takes place.
465
00:24:55,570 --> 00:24:58,570
- So he sent his son as the god-man,
466
00:24:59,454 --> 00:25:01,673
just as much man as if
he'd never been god,
467
00:25:01,673 --> 00:25:05,070
and just as much god as
if he'd never been man.
468
00:25:05,070 --> 00:25:08,473
So that we could see and
hear in a way that we could
469
00:25:08,473 --> 00:25:12,640
comprehend the truth of
God's very heart and mind.
470
00:25:15,410 --> 00:25:17,214
- In order that you might
know that the son of man
471
00:25:17,214 --> 00:25:19,374
has authority on Earth to forgive sins,
472
00:25:19,374 --> 00:25:20,947
I say to you: get up and walk.
473
00:25:20,947 --> 00:25:23,513
He does something that you can see,
474
00:25:23,513 --> 00:25:25,250
and links it to something you can't see.
475
00:25:25,250 --> 00:25:27,150
You can't see forgiveness of sins.
476
00:25:27,150 --> 00:25:29,353
You can see someone being healed.
477
00:25:29,353 --> 00:25:32,611
And if that guy gets up
and walks, his walk talks.
478
00:25:32,611 --> 00:25:34,467
And it says: the son of man has authority
479
00:25:34,467 --> 00:25:36,147
on Earth to forgive sins.
480
00:25:36,147 --> 00:25:37,907
And then the context for that remark is:
481
00:25:37,907 --> 00:25:40,094
but no one can forgive sins but God.
482
00:25:40,094 --> 00:25:43,374
And words are cheap, I
mean, they, I can utter it
483
00:25:43,374 --> 00:25:45,273
and you know, then you're
left with the choice
484
00:25:45,273 --> 00:25:46,654
of whether to believe it or not.
485
00:25:46,654 --> 00:25:50,050
But if I can show it, if I
can compellingly demonstrate
486
00:25:50,050 --> 00:25:52,654
that what I'm claiming
might have, you know,
487
00:25:52,654 --> 00:25:54,734
some avenue to the truth and be reflective
488
00:25:54,734 --> 00:25:57,214
of what's going on, that's a
more powerful way to do it.
489
00:25:57,214 --> 00:26:00,130
So the Bible calls the
miracles that Jesus does
490
00:26:00,130 --> 00:26:03,107
things like signs, or powers.
491
00:26:03,107 --> 00:26:06,014
Those are the words that are
used to describe the miracles.
492
00:26:06,014 --> 00:26:08,734
And the miracles are really
what I call: power-points.
493
00:26:08,734 --> 00:26:11,810
They're audio-visuals to a
truth about who Jesus is,
494
00:26:11,810 --> 00:26:14,727
that shows his power and authority.
495
00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:22,510
- I love the beginning
of the Gospel of Mark,
496
00:26:22,510 --> 00:26:25,353
where Jesus stands forward and he says:
497
00:26:25,353 --> 00:26:29,673
the time is fulfilled, the
kingdom of God is at hand.
498
00:26:29,673 --> 00:26:32,110
Repent and believe the good news.
499
00:26:32,110 --> 00:26:35,410
Because there had been
400 years, essentially,
500
00:26:35,410 --> 00:26:38,387
of silence in the
inter-testamental period.
501
00:26:38,387 --> 00:26:40,494
John the Baptist had stepped forward
502
00:26:40,494 --> 00:26:44,885
and he was pointing the
way, and it was all pregnant
503
00:26:44,885 --> 00:26:48,885
for the appearing of this
one, and the very fact
504
00:26:49,985 --> 00:26:54,633
that Mark begins by Jesus
reaching into the old,
505
00:26:54,633 --> 00:26:58,073
in order to put himself in the present
506
00:26:58,073 --> 00:27:00,611
is so wonderfully helpful.
507
00:27:00,611 --> 00:27:03,507
- For him to unroll the Isaiah scroll
508
00:27:03,507 --> 00:27:06,814
and explain, today, this is
fulfilled in your hearing,
509
00:27:06,814 --> 00:27:10,897
speaks of his own messianic
identity and mission.
510
00:27:11,774 --> 00:27:15,267
But also suggests that he
has studied the scriptures.
511
00:27:15,267 --> 00:27:17,390
Someone had taught them to him.
512
00:27:17,390 --> 00:27:21,200
And he saw fit to announce
his own mission and ministry
513
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,190
with a reference to the Bible.
514
00:27:24,190 --> 00:27:26,414
If anyone could have
just announced: it's me.
515
00:27:26,414 --> 00:27:28,850
You don't need to read
that dusty book anymore,
516
00:27:28,850 --> 00:27:30,969
that old scroll, it would have been Jesus.
517
00:27:30,969 --> 00:27:32,510
But he never did that,
because he understood
518
00:27:32,510 --> 00:27:36,677
that his ministry was an
extension and a fulfilling,
519
00:27:37,825 --> 00:27:41,189
but never an abolishing or an eradicating.
520
00:27:41,189 --> 00:27:43,150
- I remember when I was in Bible college,
521
00:27:43,150 --> 00:27:46,050
I said to myself: I can
believe in the New Testament,
522
00:27:46,050 --> 00:27:50,190
but it's hard for me to
believe in the Old Testament.
523
00:27:50,190 --> 00:27:52,329
And then I realized something.
524
00:27:52,329 --> 00:27:55,746
I can't believe less than Jesus believed.
525
00:27:57,529 --> 00:28:01,267
And he had absolute confidence
in the Old Testament.
526
00:28:01,267 --> 00:28:04,366
There's no debate about what
his view of scripture was.
527
00:28:04,366 --> 00:28:07,502
He says, you know, his word
is true, thy word is truth.
528
00:28:07,502 --> 00:28:10,846
He said that: not one jot
or tittle will pass away.
529
00:28:10,846 --> 00:28:13,827
To all this will, he got
jot and tittle inspiration,
530
00:28:13,827 --> 00:28:15,187
is what he taught.
531
00:28:15,187 --> 00:28:16,766
- He never sets scripture aside.
532
00:28:16,766 --> 00:28:18,467
What he did was to make very clear
533
00:28:18,467 --> 00:28:21,325
that he perfectly fulfilled scripture.
534
00:28:21,325 --> 00:28:25,427
And of course, he went beyond
even the Old Testament law
535
00:28:25,427 --> 00:28:27,325
in the Sermon on the Mount,
saying: you've heard it said.
536
00:28:27,325 --> 00:28:30,605
And he never reverses it,
he never minimizes it.
537
00:28:30,605 --> 00:28:32,910
Instead, he goes even beyond it.
538
00:28:32,910 --> 00:28:35,769
You've heard it said, you
shall not commit adultery.
539
00:28:35,769 --> 00:28:37,449
I will tell you that if
you've lusted in your heart,
540
00:28:37,449 --> 00:28:40,190
you have already committed adultery.
541
00:28:40,190 --> 00:28:42,144
- Our popular evangelical understanding
542
00:28:42,144 --> 00:28:44,142
of Jesus and the Pharisees is this.
543
00:28:44,142 --> 00:28:47,929
We think that Jesus's big
message to the Pharisees is:
544
00:28:47,929 --> 00:28:51,310
aw, come on guys, don't be so nitpicky.
545
00:28:51,310 --> 00:28:54,409
You will never once find
Jesus in the gospels
546
00:28:54,409 --> 00:28:59,246
saying to the Pharisees: you
care too much about the law.
547
00:28:59,246 --> 00:29:03,485
Invariably, Jesus will say:
you have added to the law,
548
00:29:03,485 --> 00:29:05,427
and thus contradicted it.
549
00:29:05,427 --> 00:29:08,270
Or he'll say: you guys make
a whole lot about the law,
550
00:29:08,270 --> 00:29:10,270
but you don't really follow it.
551
00:29:10,270 --> 00:29:12,702
Over and over, watch him make that move.
552
00:29:12,702 --> 00:29:14,489
Those are what he says.
553
00:29:14,489 --> 00:29:16,205
And what is that flowing out of?
554
00:29:16,205 --> 00:29:20,409
A rock-solid commitment to
the sole, final authority
555
00:29:20,409 --> 00:29:22,125
and sufficiency of the word of God.
556
00:29:22,125 --> 00:29:23,584
What does Jesus wanna see?
557
00:29:23,584 --> 00:29:26,205
The word of God as the
sole, final authority
558
00:29:26,205 --> 00:29:28,627
for faith and practice
in the life of believers.
559
00:29:28,627 --> 00:29:31,885
And he's saying Pharisees,
for all the bells and whistles
560
00:29:31,885 --> 00:29:33,986
that you attach to your
teaching on the law,
561
00:29:33,986 --> 00:29:35,403
you undermine it.
562
00:29:36,787 --> 00:29:40,954
- So, every evidence is that
Jesus knew our Old testament,
563
00:29:44,227 --> 00:29:47,662
the books that we have, that
he affirmed them as holy
564
00:29:47,662 --> 00:29:51,662
scripture, along with the
other Jewish people of his day,
565
00:29:51,662 --> 00:29:54,245
and that from beginning to end,
566
00:29:55,827 --> 00:30:00,067
he interpreted and understood
his own life in that way.
567
00:30:00,067 --> 00:30:03,754
He is the Messiah, he is the fulfillment
568
00:30:03,754 --> 00:30:07,470
of the history of God's
people in the Old Testament.
569
00:30:07,470 --> 00:30:10,430
So, yes, Jesus very much
affirmed the authority
570
00:30:10,430 --> 00:30:12,147
of the Old Testament, so if you deny it,
571
00:30:12,147 --> 00:30:15,407
you have to disagree with Jesus.
572
00:30:15,407 --> 00:30:19,325
- The New Testament needed
to be written because
573
00:30:19,325 --> 00:30:22,227
the Old Testament hadn't
completed the story.
574
00:30:22,227 --> 00:30:26,672
That the timeline and the arc
of God's redemptive purposes
575
00:30:26,672 --> 00:30:30,772
reached a point where
everybody, if you like,
576
00:30:30,772 --> 00:30:33,150
was standing on their tiptoes
577
00:30:33,150 --> 00:30:35,022
to see how the thing would finish.
578
00:30:35,022 --> 00:30:38,089
And so, in the way that the
writer to the Hebrews says,
579
00:30:38,089 --> 00:30:41,725
that God, you know, has spoken
in the past in various ways
580
00:30:41,725 --> 00:30:45,322
and by different prophets and
so on, it anticipates the fact
581
00:30:45,322 --> 00:30:48,787
that that story will
then come to completion.
582
00:30:48,787 --> 00:30:51,168
And it's the New Testament
that does that for us.
583
00:30:51,168 --> 00:30:55,325
In the Old Testament, Jesus is anticipated
584
00:30:55,325 --> 00:30:58,492
and in the gospels, Jesus is revealed.
585
00:31:00,227 --> 00:31:02,270
In the acts, he's preached.
586
00:31:02,270 --> 00:31:04,286
In the epistles, he's explained.
587
00:31:04,286 --> 00:31:06,910
So, in other words, everything
is just pointing forward
588
00:31:06,910 --> 00:31:11,150
to that great fulfillment,
which comes in Jesus.
589
00:31:11,150 --> 00:31:12,910
- You have to understand, the early Jews
590
00:31:12,910 --> 00:31:15,726
were not looking for a crucified messiah.
591
00:31:15,726 --> 00:31:18,707
They did not expect a crucified messiah.
592
00:31:18,707 --> 00:31:22,190
Even Isaiah 53, the
great Old Testament text
593
00:31:22,190 --> 00:31:24,569
that's thought to refer to this, right?
594
00:31:24,569 --> 00:31:28,980
Early Jews didn't interpret
that as a crucified messiah.
595
00:31:28,980 --> 00:31:33,630
For one thing, my servant,
Israel, was assumed
596
00:31:33,630 --> 00:31:36,062
to be the nation of Israel,
suffering for the sins
597
00:31:36,062 --> 00:31:38,467
of the world, not a particular individual.
598
00:31:38,467 --> 00:31:42,147
On the one hand, they had to
explain this to the world.
599
00:31:42,147 --> 00:31:44,729
On the other hand, they had
to explain this to themselves.
600
00:31:44,729 --> 00:31:46,445
Because they were not expecting this.
601
00:31:46,445 --> 00:31:49,710
This was an unexpected outcome.
602
00:31:49,710 --> 00:31:53,129
And let's be clear, if
crucifixion was the end
603
00:31:53,129 --> 00:31:57,049
of Jesus's story, there is
really no good historical
604
00:31:57,049 --> 00:31:59,667
explanation for why we have the gospels.
605
00:31:59,667 --> 00:32:01,630
Or the rest of the New Testament at all.
606
00:32:01,630 --> 00:32:05,166
There had to be a reversal
of that final judgment.
607
00:32:05,166 --> 00:32:09,333
- When you think about where
the New Testament came from,
608
00:32:10,285 --> 00:32:12,329
it came out of Judaism.
609
00:32:12,329 --> 00:32:15,966
Why would these Jewish
believers who thought
610
00:32:15,966 --> 00:32:17,966
they were God's chosen people,
611
00:32:17,966 --> 00:32:21,187
why would they invent a resurrected Jesus?
612
00:32:21,187 --> 00:32:23,024
What motivation would they have for that?
613
00:32:23,024 --> 00:32:24,537
Why would they invent this?
614
00:32:24,537 --> 00:32:26,387
It makes no sense at all.
615
00:32:26,387 --> 00:32:27,281
I mean, if one of them said:
616
00:32:27,281 --> 00:32:28,452
hey, we're gonna start a new religion!
617
00:32:28,452 --> 00:32:30,112
And one of the others said: we are?
618
00:32:30,112 --> 00:32:30,945
Yeah!
619
00:32:30,945 --> 00:32:31,989
Well, what's it gonna get us?
620
00:32:31,989 --> 00:32:33,705
Well, first of all, we're gonna
621
00:32:33,705 --> 00:32:35,438
get kicked out of the synagogue.
622
00:32:35,438 --> 00:32:37,479
And then we're gonna get
beaten, tortured and killed.
623
00:32:37,479 --> 00:32:39,523
You think the other guy's
gonna go: hey, great idea!
624
00:32:39,523 --> 00:32:40,665
Sign me up!
625
00:32:40,665 --> 00:32:42,723
No, he's not gonna say that, right?
626
00:32:42,723 --> 00:32:45,865
There's no motivation for Jews
627
00:32:45,865 --> 00:32:48,425
to invent a resurrected Jesus.
628
00:32:48,425 --> 00:32:49,742
In fact, let me put it this way,
629
00:32:49,742 --> 00:32:51,159
because I hear some
people out there thinking
630
00:32:51,159 --> 00:32:53,582
that the New Testament writers
invented the resurrection.
631
00:32:53,582 --> 00:32:55,639
No, the New Testament
writers did not invent
632
00:32:55,639 --> 00:32:57,579
or create the resurrection.
633
00:32:57,579 --> 00:33:01,019
The resurrection created
the New Testament writers.
634
00:33:01,019 --> 00:33:02,665
There would be no New Testament
635
00:33:02,665 --> 00:33:05,332
unless there was a resurrection.
636
00:33:06,738 --> 00:33:10,905
- The resurrection is God's
amen to Christ's atoning work.
637
00:33:12,599 --> 00:33:16,766
It is the signal evidence that
what Jesus has accomplished
638
00:33:18,659 --> 00:33:23,177
has been, if you like,
ratified by the Father.
639
00:33:23,177 --> 00:33:27,344
That what God the Father,
if you like, has planned
640
00:33:28,293 --> 00:33:30,958
that God the Son has procured.
641
00:33:30,958 --> 00:33:35,125
And the resurrection is the
signal to the entire world
642
00:33:35,977 --> 00:33:40,201
that the mission upon
which Jesus has embarked
643
00:33:40,201 --> 00:33:42,675
has actually been accomplished.
644
00:33:42,675 --> 00:33:46,878
- So we're not just talking
about a reversal of death.
645
00:33:46,878 --> 00:33:49,737
We're talking about a
whole new kind of life.
646
00:33:49,737 --> 00:33:51,715
That he gets by means of resurrection,
647
00:33:51,715 --> 00:33:54,578
and that's what the
earliest writers about Jesus
648
00:33:54,578 --> 00:33:57,838
were trying to make
clear, is this is not just
649
00:33:57,838 --> 00:34:01,715
a kindness or a mercy of God on Jesus.
650
00:34:01,715 --> 00:34:04,878
No, this is a vindication of who he was
651
00:34:04,878 --> 00:34:09,045
and of his claims and you
need to pay attention now.
652
00:34:10,041 --> 00:34:12,718
- The First Corinthians
15, I mean, that is a,
653
00:34:12,718 --> 00:34:15,561
a text that has a robust
resurrection theology,
654
00:34:15,561 --> 00:34:18,057
where Paul says on multiple occasions
655
00:34:18,057 --> 00:34:21,177
that Jesus died and was raised
according to the scriptures,
656
00:34:21,177 --> 00:34:23,539
according to the scriptures,
according to the scriptures.
657
00:34:23,539 --> 00:34:26,121
And he suggests that there
was a real, physical,
658
00:34:26,121 --> 00:34:30,137
bodily resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead.
659
00:34:30,137 --> 00:34:33,278
And without that, there
is no Christian faith.
660
00:34:33,278 --> 00:34:36,201
In my view, it is theological insanity.
661
00:34:36,201 --> 00:34:40,201
And an exegetical suicide
to argue that there is
662
00:34:41,598 --> 00:34:44,747
no real resurrection
of Jesus from the dead,
663
00:34:44,747 --> 00:34:47,683
it's something spiritual,
Jesus lives in the heart
664
00:34:47,683 --> 00:34:51,766
of his people; that belief
does not save anybody.
665
00:35:09,863 --> 00:35:11,822
- If Jesus's
Bible only consisted
666
00:35:11,822 --> 00:35:15,902
of the Old Testament,
why do we need the new?
667
00:35:15,902 --> 00:35:18,361
When was the story written down?
668
00:35:18,361 --> 00:35:21,323
Why was the story written down at all?
669
00:35:21,323 --> 00:35:23,083
How do sinful people write
670
00:35:23,083 --> 00:35:26,983
the undefiled words of transcendence?
671
00:35:26,983 --> 00:35:30,622
If memories fade, people exaggerate,
672
00:35:30,622 --> 00:35:32,942
and events get misinterpreted,
673
00:35:32,942 --> 00:35:35,342
if the New Testament is true,
674
00:35:35,342 --> 00:35:36,842
how could we know?
675
00:35:38,702 --> 00:35:40,059
- You know, there's a difference between
676
00:35:40,059 --> 00:35:42,503
what happened two days ago,
which was just a benign event,
677
00:35:42,503 --> 00:35:45,523
and what we call
psychologically, an impact event.
678
00:35:45,523 --> 00:35:47,966
An impact event is
something that impacts you
679
00:35:47,966 --> 00:35:50,601
so dramatically, you'll
never forget what happened.
680
00:35:50,601 --> 00:35:51,806
Like, for example, where were you
681
00:35:51,806 --> 00:35:53,966
when the second plane hit the tower?
682
00:35:53,966 --> 00:35:56,782
Right, right now as we record
this, that was 15 years ago.
683
00:35:56,782 --> 00:35:58,683
But I can remember what happened exactly.
684
00:35:58,683 --> 00:35:59,923
I remember who I was talking to,
685
00:35:59,923 --> 00:36:02,585
and what I was saying, and
what he was saying to me.
686
00:36:02,585 --> 00:36:03,886
And the question is: do you think
687
00:36:03,886 --> 00:36:06,183
a resurrection would have
been an impact event?
688
00:36:06,183 --> 00:36:08,563
Do you think if Jesus
really rose from the dead,
689
00:36:08,563 --> 00:36:11,566
that would have had an impact
on the people that saw him,
690
00:36:11,566 --> 00:36:13,001
after he had resurrected?
691
00:36:13,001 --> 00:36:16,763
Yeah, they would have
remembered that til their grave.
692
00:36:16,763 --> 00:36:19,123
So I don't have any doubt
that even if the eyewitnesses
693
00:36:19,123 --> 00:36:21,325
wrote it down 20 years
later or 30 years later,
694
00:36:21,325 --> 00:36:24,023
doesn't matter; they remembered it.
695
00:36:24,023 --> 00:36:27,662
- The reason to not just
rely on oral tradition,
696
00:36:27,662 --> 00:36:30,203
and to actually write down a gospel,
697
00:36:30,203 --> 00:36:33,043
like the earliest gospel,
probably the Gospel of Mark,
698
00:36:33,043 --> 00:36:36,121
the reason to do that
is because you're losing
699
00:36:36,121 --> 00:36:39,203
the living voice, you're
losing the eyewitnesses.
700
00:36:39,203 --> 00:36:42,526
So there is this huge
impetus in the second half
701
00:36:42,526 --> 00:36:46,193
of the first century
AD to produce documents
702
00:36:47,262 --> 00:36:50,046
that would allow us to not lose the memory
703
00:36:50,046 --> 00:36:52,942
of what Jesus was like,
what he did, what he said,
704
00:36:52,942 --> 00:36:55,523
and what his earliest
followers were like, as well.
705
00:36:55,523 --> 00:36:57,623
And that's really the
impetus behind the writing
706
00:36:57,623 --> 00:37:00,643
of the New Testament, and
when they got busy with it,
707
00:37:00,643 --> 00:37:04,206
they got busy with it, between
about 49 and about 100,
708
00:37:04,206 --> 00:37:06,361
all 27 documents of the New Testament
709
00:37:06,361 --> 00:37:08,528
seem to have been written.
710
00:37:11,043 --> 00:37:13,763
- When we think in terms
of authorship of the Bible,
711
00:37:13,763 --> 00:37:16,843
we have essentially a dual authorship.
712
00:37:16,843 --> 00:37:19,943
So it's true to say
that Paul wrote Romans.
713
00:37:19,943 --> 00:37:22,782
It's equally true to say
that God wrote Romans.
714
00:37:22,782 --> 00:37:26,103
And the great wonder of it
is that without any violation
715
00:37:26,103 --> 00:37:29,966
of Paul's personality or his intellect,
716
00:37:29,966 --> 00:37:33,943
God, through the instrumentation
of the Holy Spirit,
717
00:37:33,943 --> 00:37:38,110
both provided Paul and enabled
Paul to write as he wrote.
718
00:37:39,763 --> 00:37:44,585
And that would be true
for all the Bible authors.
719
00:37:44,585 --> 00:37:48,302
- When David writes Psalm
23, it's not as if he came in
720
00:37:48,302 --> 00:37:51,543
after a hard day's work and
was about to fall asleep
721
00:37:51,543 --> 00:37:53,801
when a voice spoke to him
out of the gloom and said:
722
00:37:53,801 --> 00:37:55,395
not yet, David, pick up your stylus.
723
00:37:55,395 --> 00:37:57,262
I've got some dictation for you.
724
00:37:57,262 --> 00:38:00,835
And then God said: the Lord, the Lord,
725
00:38:00,835 --> 00:38:03,218
is my, is my, shepherd, shepherd.
726
00:38:03,218 --> 00:38:05,198
I shall lack nothing,
I shall lack nothing.
727
00:38:05,198 --> 00:38:07,022
There's no way in God's green Earth
728
00:38:07,022 --> 00:38:09,321
that Psalm 23 was written that way.
729
00:38:09,321 --> 00:38:13,582
It was spoken out of the
fullness of David's experience,
730
00:38:13,582 --> 00:38:16,595
both as a believer and as a shepherd.
731
00:38:16,595 --> 00:38:18,238
And he thought about these
things, turned them over
732
00:38:18,238 --> 00:38:21,038
in his mind, and he picked
up his stylus and he wrote.
733
00:38:21,038 --> 00:38:24,382
Nevertheless, scripture
insists that God so worked
734
00:38:24,382 --> 00:38:27,598
through such forms of
inspiration that the result
735
00:38:27,598 --> 00:38:30,348
was nonetheless, the word of God.
736
00:38:31,393 --> 00:38:33,813
- I think, on the other
end of that spectrum,
737
00:38:33,813 --> 00:38:37,151
perhaps, we also can't get
too loose between the text
738
00:38:37,151 --> 00:38:40,213
of scripture and the meaning of scripture.
739
00:38:40,213 --> 00:38:44,190
That those words really
are there for a reason,
740
00:38:44,190 --> 00:38:47,355
and they're not dictated,
but that doesn't mean
741
00:38:47,355 --> 00:38:50,395
that we can just kind
of loosely paraphrase
742
00:38:50,395 --> 00:38:52,530
or understand the text.
743
00:38:52,530 --> 00:38:54,651
That we do have to respect what
744
00:38:54,651 --> 00:38:57,611
the biblical authors actually wrote.
745
00:38:57,611 --> 00:39:00,091
- Of course, the Christian
claim from the start
746
00:39:00,091 --> 00:39:01,711
is that this is a supernatural event.
747
00:39:01,711 --> 00:39:04,751
We don't believe that it
just happened to work out
748
00:39:04,751 --> 00:39:06,731
that human beings wrote
down perfect words.
749
00:39:06,731 --> 00:39:09,173
Or that they just tried a lot
and eventually got it right,
750
00:39:09,173 --> 00:39:11,035
or something like this,
no, we believe that God
751
00:39:11,035 --> 00:39:14,156
superintended the whole
process by his Holy Spirit.
752
00:39:14,156 --> 00:39:18,613
And this is why, a common
complaint by non-Christians
753
00:39:18,613 --> 00:39:21,730
and by critics of Christianity
often misses the point.
754
00:39:21,730 --> 00:39:23,253
People would say: well,
you can't believe the Bible
755
00:39:23,253 --> 00:39:25,195
is the word of God, because
it was written by men.
756
00:39:25,195 --> 00:39:28,133
But of course, that presumes
the non-Christian view
757
00:39:28,133 --> 00:39:29,291
of the way it happened.
758
00:39:29,291 --> 00:39:30,411
That's not the Christian claim.
759
00:39:30,411 --> 00:39:32,155
The Christian claim is that,
wasn't just that it was
760
00:39:32,155 --> 00:39:34,235
written by men, our claim
is that it was written
761
00:39:34,235 --> 00:39:36,395
by men who were carried
along by the Holy Spirit.
762
00:39:36,395 --> 00:39:38,592
And it's that second step that's so key.
763
00:39:38,592 --> 00:39:41,392
- Behind your doctrine of
scripture is the doctrine of God.
764
00:39:41,392 --> 00:39:45,559
And behind the product of
scripture is the activity of God.
765
00:39:47,653 --> 00:39:51,335
The scripture is the product
of God, the Holy Spirit.
766
00:39:51,335 --> 00:39:55,013
Which is why God, the Holy
Spirit, uses it in conversion
767
00:39:55,013 --> 00:39:57,071
and in sanctification.
768
00:39:57,071 --> 00:39:59,904
So what we believe about the Bible
769
00:40:00,891 --> 00:40:04,641
is based on what we
believe about its source.
770
00:40:06,331 --> 00:40:09,551
And because we believe God to
be the author of the Bible,
771
00:40:09,551 --> 00:40:12,891
we talk about the quality
of the Bible as inspired,
772
00:40:12,891 --> 00:40:14,224
or God-breathed.
773
00:40:19,410 --> 00:40:23,253
- Paul's letters were
written somewhere between
774
00:40:23,253 --> 00:40:25,836
about 49 and maybe 63 or 64 AD.
775
00:40:27,691 --> 00:40:29,573
Not a big timeline.
776
00:40:29,573 --> 00:40:31,531
But that's almost half the New Testament.
777
00:40:31,531 --> 00:40:33,648
13 of the documents of the
New Testament are attributed
778
00:40:33,648 --> 00:40:37,611
to Paul, and they are by
consensus the earliest
779
00:40:37,611 --> 00:40:39,573
New Testament documents.
780
00:40:39,573 --> 00:40:42,911
So we don't have any
documents that are, today,
781
00:40:42,911 --> 00:40:47,435
part of the New Testament,
from before about 49.
782
00:40:47,435 --> 00:40:49,808
- Even the Atheists admit
that Paul is writing
783
00:40:49,808 --> 00:40:53,151
First Corinthians in about
55 AD, and we can date that
784
00:40:53,151 --> 00:40:57,968
from an archeological
discovery in Delphi in Greece,
785
00:40:57,968 --> 00:41:00,795
and we can date all of
Paul's missionary journeys
786
00:41:00,795 --> 00:41:03,410
from that archeological inscription,
787
00:41:03,410 --> 00:41:05,631
and we're almost certain
that Paul is writing
788
00:41:05,631 --> 00:41:09,573
First Corinthians in either 55 or 56 AD.
789
00:41:09,573 --> 00:41:13,051
I think Collin Hemmer's work,
who is a Roman historian,
790
00:41:13,051 --> 00:41:15,035
I don't even think he was a Christian,
791
00:41:15,035 --> 00:41:18,411
he wrote a book called,
back in the late '80s,
792
00:41:18,411 --> 00:41:21,568
called: Acts in the Setting
of Helenistic History.
793
00:41:21,568 --> 00:41:24,155
In which he makes, in my
view, a very persuasive case
794
00:41:24,155 --> 00:41:27,675
that Acts, the Book of Acts,
had to be written by 62 AD.
795
00:41:27,675 --> 00:41:30,811
In fact, he gives a number
of reasons in the book.
796
00:41:30,811 --> 00:41:34,692
If Acts is 62 AD, that means
Luke has to be prior to Acts.
797
00:41:34,692 --> 00:41:37,333
Because Acts is Luke's second work.
798
00:41:37,333 --> 00:41:40,555
And then if Luke is written,
say, sometime in the 50s,
799
00:41:40,555 --> 00:41:44,715
it appears that Luke, maybe
one of his sources is Mark.
800
00:41:44,715 --> 00:41:47,711
Which means Mark is prior to
Luke, so you're very early now.
801
00:41:47,711 --> 00:41:50,251
You're in the early 50s, maybe 40s.
802
00:41:50,251 --> 00:41:53,071
- So the bulk of the New
Testament is said to be written
803
00:41:53,071 --> 00:41:56,404
from the end of the 40s, 49 thereabouts,
804
00:41:57,408 --> 00:42:02,128
all the way up to the last
decade of the first century,
805
00:42:02,128 --> 00:42:03,771
and you're dealing with a period
806
00:42:03,771 --> 00:42:07,021
of about 50 years from start to finish.
807
00:42:08,933 --> 00:42:11,771
- I would say that Mark
is our earliest gospel.
808
00:42:11,771 --> 00:42:16,352
That yes, Matthew and Luke
used the vast majority of Mark.
809
00:42:16,352 --> 00:42:20,431
There's 95 percent of Mark
is in Matthew's gospel,
810
00:42:20,431 --> 00:42:23,650
but Matthew was not just copying Mark,
811
00:42:23,650 --> 00:42:26,429
he added another 50
percent to his document
812
00:42:26,429 --> 00:42:28,031
from various other sources.
813
00:42:28,031 --> 00:42:29,755
So he was using a variety of sources
814
00:42:29,755 --> 00:42:31,408
to produce his document.
815
00:42:31,408 --> 00:42:34,491
And under the inspiration
of God, each one wanted
816
00:42:34,491 --> 00:42:37,333
to present a slightly
different portrait of Jesus.
817
00:42:37,333 --> 00:42:40,091
- It's not as if, let's say, Matthew says
818
00:42:40,091 --> 00:42:43,311
that Jesus is the king
in the line of David.
819
00:42:43,311 --> 00:42:47,088
He emphasizes that, even in
the beginning of his gospel.
820
00:42:47,088 --> 00:42:50,555
Is that incompatible
with John, who emphasizes
821
00:42:50,555 --> 00:42:53,968
that Jesus is the revelation
of God the Father?
822
00:42:53,968 --> 00:42:56,352
Well, no, they're both true, right?
823
00:42:56,352 --> 00:42:58,431
But they're complementary.
824
00:42:58,431 --> 00:43:00,411
- What's hard for people to remember is,
825
00:43:00,411 --> 00:43:02,251
is that when you wrote
a gospel and you did it
826
00:43:02,251 --> 00:43:06,251
on a running scroll of papyrus,
if you wanna think about
827
00:43:06,251 --> 00:43:08,811
it that way, there's
a certain length that,
828
00:43:08,811 --> 00:43:11,410
oftentimes, is the maximum
that you can deal with,
829
00:43:11,410 --> 00:43:13,803
and particularly when we
get into Matthew, Luke,
830
00:43:13,803 --> 00:43:15,671
and John, our longer gospels,
831
00:43:15,671 --> 00:43:17,625
they're running up into those limits.
832
00:43:17,625 --> 00:43:20,905
And so that impacts how
much detail they communicate
833
00:43:20,905 --> 00:43:23,305
about the stories that they present.
834
00:43:23,305 --> 00:43:27,311
- Still another issue
is in recorded speech.
835
00:43:27,311 --> 00:43:30,308
Because some people expect
that recorded speech
836
00:43:30,308 --> 00:43:32,267
will be verbatim accurate.
837
00:43:32,267 --> 00:43:35,385
It will be like a court stenographer
838
00:43:35,385 --> 00:43:38,831
who just takes down every word, exactly.
839
00:43:38,831 --> 00:43:40,667
- If we did most preaching classes
840
00:43:40,667 --> 00:43:43,231
and used the Sermon on
the Mount as an example,
841
00:43:43,231 --> 00:43:45,908
most of our church services
would be very short.
842
00:43:45,908 --> 00:43:47,768
Because you can read through
the Sermon on the Mount
843
00:43:47,768 --> 00:43:49,529
in five to seven minutes.
844
00:43:49,529 --> 00:43:52,511
What we know is that Jesus
spoke to people all day.
845
00:43:52,511 --> 00:43:55,748
And you know, when you bring
a crowd out from the city
846
00:43:55,748 --> 00:43:58,788
to come sit in the fields,
and listen to a teacher,
847
00:43:58,788 --> 00:44:01,448
he isn't speaking for just
five to seven minutes.
848
00:44:01,448 --> 00:44:04,831
So there are cases where you
may not be getting always
849
00:44:04,831 --> 00:44:07,129
the exact words of Jesus,
you may be getting a summary
850
00:44:07,129 --> 00:44:09,467
of something that he actually
spent a much longer time
851
00:44:09,467 --> 00:44:12,388
talking about, and you may
be getting snippets of that,
852
00:44:12,388 --> 00:44:14,991
or a summary of that,
that's boiled down into,
853
00:44:14,991 --> 00:44:17,128
you know, into a package-able length,
854
00:44:17,128 --> 00:44:19,711
given everything else that's
going on in the gospel.
855
00:44:19,711 --> 00:44:21,848
- We need to stop
thinking about the gospels
856
00:44:21,848 --> 00:44:24,452
as if they were like modern photographs.
857
00:44:24,452 --> 00:44:25,812
They're not.
858
00:44:25,812 --> 00:44:27,625
They're like portraits.
859
00:44:27,625 --> 00:44:31,311
And portraits are
inherently, interpretive.
860
00:44:31,311 --> 00:44:35,732
They're not just history,
they are interpreted history.
861
00:44:35,732 --> 00:44:38,911
History from a particular
theological and ethical angle.
862
00:44:38,911 --> 00:44:40,568
And this is true of all four gospels.
863
00:44:40,568 --> 00:44:43,768
It's not just true about John,
which is highly theological.
864
00:44:43,768 --> 00:44:47,348
All four gospels provide
us with a theological
865
00:44:47,348 --> 00:44:50,831
interpretation of the
historical figure, Jesus.
866
00:44:50,831 --> 00:44:53,412
And we may be thankful
to have four of them
867
00:44:53,412 --> 00:44:56,772
that have differences
of angles of incidence.
868
00:44:56,772 --> 00:45:01,129
And yet recognizably,
it's the same person.
869
00:45:01,129 --> 00:45:02,969
Remember, ancient biographies,
870
00:45:02,969 --> 00:45:04,808
their issue was characterization.
871
00:45:04,808 --> 00:45:08,969
Who is this person, as revealed
by his words and deeds?
872
00:45:08,969 --> 00:45:12,052
That's what they're trying to get at.
873
00:45:21,071 --> 00:45:25,188
- One of the big challenges
in biblical studies today
874
00:45:25,188 --> 00:45:29,355
is the very subtle suggestion
that, well, it's the
875
00:45:31,028 --> 00:45:35,195
theological teachings of
the Bible that are inspired,
876
00:45:37,046 --> 00:45:40,879
and whether any of those
historical narratives
877
00:45:41,732 --> 00:45:45,208
that the teachings come out
of, whether they ever happened
878
00:45:45,208 --> 00:45:48,628
or not, it really doesn't matter.
879
00:45:48,628 --> 00:45:52,388
I wanna argue, that's absolutely wrong.
880
00:45:52,388 --> 00:45:53,638
It does matter.
881
00:45:54,612 --> 00:45:57,769
- The fundamental divide
on the issue of inspiration
882
00:45:57,769 --> 00:46:00,488
is whether it is subjective or objective.
883
00:46:00,488 --> 00:46:04,168
When I was a first year
PhD student in Edinburgh,
884
00:46:04,168 --> 00:46:06,457
Scotland, the very first
debatE that I witnessed
885
00:46:06,457 --> 00:46:08,654
at the University of
Edinburgh was a debate
886
00:46:08,654 --> 00:46:11,179
on the topic of the inspiration
of the Old Testament.
887
00:46:11,179 --> 00:46:13,879
And a liberal Old Testament scholar
888
00:46:13,879 --> 00:46:16,503
and an evangelical were
going to have a debate.
889
00:46:16,503 --> 00:46:19,259
And the moderator's first
question to both of them was:
890
00:46:19,259 --> 00:46:21,442
how do you define inspiration?
891
00:46:21,442 --> 00:46:24,299
And Dr. Alls said: well,
I believe that the Bible
892
00:46:24,299 --> 00:46:27,943
is inspired because it inspires me.
893
00:46:27,943 --> 00:46:30,962
Now, that is a classic
subjective definition
894
00:46:30,962 --> 00:46:34,158
of inspiration, in other
words, whatever inspiration is,
895
00:46:34,158 --> 00:46:37,979
doesn't reside in scripture, itself.
896
00:46:37,979 --> 00:46:41,062
It resides in its effect on or in me.
897
00:46:41,943 --> 00:46:45,758
Whereas the Bible claims
an objective inspiration.
898
00:46:45,758 --> 00:46:49,362
Listen again to Paul's words:
all scripture is God-breathed.
899
00:46:49,362 --> 00:46:52,722
It's not something that has
been put into scripture.
900
00:46:52,722 --> 00:46:55,740
It's not something that
scripture does to me.
901
00:46:55,740 --> 00:46:58,620
It is something that is
inherent in scripture
902
00:46:58,620 --> 00:47:01,203
because of where it comes from.
903
00:47:02,540 --> 00:47:04,620
- Peter, in particular,
draws this contrast
904
00:47:04,620 --> 00:47:08,759
between myths, just
stories, fables, legends,
905
00:47:08,759 --> 00:47:11,180
versus eyewitness accounts.
906
00:47:11,180 --> 00:47:13,079
He says: we saw this.
907
00:47:13,079 --> 00:47:15,038
We didn't make up a story
to make you feel better.
908
00:47:15,038 --> 00:47:17,079
We're not just giving you, you know,
909
00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:21,276
the spirit of Christmas, or
the inspiration of Easter.
910
00:47:21,276 --> 00:47:25,543
I was on the mountain, I saw
Jesus Christ transfigured
911
00:47:25,543 --> 00:47:29,879
in glory; these are things
we saw with our eyes,
912
00:47:29,879 --> 00:47:33,168
we heard with our ears, they happened.
913
00:47:33,168 --> 00:47:36,194
You can count on them, and
that sets the Bible apart
914
00:47:36,194 --> 00:47:40,700
from almost everything
else in the ancient world
915
00:47:40,700 --> 00:47:44,096
and its religious pantheon
of gods and goddesses,
916
00:47:44,096 --> 00:47:48,140
because this good news
is rooted in history.
917
00:47:48,140 --> 00:47:49,778
Something that happened.
918
00:47:49,778 --> 00:47:54,156
And based on a future that
we know, then, will happen.
919
00:47:54,156 --> 00:47:56,591
- One of the remarkable
things about the gospels
920
00:47:56,591 --> 00:47:58,854
that we have in our New Testament,
921
00:47:58,854 --> 00:48:01,778
as well as the whole
Bible, is that the Bible
922
00:48:01,778 --> 00:48:05,147
subjects itself to
historical verification.
923
00:48:05,147 --> 00:48:07,980
It puts itself at risk of inquiry.
924
00:48:09,072 --> 00:48:12,534
Unlike the gospel of
Thomas, unlike the Koran.
925
00:48:12,534 --> 00:48:14,764
Unlike the Bhagavad Gita or the teachings
926
00:48:14,764 --> 00:48:18,230
of the compassionate Buddha
that are talking-head theology.
927
00:48:18,230 --> 00:48:21,611
The Bible says: Jesus did
this at a certain place.
928
00:48:21,611 --> 00:48:24,512
Here's the guy's name whom he healed.
929
00:48:24,512 --> 00:48:26,118
Or here's the house where he did it at,
930
00:48:26,118 --> 00:48:29,094
like in Mark two, where
you had these four men
931
00:48:29,094 --> 00:48:33,450
who lift parts of the thatched
roof at Peter's house,
932
00:48:33,450 --> 00:48:36,854
and they drop this paralyzed
man right in front of Jesus,
933
00:48:36,854 --> 00:48:38,774
and he heals the man and he walks out.
934
00:48:38,774 --> 00:48:41,952
I've been to Peter's
house, it's in Coppernium,
935
00:48:41,952 --> 00:48:44,010
on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
936
00:48:44,010 --> 00:48:46,614
You can see the very
place where Jesus stood
937
00:48:46,614 --> 00:48:48,950
when he was lecturing to
this crowd that was packed,
938
00:48:48,950 --> 00:48:51,707
and the actual door that
this man walked out of.
939
00:48:51,707 --> 00:48:53,974
That's historically verifiable stuff.
940
00:48:53,974 --> 00:48:57,670
You don't have that in
these other documents.
941
00:48:57,670 --> 00:49:00,032
- A faith rooted in history.
942
00:49:00,032 --> 00:49:03,350
A revelation coming
through human instruments.
943
00:49:03,350 --> 00:49:07,670
A religion spreading through
the entire region and beyond.
944
00:49:07,670 --> 00:49:11,530
But we wonder: who wrote these books?
945
00:49:11,530 --> 00:49:13,510
How did they spread?
946
00:49:13,510 --> 00:49:15,791
Can we be confident they
are the actual words
947
00:49:15,791 --> 00:49:18,214
that God meant for us to have?
948
00:49:18,214 --> 00:49:20,230
- The question of
authorship is a common one.
949
00:49:20,230 --> 00:49:21,952
If we're gonna rely on these books,
950
00:49:21,952 --> 00:49:23,707
we wanna know who wrote them.
951
00:49:23,707 --> 00:49:25,350
We wanna know when they were
written, and whether we should
952
00:49:25,350 --> 00:49:28,250
listen to the person who's
names are attached to them.
953
00:49:28,250 --> 00:49:30,507
Many people doubt whether
we can know those things.
954
00:49:30,507 --> 00:49:33,536
I don't think those things are
out of the range of knowing.
955
00:49:33,536 --> 00:49:37,552
In fact, we have a tremendously
good amount of evidence
956
00:49:37,552 --> 00:49:39,334
about the authors of these books.
957
00:49:39,334 --> 00:49:41,610
And there's all kinds of ways
we know who wrote these books.
958
00:49:41,610 --> 00:49:43,942
Certainly, the titles attached
to these books are a key part
959
00:49:43,942 --> 00:49:46,294
of that evidence that go
back very, very early.
960
00:49:46,294 --> 00:49:48,507
When we look at the gospels
themselves, for example,
961
00:49:48,507 --> 00:49:51,430
we know those titles were
attached probably by the end
962
00:49:51,430 --> 00:49:53,974
of the first century, if not
the early second century.
963
00:49:53,974 --> 00:49:56,992
- There's a second-century
impulse that begins
964
00:49:56,992 --> 00:50:00,752
that says: add the name
of an apostle to a book,
965
00:50:00,752 --> 00:50:04,192
to make sure that we know that
it really is by that person.
966
00:50:04,192 --> 00:50:07,227
Those kinds of things we see
in these apocryphal books.
967
00:50:07,227 --> 00:50:09,229
The Gospel of Thomas, the
Gospel of Phillip, of Mary,
968
00:50:09,229 --> 00:50:12,829
of Judas, all these works
ascribe authorship in the text,
969
00:50:12,829 --> 00:50:15,670
not as a title above it,
but actually in the text.
970
00:50:15,670 --> 00:50:17,670
The New Testament gospels don't do that.
971
00:50:17,670 --> 00:50:20,630
They were originally anonymous, I believe.
972
00:50:20,630 --> 00:50:24,091
The ancient church fathers
were unanimous that Mark
973
00:50:24,091 --> 00:50:27,414
got his gospel from the apostle Peter.
974
00:50:27,414 --> 00:50:30,010
And Mark was a follower of
Paul, an associate of Paul's
975
00:50:30,010 --> 00:50:33,910
to start with, but he got
his gospel from Peter.
976
00:50:33,910 --> 00:50:37,270
If you have this apostolic
authorship impulse,
977
00:50:37,270 --> 00:50:39,632
why isn't the Gospel of Mark ever,
978
00:50:39,632 --> 00:50:42,299
ever called the Gospel of Peter?
979
00:50:43,147 --> 00:50:44,470
It isn't.
980
00:50:44,470 --> 00:50:47,494
So that apostolic authorship
impulse is not something
981
00:50:47,494 --> 00:50:50,891
that's intrinsic to the New Testament.
982
00:50:50,891 --> 00:50:54,150
It's intrinsic to
pseudepigrapha, apocryphal books,
983
00:50:54,150 --> 00:50:55,931
books that came later.
984
00:50:55,931 --> 00:50:58,528
And guys like Bart Erman,
who wrote this book, Forged,
985
00:50:58,528 --> 00:51:00,971
about the books that
were not really written
986
00:51:00,971 --> 00:51:02,864
by the people that we think they were,
987
00:51:02,864 --> 00:51:05,547
he tries to argue for this
apostolic authorship impulse
988
00:51:05,547 --> 00:51:07,227
in the first century.
989
00:51:07,227 --> 00:51:08,447
If that's the case,
990
00:51:08,447 --> 00:51:10,786
why don't we have it
for the gospel of Mark?
991
00:51:10,786 --> 00:51:13,328
- Did Jesus change over the first
992
00:51:13,328 --> 00:51:15,611
three hundred years of the church?
993
00:51:15,611 --> 00:51:16,731
The depiction of Jesus?
994
00:51:16,731 --> 00:51:19,691
And when you look at people
who followed the apostles,
995
00:51:19,691 --> 00:51:23,984
Clement, Papias, Irenaeus,
these types of individuals,
996
00:51:23,984 --> 00:51:28,054
Justin Martyr, these folks,
when you look at their writings
997
00:51:28,054 --> 00:51:30,027
you see they're given the same basic data
998
00:51:30,027 --> 00:51:32,150
that the New Testament writers gave.
999
00:51:32,150 --> 00:51:34,352
So you have this chain of custody,
1000
00:51:34,352 --> 00:51:36,694
going through the first three
centuries of the church,
1001
00:51:36,694 --> 00:51:39,371
before we have, say,
the first full copy of,
1002
00:51:39,371 --> 00:51:43,038
say, the New Testament
or the Old Testament.
1003
00:51:44,330 --> 00:51:47,947
- Early Christianity was basically
an evangelistic movement,
1004
00:51:47,947 --> 00:51:50,694
which is distinctive in early Judaism.
1005
00:51:50,694 --> 00:51:54,269
The other early Jewish movements
like the Kumran community
1006
00:51:54,269 --> 00:51:57,709
or John the Baptizer,
they were not evangelistic
1007
00:51:57,709 --> 00:52:00,171
in the sense that they were
going out and getting recruits
1008
00:52:00,171 --> 00:52:02,410
that were non-Jews.
1009
00:52:02,410 --> 00:52:04,672
This is something pretty
distinctive about early
1010
00:52:04,672 --> 00:52:07,552
Christianity is, A, it
was a missionary movement,
1011
00:52:07,552 --> 00:52:12,107
and B, it went after Gentiles,
deliberately, by intention.
1012
00:52:12,107 --> 00:52:16,470
So, in that kind of environment,
they needed some tools
1013
00:52:16,470 --> 00:52:19,947
to do a better job
evangelizing and teaching
1014
00:52:19,947 --> 00:52:21,872
in those kinds of environments,
1015
00:52:21,872 --> 00:52:25,472
and so the impetus to generate sources
1016
00:52:25,472 --> 00:52:28,694
of important material
to convince both Jews
1017
00:52:28,694 --> 00:52:32,534
and Gentiles about Jesus was paramount.
1018
00:52:32,534 --> 00:52:34,512
- When it comes to the
New Testament writings,
1019
00:52:34,512 --> 00:52:37,309
authors not only had to write a book,
1020
00:52:37,309 --> 00:52:39,069
and then people would read that book,
1021
00:52:39,069 --> 00:52:40,912
but eventually that book had to be copied
1022
00:52:40,912 --> 00:52:43,110
and then transmitted over time.
1023
00:52:43,110 --> 00:52:44,971
Obviously this was before
the printing press.
1024
00:52:44,971 --> 00:52:46,854
This was before you could
go down to your copy machine
1025
00:52:46,854 --> 00:52:49,174
and run off a few copies,
and so if people wanted
1026
00:52:49,174 --> 00:52:51,792
their book to be spread far and wide,
1027
00:52:51,792 --> 00:52:54,250
if people wanted their book
to be published, so to speak,
1028
00:52:54,250 --> 00:52:56,310
that book had to be copied.
1029
00:52:56,310 --> 00:53:00,374
- I would reckon it
would take somebody, oh,
1030
00:53:00,374 --> 00:53:04,457
a good three or four hours
to just take dictation
1031
00:53:05,814 --> 00:53:09,494
for a document like Romans,
and then on top of that,
1032
00:53:09,494 --> 00:53:11,770
you'd have to produce a fair-hand copy.
1033
00:53:11,770 --> 00:53:13,174
That's the one that would be given.
1034
00:53:13,174 --> 00:53:16,027
So, from the start, there
would be two copies.
1035
00:53:16,027 --> 00:53:20,470
The one that the scribe
and the author retained,
1036
00:53:20,470 --> 00:53:23,334
and the one that was sent
to whoever the recipients
1037
00:53:23,334 --> 00:53:25,147
of the document are.
1038
00:53:25,147 --> 00:53:27,072
It is a laborious process.
1039
00:53:27,072 --> 00:53:30,269
You know, if it was me, my
hand would have fallen off
1040
00:53:30,269 --> 00:53:33,152
about halfway through the job, at best.
1041
00:53:33,152 --> 00:53:36,534
They, and they had to be clear.
1042
00:53:36,534 --> 00:53:39,152
Because without punctuation
and division of words,
1043
00:53:39,152 --> 00:53:42,810
the capital letters had
to be absolutely clear
1044
00:53:42,810 --> 00:53:44,667
as to what they are, and somebody
1045
00:53:44,667 --> 00:53:46,907
knew where to divide the words, right?
1046
00:53:46,907 --> 00:53:49,199
So it's an expensive process.
1047
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:53,423
- The longest usable scroll
that was still wieldy,
1048
00:53:53,423 --> 00:53:56,447
of some sort, would be no
more than about 35 feet long.
1049
00:53:56,447 --> 00:53:58,563
And when taking the
average sized lettering,
1050
00:53:58,563 --> 00:54:02,003
what that means is it could
only contain one gospel.
1051
00:54:02,003 --> 00:54:03,946
The Gospel of Luke, the Book of Acts,
1052
00:54:03,946 --> 00:54:07,146
would be right around 28
feet long by those estimates.
1053
00:54:07,146 --> 00:54:09,343
You couldn't put Luke and
another gospel in there.
1054
00:54:09,343 --> 00:54:11,103
Just Luke or just Acts.
1055
00:54:11,103 --> 00:54:13,540
This is why Luke himself wrote both
1056
00:54:13,540 --> 00:54:15,622
of these books as separate volumes.
1057
00:54:15,622 --> 00:54:18,223
They almost surely were
written at the same time,
1058
00:54:18,223 --> 00:54:21,043
but because of the material that was used,
1059
00:54:21,043 --> 00:54:23,247
namely Papyrus scrolls, they couldn't be
1060
00:54:23,247 --> 00:54:25,466
bound together as a single book.
1061
00:54:25,466 --> 00:54:29,203
- The number
two manuscript authority
1062
00:54:29,203 --> 00:54:31,764
in history is the Iliad by Homer.
1063
00:54:31,764 --> 00:54:34,106
More manuscripts are
being discovered of Homer
1064
00:54:34,106 --> 00:54:36,127
than any other classical work.
1065
00:54:36,127 --> 00:54:38,943
And right now, we have about a thousand,
1066
00:54:38,943 --> 00:54:41,343
see, the moment I make this
statement, it's obsolete.
1067
00:54:41,343 --> 00:54:45,093
1,820-some manuscripts
of the Iliad by Homer.
1068
00:54:47,066 --> 00:54:51,567
But when it comes to this Bible
now, and this is incredible,
1069
00:54:51,567 --> 00:54:54,964
it's hard to grasp, I can now document
1070
00:54:54,964 --> 00:54:58,631
66,000 manuscripts and
scrolls of the Bible.
1071
00:55:02,740 --> 00:55:03,573
66,000.
1072
00:55:07,983 --> 00:55:11,523
- The manuscripts are divided
between two different groups.
1073
00:55:11,523 --> 00:55:14,543
Those that are written in
the original language, Greek,
1074
00:55:14,543 --> 00:55:16,902
and those that are written
in other languages,
1075
00:55:16,902 --> 00:55:21,041
or translations of the
Greek into other languages.
1076
00:55:21,041 --> 00:55:23,542
And those are typically called versions.
1077
00:55:23,542 --> 00:55:26,383
The vast majority of these are
not complete New Testaments.
1078
00:55:26,383 --> 00:55:28,687
We only have about 60 that are
1079
00:55:28,687 --> 00:55:31,041
complete New Testament manuscripts.
1080
00:55:31,041 --> 00:55:34,143
But the vast majority of
them also are very large.
1081
00:55:34,143 --> 00:55:36,666
The average Greek New Testament manuscript
1082
00:55:36,666 --> 00:55:39,763
is more than 450 pages long.
1083
00:55:39,763 --> 00:55:41,513
So they're big texts.
1084
00:55:43,124 --> 00:55:46,902
And we have well over two million pages
1085
00:55:46,902 --> 00:55:49,450
of Greek manuscripts,
hand-written manuscripts,
1086
00:55:49,450 --> 00:55:52,607
from before the time
of the printing press,
1087
00:55:52,607 --> 00:55:55,343
and they come pretty early on.
1088
00:55:55,343 --> 00:55:56,964
Starting in the second century,
1089
00:55:56,964 --> 00:55:59,620
we have as many as a dozen manuscripts.
1090
00:55:59,620 --> 00:56:04,180
The earliest, to date,
is still considered P-52,
1091
00:56:04,180 --> 00:56:08,026
which is at Manchester University
in Manchester, England.
1092
00:56:08,026 --> 00:56:10,447
- P-52 still stands today
as one of our earliest
1093
00:56:10,447 --> 00:56:13,462
New Testament manuscripts,
maybe even still the earliest.
1094
00:56:13,462 --> 00:56:15,712
Dated around 100 to 125 AD,
1095
00:56:17,647 --> 00:56:20,447
and it's a little fragment of John 18.
1096
00:56:20,447 --> 00:56:21,947
Once that manuscript was discovered,
1097
00:56:21,947 --> 00:56:23,722
they realized that the dating of John
1098
00:56:23,722 --> 00:56:26,116
had to be much earlier
than even that manuscript.
1099
00:56:26,116 --> 00:56:27,556
Which ended up putting the dating
1100
00:56:27,556 --> 00:56:28,922
well into the first century.
1101
00:56:28,922 --> 00:56:30,623
- So it's just a small fragment.
1102
00:56:30,623 --> 00:56:33,002
It's about the size of a credit card.
1103
00:56:33,002 --> 00:56:34,959
But it proves that the Gospel of John
1104
00:56:34,959 --> 00:56:36,863
existed before that time.
1105
00:56:36,863 --> 00:56:40,358
And for almost 100 years up until then,
1106
00:56:40,358 --> 00:56:43,183
there was European scholarship that argued
1107
00:56:43,183 --> 00:56:45,476
that the Gospel of John
could not have been written
1108
00:56:45,476 --> 00:56:49,895
before 160, and should have
been written at about 170.
1109
00:56:49,895 --> 00:56:52,820
When this scrap of papyrus was discovered
1110
00:56:52,820 --> 00:56:55,983
in 1934 at Manchester University,
1111
00:56:55,983 --> 00:56:59,958
it sent two tons of German
scholarship to the flames.
1112
00:56:59,958 --> 00:57:02,522
Here was an ounce of
evidence that proved a pound
1113
00:57:02,522 --> 00:57:04,783
of presumption dead wrong.
1114
00:57:04,783 --> 00:57:07,322
And that's what Christians
have, is we have lots
1115
00:57:07,322 --> 00:57:09,905
and lots of ounces of evidence.
1116
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,623
- We have
to recognize a problem.
1117
00:57:14,623 --> 00:57:18,522
The original autographs, written
by the apostles, are gone.
1118
00:57:18,522 --> 00:57:19,605
Lost to time.
1119
00:57:20,943 --> 00:57:25,599
What we have are the thousands
of copies that survive.
1120
00:57:25,599 --> 00:57:27,939
But is that enough?
1121
00:57:27,939 --> 00:57:31,139
Can we really rely on the
Bible if we don't even have
1122
00:57:31,139 --> 00:57:32,972
the very first copies?
1123
00:57:34,179 --> 00:57:36,676
- One of the most common
questions I receive is:
1124
00:57:36,676 --> 00:57:38,977
what good is a belief in
an errancy if an errancy
1125
00:57:38,977 --> 00:57:40,662
only applies to the original autographs,
1126
00:57:40,662 --> 00:57:41,844
and we don't have the original autographs,
1127
00:57:41,844 --> 00:57:43,930
so how can we believe in an errancy.
1128
00:57:43,930 --> 00:57:46,532
But I think that objection
makes a fundament mistake.
1129
00:57:46,532 --> 00:57:49,647
It assumes that, when we
talk about the original text
1130
00:57:49,647 --> 00:57:52,270
that thinks of it as
only a physical object.
1131
00:57:52,270 --> 00:57:54,554
As if we have to have
the actual autographs
1132
00:57:54,554 --> 00:57:56,314
in order to have access
to the original texts,
1133
00:57:56,314 --> 00:57:57,850
and since those physical objects are lost,
1134
00:57:57,850 --> 00:58:00,268
therefore we don't have
access to the original texts.
1135
00:58:00,268 --> 00:58:03,468
But the text, itself, the
words of God, themselves,
1136
00:58:03,468 --> 00:58:05,167
aren't necessarily a physical object
1137
00:58:05,167 --> 00:58:06,689
that you can put in a museum.
1138
00:58:06,689 --> 00:58:08,430
The words of God can be
preserved in other ways,
1139
00:58:08,430 --> 00:58:11,332
beyond just the autographs,
and we think that's happened.
1140
00:58:11,332 --> 00:58:15,082
- You see, the more manuscripts
or scrolls that you have,
1141
00:58:15,082 --> 00:58:18,155
the easier it is to
reconstruct the original,
1142
00:58:18,155 --> 00:58:20,363
called the autographa, auto-grapha,
1143
00:58:20,363 --> 00:58:22,337
the autographa, the original,
1144
00:58:22,337 --> 00:58:25,457
and check out any errors or discrepancies.
1145
00:58:25,457 --> 00:58:29,050
And you try through the
bibliographical test
1146
00:58:29,050 --> 00:58:31,974
to create what is called a pure text.
1147
00:58:31,974 --> 00:58:35,270
What percentage of the
original texts do you know,
1148
00:58:35,270 --> 00:58:38,572
for sure, today, what
percentage is a pure text?
1149
00:58:38,572 --> 00:58:40,490
- The problem is, the way
I like to describe it is
1150
00:58:40,490 --> 00:58:43,790
that we have 105 percent of the text.
1151
00:58:43,790 --> 00:58:47,633
We have the text as it was,
and then we have the variations
1152
00:58:47,633 --> 00:58:50,353
that have been introduced to
the text, and text criticism
1153
00:58:50,353 --> 00:58:53,633
is the job of trying to
pare off that 105 percent
1154
00:58:53,633 --> 00:58:56,216
down to what we originally had.
1155
00:58:57,230 --> 00:58:59,932
And the places where
we're not sure are noted.
1156
00:58:59,932 --> 00:59:02,268
I tell people, you actually
have the opportunity
1157
00:59:02,268 --> 00:59:03,910
to be a little bit of a textural critic,
1158
00:59:03,910 --> 00:59:06,332
because in some places in your Bible,
1159
00:59:06,332 --> 00:59:09,036
in the margin note, it will say "or",
1160
00:59:09,036 --> 00:59:11,422
or "some manuscripts say"
and that's telling you
1161
00:59:11,422 --> 00:59:15,628
those places that are
really the most discussed.
1162
00:59:15,628 --> 00:59:17,664
- A lot of the people out there
talking about these things
1163
00:59:17,664 --> 00:59:20,316
sort of give the impression
that every word is questioned,
1164
00:59:20,316 --> 00:59:22,401
and that's just simply not true.
1165
00:59:22,401 --> 00:59:24,604
At any level, it's not true.
1166
00:59:24,604 --> 00:59:27,187
99 percent of the text is sure.
1167
00:59:28,081 --> 00:59:29,822
There are, yes, there are some places
1168
00:59:29,822 --> 00:59:32,646
in the Greek text where we
scratch our heads and go:
1169
00:59:32,646 --> 00:59:36,464
I don't, hm, I'm not sure which one it is.
1170
00:59:36,464 --> 00:59:39,286
They're called C-ratings, in our Bibles.
1171
00:59:39,286 --> 00:59:41,628
So things like spellings.
1172
00:59:41,628 --> 00:59:43,628
Is it Gadarenes or Gergesenes?
1173
00:59:43,628 --> 00:59:46,508
Is it Bethsaida, Bethzatha, or Bethesda?
1174
00:59:46,508 --> 00:59:49,675
Is the form of the verb esti or estin?
1175
00:59:50,844 --> 00:59:52,566
Is there an N sound on the end?
1176
00:59:52,566 --> 00:59:54,144
It doesn't affect the meaning at all,
1177
00:59:54,144 --> 00:59:56,144
but we can't really tell.
1178
00:59:56,144 --> 00:59:59,984
A lot of that is, that's what
makes up that one percent.
1179
00:59:59,984 --> 01:00:02,828
99 percent of the text,
we're very comfortable with.
1180
01:00:02,828 --> 01:00:04,806
This is what was originally said,
1181
01:00:04,806 --> 01:00:07,201
and just as importantly, that one percent
1182
01:00:07,201 --> 01:00:09,004
that we're not sure, doesn't bring
1183
01:00:09,004 --> 01:00:11,964
any major Christian
doctrine into question.
1184
01:00:11,964 --> 01:00:14,748
There is simply is no major,
and I don't even think
1185
01:00:14,748 --> 01:00:17,884
any minor, doctrine that's
raising the question.
1186
01:00:17,884 --> 01:00:21,345
I mean, not many of us are
gonna go to Heaven or Hell
1187
01:00:21,345 --> 01:00:24,245
based on whether it's
Gadarenes or Gergesenes.
1188
01:00:24,245 --> 01:00:27,468
- Of the hundreds of
thousands of textural variants
1189
01:00:27,468 --> 01:00:30,544
that we actually have, the smallest group
1190
01:00:30,544 --> 01:00:34,784
are those that are both
meaningful and viable.
1191
01:00:34,784 --> 01:00:38,304
It's less than one-fifth of one percent
1192
01:00:38,304 --> 01:00:41,664
of all textural variants,
and yet these are the ones
1193
01:00:41,664 --> 01:00:45,744
that Christians and
non-Christians always hear about.
1194
01:00:45,744 --> 01:00:47,388
The ones that skeptics talk about.
1195
01:00:47,388 --> 01:00:51,676
The ones that make the news,
because they're so interesting
1196
01:00:51,676 --> 01:00:53,921
and they seem to destroy
the Christian faith,
1197
01:00:53,921 --> 01:00:55,724
or uphold the Christian faith.
1198
01:00:55,724 --> 01:00:58,044
It's a very small fraction.
1199
01:00:58,044 --> 01:01:00,382
- Well, you get textural
variants of all kinds.
1200
01:01:00,382 --> 01:01:03,164
Perhaps the two most
discussed in relationship
1201
01:01:03,164 --> 01:01:06,188
to the gospels is the percopi,
where the woman's caught
1202
01:01:06,188 --> 01:01:09,424
in adultery in the middle of John, John,
1203
01:01:09,424 --> 01:01:11,366
the last part of seven and eight,
1204
01:01:11,366 --> 01:01:14,385
and then the ending to the Gospel of Mark.
1205
01:01:14,385 --> 01:01:16,726
- The only thing that is
different about that passage
1206
01:01:16,726 --> 01:01:18,406
is that it is a longer one.
1207
01:01:18,406 --> 01:01:20,782
Most textural variants are a word or two,
1208
01:01:20,782 --> 01:01:22,806
whereas this is a whole unit.
1209
01:01:22,806 --> 01:01:25,366
In both of those cases, I
would argue pretty strongly
1210
01:01:25,366 --> 01:01:29,533
that those units were not part
of the original given by God.
1211
01:01:31,774 --> 01:01:35,761
But if you think that they are,
nothing much depends on it.
1212
01:01:35,761 --> 01:01:37,286
If you think that they're not,
1213
01:01:37,286 --> 01:01:39,388
nothing much depends on it, either.
1214
01:01:39,388 --> 01:01:42,188
The message of the Bible
is secure in any case.
1215
01:01:42,188 --> 01:01:45,068
- When skeptics talk about
how we can't get back
1216
01:01:45,068 --> 01:01:47,745
to the original texts, because
we don't have the original
1217
01:01:47,745 --> 01:01:51,468
manuscripts, they typically
have never examined
1218
01:01:51,468 --> 01:01:54,364
the texts of Greco-Roman literature.
1219
01:01:54,364 --> 01:01:56,225
If they're right, that we can't get back
1220
01:01:56,225 --> 01:01:58,646
to the New Testament,
then we might as well kiss
1221
01:01:58,646 --> 01:02:00,668
the ancient world goodbye,
and the Middle Ages
1222
01:02:00,668 --> 01:02:02,222
would still be the dark ages.
1223
01:02:02,222 --> 01:02:03,868
We would never have the Renaissance,
1224
01:02:03,868 --> 01:02:06,604
because we can't possibly
tell what these ancients said.
1225
01:02:06,604 --> 01:02:09,564
If we're gonna be skeptical
about the New Testament,
1226
01:02:09,564 --> 01:02:12,646
on average, we should be a thousand times
1227
01:02:12,646 --> 01:02:16,146
more skeptical about Greco-Roman writings.
1228
01:02:17,363 --> 01:02:20,486
- The textural richness of what is found
1229
01:02:20,486 --> 01:02:23,948
in the New Testament and
now in the Old Testament
1230
01:02:23,948 --> 01:02:26,284
with the discovery of
the Dead Sea Scrolls,
1231
01:02:26,284 --> 01:02:27,644
is really very remarkable.
1232
01:02:27,644 --> 01:02:29,265
It's utterly unique from documentation
1233
01:02:29,265 --> 01:02:30,401
from the ancient world.
1234
01:02:30,401 --> 01:02:32,428
So God in his providence
has been wonderful
1235
01:02:32,428 --> 01:02:34,044
in providing so much.
1236
01:02:34,044 --> 01:02:35,868
We would be at fault if we criticized him
1237
01:02:35,868 --> 01:02:38,646
for not providing infallible
copies with new miracles
1238
01:02:38,646 --> 01:02:41,646
every time somebody picked up a pen.
1239
01:02:43,236 --> 01:02:45,228
- How did the
church come to embrace
1240
01:02:45,228 --> 01:02:47,265
these New Testament books?
1241
01:02:47,265 --> 01:02:49,843
Were they chosen out of a list?
1242
01:02:49,843 --> 01:02:52,668
Did a council determine their worth?
1243
01:02:52,668 --> 01:02:55,441
As the church grows and
the religion formalizes,
1244
01:02:55,441 --> 01:02:56,774
what is the God?
1245
01:02:57,846 --> 01:03:00,596
Who gives authority to the Bible?
1246
01:03:02,428 --> 01:03:04,844
- There's a perception again,
out there in the world today,
1247
01:03:04,844 --> 01:03:07,121
whether in popular literature
or on the internet,
1248
01:03:07,121 --> 01:03:09,345
that there were votes that
took place in councils,
1249
01:03:09,345 --> 01:03:11,606
and that people put, picked these books,
1250
01:03:11,606 --> 01:03:13,424
and that there was some
shady deal going on
1251
01:03:13,424 --> 01:03:15,686
in a smoke-filled room
where one book barely got
1252
01:03:15,686 --> 01:03:17,564
in by a vote and some books got out.
1253
01:03:17,564 --> 01:03:19,644
And I can tell you all of
that is a misunderstanding
1254
01:03:19,644 --> 01:03:22,284
of the way things happened
in the early church.
1255
01:03:22,284 --> 01:03:23,926
The fact of the matter
is, when it comes to most
1256
01:03:23,926 --> 01:03:25,964
of the books of the New Testament, again,
1257
01:03:25,964 --> 01:03:29,104
probably 22, 23 out of
the 27, there was never
1258
01:03:29,104 --> 01:03:31,765
any real discussion about them.
1259
01:03:31,765 --> 01:03:33,164
There was never any
real debate about them.
1260
01:03:33,164 --> 01:03:34,908
There was never any sense
that you had to decide
1261
01:03:34,908 --> 01:03:37,324
on which books these were.
1262
01:03:37,324 --> 01:03:40,321
These were the books that
were simply handed down
1263
01:03:40,321 --> 01:03:42,704
to the early church,
in fact, that language,
1264
01:03:42,704 --> 01:03:45,345
handed down, we see
used in numerous places,
1265
01:03:45,345 --> 01:03:47,724
throughout the second century,
where early church fathers
1266
01:03:47,724 --> 01:03:50,483
refer to these books as the
books that were passed down
1267
01:03:50,483 --> 01:03:52,886
to them, that were given
to them by the apostles,
1268
01:03:52,886 --> 01:03:55,708
that were ones that the
church had always known.
1269
01:03:55,708 --> 01:03:58,787
- You have these documents
produced in the first century AD.
1270
01:03:58,787 --> 01:04:00,881
By the second century
AD, we had a collection
1271
01:04:00,881 --> 01:04:03,148
of the four canonical gospels,
1272
01:04:03,148 --> 01:04:04,486
and a collection of Paul's letters.
1273
01:04:04,486 --> 01:04:05,846
This we know.
1274
01:04:05,846 --> 01:04:07,846
In the second century
AD, these were already
1275
01:04:07,846 --> 01:04:10,444
considered sacred texts,
and you already have
1276
01:04:10,444 --> 01:04:13,265
house churches, where people are saying,
1277
01:04:13,265 --> 01:04:16,464
bishops are saying: we're not gonna read
1278
01:04:16,464 --> 01:04:19,504
from any text from the lectern,
1279
01:04:19,504 --> 01:04:22,042
or at the meeting, except our sacred texts
1280
01:04:22,042 --> 01:04:24,784
or the sacred texts of the Old Testament.
1281
01:04:24,784 --> 01:04:26,908
- There were criteria
that the church used to
1282
01:04:26,908 --> 01:04:30,716
recognize these, and these
criteria are essentially three:
1283
01:04:30,716 --> 01:04:33,441
apostolicity, which means
the book is either written
1284
01:04:33,441 --> 01:04:36,163
by an apostle or an
associate of an apostle.
1285
01:04:36,163 --> 01:04:38,643
And that's the most important criterion.
1286
01:04:38,643 --> 01:04:40,784
Secondly is orthodoxy.
1287
01:04:40,784 --> 01:04:43,878
Does the book conform to
what we know to be true
1288
01:04:43,878 --> 01:04:46,620
from the other books that
we know to be inspired?
1289
01:04:46,620 --> 01:04:48,684
The gospels were the very
first ones, almost surely,
1290
01:04:48,684 --> 01:04:50,124
to be accepted.
1291
01:04:50,124 --> 01:04:53,841
We don't have any period
when there was a time
1292
01:04:53,841 --> 01:04:56,339
when there was any hint
that they were not accepted.
1293
01:04:56,339 --> 01:04:59,244
And then the third
criterion is catholicity.
1294
01:04:59,244 --> 01:05:00,870
That doesn't mean Roman Catholic,
1295
01:05:00,870 --> 01:05:04,444
it means accepted by the
majority of the churches.
1296
01:05:04,444 --> 01:05:06,875
Now, there's some that would
be considered orthodox,
1297
01:05:06,875 --> 01:05:09,259
like the Epistle of Barnabas.
1298
01:05:09,259 --> 01:05:11,925
And that may be a first century document,
1299
01:05:11,925 --> 01:05:14,502
late first century
document, but the church
1300
01:05:14,502 --> 01:05:16,940
recognized early on that
the Epistle of Barnabas
1301
01:05:16,940 --> 01:05:18,960
was not written by Barnabas.
1302
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:21,820
Any time the church recognized that a book
1303
01:05:21,820 --> 01:05:24,268
was not written by the name that it claims
1304
01:05:24,268 --> 01:05:27,250
to be written by,
automatically it got rejected.
1305
01:05:27,250 --> 01:05:29,614
- When it was discovered that some deacon
1306
01:05:29,614 --> 01:05:33,614
had produced the letter to the
Laodecians, the bishop said:
1307
01:05:33,614 --> 01:05:37,635
not only are we not
reading these in church,
1308
01:05:37,635 --> 01:05:41,454
we're defrocking you for
producing false documents.
1309
01:05:41,454 --> 01:05:44,355
- And the first person to name the books
1310
01:05:44,355 --> 01:05:46,771
that make up our New
Testament was Athenasius,
1311
01:05:46,771 --> 01:05:50,595
and he did it in 367 AD
in a letter on Easter,
1312
01:05:50,595 --> 01:05:52,696
that was written in that year.
1313
01:05:52,696 --> 01:05:55,534
Irenaeus, writing long before Athenasius,
1314
01:05:55,534 --> 01:05:57,912
talks about four gospels,
he talks about Acts,
1315
01:05:57,912 --> 01:05:59,934
he talks about the Pauline Epistles,
1316
01:05:59,934 --> 01:06:02,488
he talks about First John and First Peter,
1317
01:06:02,488 --> 01:06:04,274
that's the bulk of your New Testament,
1318
01:06:04,274 --> 01:06:06,974
clearly being seen and
utilized as inspired
1319
01:06:06,974 --> 01:06:08,856
and valuable to the church,
1320
01:06:08,856 --> 01:06:10,835
at the end of the second century.
1321
01:06:10,835 --> 01:06:12,949
But what's interesting is,
if you go a little earlier,
1322
01:06:12,949 --> 01:06:14,872
if you go to the first
part of the second century,
1323
01:06:14,872 --> 01:06:16,766
or the middle part of the second century,
1324
01:06:16,766 --> 01:06:18,574
and you read what's written there,
1325
01:06:18,574 --> 01:06:21,752
what you see are writers
who may have access
1326
01:06:21,752 --> 01:06:24,674
to one gospel or two, they
may have access to one,
1327
01:06:24,674 --> 01:06:26,792
two, or three of the Pauline Epistles,
1328
01:06:26,792 --> 01:06:28,931
but they aren't thinking
of the New Testament
1329
01:06:28,931 --> 01:06:31,416
the way we think about
it, because they only had
1330
01:06:31,416 --> 01:06:34,376
exposure and access to some of the works.
1331
01:06:34,376 --> 01:06:36,211
They hadn't, some of the
works hadn't circulated
1332
01:06:36,211 --> 01:06:37,934
across the church yet.
1333
01:06:37,934 --> 01:06:39,314
- When you look at the state of the canon
1334
01:06:39,314 --> 01:06:41,694
in the early church, there's two important
1335
01:06:41,694 --> 01:06:43,192
facts to get right about it.
1336
01:06:43,192 --> 01:06:44,952
One is to recognize that very early,
1337
01:06:44,952 --> 01:06:47,416
there was a core collection of books
1338
01:06:47,416 --> 01:06:50,312
that the church recognized
almost out of the gate.
1339
01:06:50,312 --> 01:06:52,373
What that means is, by the second century,
1340
01:06:52,373 --> 01:06:57,336
we've got 22, maybe 23 out of
the 27 books, already there.
1341
01:06:57,336 --> 01:06:59,672
That's one thing to recognize,
but there's a second thing
1342
01:06:59,672 --> 01:07:01,134
to recognize, and that is that there were
1343
01:07:01,134 --> 01:07:02,478
some books that were disputed.
1344
01:07:02,478 --> 01:07:04,254
We have some books that,
you know, we can call
1345
01:07:04,254 --> 01:07:06,396
the books around the edges,
or the peripheral books.
1346
01:07:06,396 --> 01:07:08,936
The smaller books that there
was some more controversy about
1347
01:07:08,936 --> 01:07:10,755
and these would be
books like Second Peter,
1348
01:07:10,755 --> 01:07:13,850
and James, and Jude, and
Second and Third John.
1349
01:07:13,850 --> 01:07:16,396
And there was some controversy
about some of these books.
1350
01:07:16,396 --> 01:07:18,456
There was some discussion about them.
1351
01:07:18,456 --> 01:07:19,918
The kind of books that typically
1352
01:07:19,918 --> 01:07:22,019
were disputed were little books.
1353
01:07:22,019 --> 01:07:23,358
And this is noteworthy.
1354
01:07:23,358 --> 01:07:25,038
Small books, for obvious reasons,
1355
01:07:25,038 --> 01:07:27,400
were not as impactful in
the literature of the day.
1356
01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:30,659
They weren't read as often,
they weren't as widely known.
1357
01:07:30,659 --> 01:07:33,762
They were cited less, so
that they weren't familiar
1358
01:07:33,762 --> 01:07:35,289
across different geographical regions,
1359
01:07:35,289 --> 01:07:36,807
so it would take more time
to recognize these books,
1360
01:07:36,807 --> 01:07:38,015
and you can understand why they
1361
01:07:38,015 --> 01:07:40,952
might be disputed more than others.
1362
01:07:40,952 --> 01:07:42,312
And here's what's interesting.
1363
01:07:42,312 --> 01:07:44,072
Despite occasional
challenges here and there,
1364
01:07:44,072 --> 01:07:47,107
once the church had reached a
consensus on these 27 books,
1365
01:07:47,107 --> 01:07:49,733
that consensus has been
wide and longstanding.
1366
01:07:49,733 --> 01:07:51,032
And I think that's an encouraging
1367
01:07:51,032 --> 01:07:52,312
truth for us as Christians.
1368
01:07:52,312 --> 01:07:54,195
We can look at the church through the ages
1369
01:07:54,195 --> 01:07:56,094
with a great deal of
unanimity around these books.
1370
01:07:56,094 --> 01:07:58,935
Not absolute unanimity, where
there's never an objection
1371
01:07:58,935 --> 01:08:01,815
from any quarter, but a predominant unity,
1372
01:08:01,815 --> 01:08:04,549
which I think is evidence of
the Spirit's work in the church
1373
01:08:04,549 --> 01:08:09,534
to receive these 27 books
and just these 27 books.
1374
01:08:09,534 --> 01:08:11,507
- Why don't we include
some of these other books,
1375
01:08:11,507 --> 01:08:13,992
like the Gospel of
Thomas or Philip or Mary?
1376
01:08:13,992 --> 01:08:18,414
Or Third Corinthians, or Paul's
letter to the Laodiceans?
1377
01:08:18,414 --> 01:08:22,286
Or the Acts of Paul or
the Revelation of John?
1378
01:08:22,286 --> 01:08:24,152
There's a second Revelation of John,
1379
01:08:24,152 --> 01:08:25,797
besides the one that's
in the New Testament,
1380
01:08:25,797 --> 01:08:27,726
or the Revelation of Peter.
1381
01:08:27,726 --> 01:08:30,754
Why don't we include these
books in the New Testament?
1382
01:08:30,754 --> 01:08:34,072
There's a fundamental reason
why none of those are included,
1383
01:08:34,072 --> 01:08:37,614
and that is: they are not
first century documents.
1384
01:08:37,614 --> 01:08:40,152
So they could not have
been written by an apostle,
1385
01:08:40,152 --> 01:08:42,014
or an associate of an apostle.
1386
01:08:42,014 --> 01:08:46,094
That right there excludes
all of these documents.
1387
01:08:46,094 --> 01:08:48,186
- What makes Thomas such
an interesting work,
1388
01:08:48,186 --> 01:08:51,109
we think it's a second
century work of some kind,
1389
01:08:51,109 --> 01:08:54,410
is that it seems to have
one element of sources
1390
01:08:54,410 --> 01:08:56,506
feeding into it that do come from Jesus,
1391
01:08:56,506 --> 01:08:58,549
and another set of materials
1392
01:08:58,549 --> 01:09:00,183
that is coming from somewhere else.
1393
01:09:00,183 --> 01:09:02,106
It's what I call a hybrid gospel.
1394
01:09:02,106 --> 01:09:04,709
And that's why it didn't
make it into the canon,
1395
01:09:04,709 --> 01:09:07,488
is because what is
represented by the hybrid
1396
01:09:07,488 --> 01:09:09,929
is not a representation
of the kind of orthodox
1397
01:09:09,929 --> 01:09:12,729
Christianity the other gospels reflect.
1398
01:09:12,729 --> 01:09:15,269
Most scholars think that
the Gospel of Thomas,
1399
01:09:15,269 --> 01:09:18,009
while it contains some
really early material,
1400
01:09:18,009 --> 01:09:20,629
was not assembled until
the second century, AD.
1401
01:09:20,629 --> 01:09:24,106
And the reason they assume
that is because it seems
1402
01:09:24,106 --> 01:09:26,768
to know all four canonical gospels.
1403
01:09:26,768 --> 01:09:28,809
Well, where could a person have been
1404
01:09:28,809 --> 01:09:31,309
to have had access to all four
1405
01:09:32,288 --> 01:09:33,989
canonical gospels, together at one time?
1406
01:09:33,989 --> 01:09:37,210
That surely didn't happen
before the second century AD.
1407
01:09:37,210 --> 01:09:41,168
- The Gospel of Thomas
has, in its last logion,
1408
01:09:41,168 --> 01:09:45,335
or last saying, something that
scholars are embarrassed by,
1409
01:09:46,368 --> 01:09:48,649
those who want it to go
into our New Testament,
1410
01:09:48,649 --> 01:09:50,329
they're embarrassed, or they really
1411
01:09:50,329 --> 01:09:52,181
should be embarrassed by it.
1412
01:09:52,181 --> 01:09:53,463
Peter starts out bey saying,
1413
01:09:53,463 --> 01:09:56,688
let Mary, namely Mary
Magdalene, go out from us,
1414
01:09:56,688 --> 01:09:59,863
because women are not worthy of the life.
1415
01:09:59,863 --> 01:10:01,386
And then Jesus responds and he says:
1416
01:10:01,386 --> 01:10:03,109
look, I'm gonna change her into a male
1417
01:10:03,109 --> 01:10:04,746
so she'll look like you guys,
1418
01:10:04,746 --> 01:10:07,290
so that she can make it into
heaven just like you guys.
1419
01:10:07,290 --> 01:10:09,305
Because any woman who makes herself
1420
01:10:09,305 --> 01:10:11,888
into a male is gonna get saved.
1421
01:10:13,306 --> 01:10:14,309
That, really?
1422
01:10:14,309 --> 01:10:16,976
Is that how we should view this?
1423
01:10:17,829 --> 01:10:19,209
- Let me tell you how the canon
1424
01:10:19,209 --> 01:10:20,848
of the New Testament was not produced.
1425
01:10:20,848 --> 01:10:24,503
It was not produced by
the Emperor Constantine,
1426
01:10:24,503 --> 01:10:27,530
the supposed bad guy, getting
a bunch of people together
1427
01:10:27,530 --> 01:10:29,546
and saying: you need to
get your act together.
1428
01:10:29,546 --> 01:10:31,130
Tell me, what are the sacred texts?
1429
01:10:31,130 --> 01:10:33,568
You all decide right here
at the Council of Nicea,
1430
01:10:33,568 --> 01:10:35,141
and we're done.
1431
01:10:35,141 --> 01:10:39,029
The Da Vinci Code myth,
1432
01:10:39,029 --> 01:10:42,010
about how the New Testament
was created is just that.
1433
01:10:42,010 --> 01:10:43,689
It's a myth; it's not historical fiction.
1434
01:10:43,689 --> 01:10:45,210
It's hysterical fiction.
1435
01:10:45,210 --> 01:10:48,327
- One main misconception is
that the Council of Nicea
1436
01:10:48,327 --> 01:10:50,490
was where they chose the books
of the New Testament canon,
1437
01:10:50,490 --> 01:10:52,215
and in my field, I hear that all the time.
1438
01:10:52,215 --> 01:10:53,282
That no one knew what books to read,
1439
01:10:53,282 --> 01:10:54,960
and then finally, with Constantine's help,
1440
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:56,917
we got it figured out at Nicea.
1441
01:10:56,917 --> 01:10:58,400
That is patently false.
1442
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:00,514
There is no evidence at all
that the New Testament canon
1443
01:11:00,514 --> 01:11:02,160
was a topic of conversation at Nicea,
1444
01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:04,538
and so there's no reason
to think Nicea really has
1445
01:11:04,538 --> 01:11:06,757
anything to do with what
books we're reading now.
1446
01:11:06,757 --> 01:11:10,618
The council at Nicea was
about how to best articulate
1447
01:11:10,618 --> 01:11:13,620
the divinity of Jesus and
the humanity of Jesus,
1448
01:11:13,620 --> 01:11:15,954
so when we did articulate
it, we made sense
1449
01:11:15,954 --> 01:11:18,980
and got it right and reflected
the true reasons of scripture
1450
01:11:18,980 --> 01:11:21,578
and didn't contradict ourselves.
1451
01:11:21,578 --> 01:11:24,048
- When it comes to the
question of the canon
1452
01:11:24,048 --> 01:11:26,197
of the New Testament or what books belong
1453
01:11:26,197 --> 01:11:28,938
in the New Testament,
there are two broad views
1454
01:11:28,938 --> 01:11:30,757
within Christendom.
1455
01:11:30,757 --> 01:11:34,816
One is that it's an
authoritative list of books.
1456
01:11:34,816 --> 01:11:39,034
The other is that it's a
list of authoritative books.
1457
01:11:39,034 --> 01:11:41,957
If it's an authoritative list
of books, then that means
1458
01:11:41,957 --> 01:11:45,797
there is some authority
over the New Testament,
1459
01:11:45,797 --> 01:11:49,056
that it establishes what
the New Testament is.
1460
01:11:49,056 --> 01:11:52,314
That's the Catholic view,
that's the Greek Orthodox view.
1461
01:11:52,314 --> 01:11:54,311
If it's a list of authoritative books,
1462
01:11:54,311 --> 01:11:57,477
then there is no authority
over the New Testament
1463
01:11:57,477 --> 01:12:00,791
that establishes the New
Testament as our final authority.
1464
01:12:00,791 --> 01:12:03,111
Instead, it's the final authority.
1465
01:12:03,111 --> 01:12:05,097
- You know, I think the very
first thing to recognize
1466
01:12:05,097 --> 01:12:09,018
about the authority of scripture
is that the word "author"
1467
01:12:09,018 --> 01:12:11,354
is right there in the center
of the word "authority".
1468
01:12:11,354 --> 01:12:13,749
So the foundation for the
authority of scripture
1469
01:12:13,749 --> 01:12:16,496
can never be scripture, and
it can never be the church,
1470
01:12:16,496 --> 01:12:18,871
even as the believing
community receiving scripture.
1471
01:12:18,871 --> 01:12:22,149
It goes back by the
very word to the author.
1472
01:12:22,149 --> 01:12:25,676
The ultimate author of
scripture being God, himself.
1473
01:12:25,676 --> 01:12:27,834
- The Bible has authority in the sense
1474
01:12:27,834 --> 01:12:30,084
that it is the word of God.
1475
01:12:32,537 --> 01:12:34,869
And therefore, the
authority is not so much
1476
01:12:34,869 --> 01:12:38,037
in the black and white
letters that we are seeing
1477
01:12:38,037 --> 01:12:42,204
in that book, but in the God
who has communicated with us.
1478
01:12:59,754 --> 01:13:03,936
- If you remember when Jesus
was being tempted by Satan
1479
01:13:03,936 --> 01:13:07,111
in the wilderness, in the
very first temptation,
1480
01:13:07,111 --> 01:13:09,354
Satan says: look, Jesus,
I know you're hungry.
1481
01:13:09,354 --> 01:13:12,416
You've been out here fasting
for 40 days and 40 nights,
1482
01:13:12,416 --> 01:13:16,058
and I know that you have the power to turn
1483
01:13:16,058 --> 01:13:20,736
those stones into bread
and to sate your hunger.
1484
01:13:20,736 --> 01:13:24,757
And Jesus responds to
Satan by quoting Moses,
1485
01:13:24,757 --> 01:13:28,924
from Deuteronomy: man shall
not live by bread alone.
1486
01:13:31,353 --> 01:13:32,353
But by what?
1487
01:13:33,194 --> 01:13:37,269
Every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God.
1488
01:13:37,269 --> 01:13:39,237
And I think that when Paul says:
1489
01:13:39,237 --> 01:13:41,570
all scripture, God breathed.
1490
01:13:42,677 --> 01:13:43,994
Just listen to that:
1491
01:13:43,994 --> 01:13:47,536
every word that comes
from the mouth of God.
1492
01:13:47,536 --> 01:13:51,637
I think Paul has Jesus
and Moses in his mind,
1493
01:13:51,637 --> 01:13:53,098
when he says that.
1494
01:13:53,098 --> 01:13:55,994
So there you see Moses
view of biblical authority,
1495
01:13:55,994 --> 01:13:57,831
Jesus's view of biblical authority,
1496
01:13:57,831 --> 01:14:00,069
Paul's view of biblical authority,
1497
01:14:00,069 --> 01:14:01,819
in three Greek words.
1498
01:14:03,216 --> 01:14:05,716
- If the Bible
is reliable, the questions
1499
01:14:05,716 --> 01:14:09,978
to the canon answered, the
means of inspiration understood,
1500
01:14:09,978 --> 01:14:12,416
how do we interpret it?
1501
01:14:12,416 --> 01:14:14,016
Are there true interpretations,
1502
01:14:14,016 --> 01:14:16,836
or is there just a sea of opinions?
1503
01:14:16,836 --> 01:14:18,938
Is the Bible a book locked in mystery,
1504
01:14:18,938 --> 01:14:21,481
only opened to the religious elite,
1505
01:14:21,481 --> 01:14:23,440
or can an ordinary person sit down
1506
01:14:23,440 --> 01:14:27,440
and know what the living
God has to say to them?
1507
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:31,380
- Before the Reformation came,
1508
01:14:31,380 --> 01:14:34,602
a church service would
have been very pedantic.
1509
01:14:34,602 --> 01:14:36,519
It would have been ritualistic,
1510
01:14:36,519 --> 01:14:39,936
and unfortunately, often, not understood.
1511
01:14:41,962 --> 01:14:44,378
You must understand that
in Catholic theology,
1512
01:14:44,378 --> 01:14:48,999
the idea is that the ritual
itself, the Mass itself,
1513
01:14:48,999 --> 01:14:52,320
has validity, and therefore
people don't even have
1514
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:54,039
to understand what is going on.
1515
01:14:54,039 --> 01:14:56,160
That's why the Mass was done in Latin.
1516
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:58,538
It didn't matter if you understood it.
1517
01:14:58,538 --> 01:15:01,162
As long as you were
there, as long as you were
1518
01:15:01,162 --> 01:15:03,840
participating, as long as somehow you were
1519
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:07,860
spiritually connected,
you did not need to know
1520
01:15:07,860 --> 01:15:11,443
what the words were
that were being spoken.
1521
01:15:12,458 --> 01:15:14,597
- The Catholic church's
attitude to the scriptures
1522
01:15:14,597 --> 01:15:16,378
in the run up to the 16th century
1523
01:15:16,378 --> 01:15:19,159
and during the 16th century
is quite intriguing.
1524
01:15:19,159 --> 01:15:22,560
Certainly the intellectual
hierarchy of the church
1525
01:15:22,560 --> 01:15:25,218
regarded the scriptures as important.
1526
01:15:25,218 --> 01:15:27,317
One of the reasons they
weren't keen on laypeople
1527
01:15:27,317 --> 01:15:29,840
reading the scriptures
was they regarded them
1528
01:15:29,840 --> 01:15:32,400
as important and had a
concern that the scriptures
1529
01:15:32,400 --> 01:15:36,378
would be abused if they fell
into the hands of laypeople.
1530
01:15:36,378 --> 01:15:39,642
On the other hand, however,
the Catholic church,
1531
01:15:39,642 --> 01:15:43,809
at I believe, a demotic
level, at a grassroots level,
1532
01:15:44,880 --> 01:15:47,322
did not have a high
view of the scriptures.
1533
01:15:47,322 --> 01:15:51,698
The scriptures did not
feature highly in the piety
1534
01:15:51,698 --> 01:15:54,058
of your typical parish priest.
1535
01:15:54,058 --> 01:15:57,562
Didn't feature highly in
the liturgical practices
1536
01:15:57,562 --> 01:15:58,729
of the church.
1537
01:16:00,277 --> 01:16:02,298
There were, of course,
very low literacy rates
1538
01:16:02,298 --> 01:16:06,538
in Europe at that time,
so no book functioned
1539
01:16:06,538 --> 01:16:10,705
particularly significantly in
the life of ordinary people.
1540
01:16:12,847 --> 01:16:15,655
- One of the chief things that
Reformers wanted to recover
1541
01:16:15,655 --> 01:16:19,536
about the Bible was the
sense of its clarity.
1542
01:16:19,536 --> 01:16:20,869
Its perspicuity.
1543
01:16:21,834 --> 01:16:24,496
It really wasn't a debate that
the Bible was authoritative.
1544
01:16:24,496 --> 01:16:27,936
Everyone in Christendom
understood that it was inspired
1545
01:16:27,936 --> 01:16:31,017
and it was infallible,
or they would have used
1546
01:16:31,017 --> 01:16:34,944
some term similar to that,
but it was often the clarity.
1547
01:16:34,944 --> 01:16:37,444
Do we have to rely on priests,
1548
01:16:39,136 --> 01:16:42,535
on a magisterium, on church tradition?
1549
01:16:42,535 --> 01:16:44,437
Now, we don't throw out those things.
1550
01:16:44,437 --> 01:16:46,377
We don't come to the
scripture by ourselves.
1551
01:16:46,377 --> 01:16:49,216
We do want to stand on
the shoulders of giants
1552
01:16:49,216 --> 01:16:52,960
to understand it, but of
course, God wouldn't be God
1553
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:55,856
and he wouldn't be good if
he didn't communicate with us
1554
01:16:55,856 --> 01:16:59,237
in a way that we could understand,
1555
01:16:59,237 --> 01:17:02,117
since language is his idea anyways.
1556
01:17:02,117 --> 01:17:06,240
And since he saw fit to
communicate and make himself known
1557
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:09,918
in language, he wants to be understood.
1558
01:17:09,918 --> 01:17:12,138
And the doctrine of the
clarity of scripture
1559
01:17:12,138 --> 01:17:14,997
asserts that if God
wants to be understood,
1560
01:17:14,997 --> 01:17:17,330
he is able to be understood.
1561
01:17:18,418 --> 01:17:20,437
- Now, there are areas of the Bible
1562
01:17:20,437 --> 01:17:22,858
that are harder for us to grapple with.
1563
01:17:22,858 --> 01:17:26,938
You know, Peter says the
same of Paul's writings.
1564
01:17:26,938 --> 01:17:28,656
He says, you know, some of the stuff
1565
01:17:28,656 --> 01:17:31,678
that he writes is not just real obvious.
1566
01:17:31,678 --> 01:17:33,298
Well, that's very helpful to me.
1567
01:17:33,298 --> 01:17:34,640
I'm glad he felt that way.
1568
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:37,157
We studied Daniel recently, and Daniel,
1569
01:17:37,157 --> 01:17:39,957
you know, half, the second half of Daniel
1570
01:17:39,957 --> 01:17:42,248
was a great encouragement to
me to realize that Daniel,
1571
01:17:42,248 --> 01:17:44,397
when he was on the receiving end of some
1572
01:17:44,397 --> 01:17:46,797
of these revelations
actually fell on the floor
1573
01:17:46,797 --> 01:17:48,597
and then went to bed for two weeks
1574
01:17:48,597 --> 01:17:50,517
because he was so overwhelmed by it,
1575
01:17:50,517 --> 01:17:52,917
and he couldn't really figure it all out.
1576
01:17:52,917 --> 01:17:56,032
Now, that would be
alarming if we were dealing
1577
01:17:56,032 --> 01:17:59,354
with main things and plain things,
1578
01:17:59,354 --> 01:18:03,521
but there are certain things
that are even secrets to God,
1579
01:18:04,574 --> 01:18:07,056
as Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us.
1580
01:18:07,056 --> 01:18:09,712
You know, the things that
have been revealed are there,
1581
01:18:09,712 --> 01:18:12,174
and with some work, with some hard work,
1582
01:18:12,174 --> 01:18:16,154
with some dependence
upon the spirit of God,
1583
01:18:16,154 --> 01:18:19,077
with some help from those who
are brighter than ourselves,
1584
01:18:19,077 --> 01:18:20,892
we'll be able to get to this.
1585
01:18:20,892 --> 01:18:23,058
Because the Bible actually is clear.
1586
01:18:23,058 --> 01:18:26,581
- Well, there are many, many
wrong approaches to scripture.
1587
01:18:26,581 --> 01:18:28,261
Many individual examples.
1588
01:18:28,261 --> 01:18:31,578
For example, people sometimes
cite Philippians four,
1589
01:18:31,578 --> 01:18:34,357
I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.
1590
01:18:34,357 --> 01:18:37,803
Which warrants them to do
anything they really want to do.
1591
01:18:37,803 --> 01:18:41,498
Or a pastor can use it: we would like you
1592
01:18:41,498 --> 01:18:43,631
to teach such and such
a Sunday school class.
1593
01:18:43,631 --> 01:18:44,789
Oh, I can't do that.
1594
01:18:44,789 --> 01:18:46,558
Oh, you can't say "can't";
you can do all things
1595
01:18:46,558 --> 01:18:48,082
through Christ who strengthens you.
1596
01:18:48,082 --> 01:18:50,818
- And the fact is: no you can't.
1597
01:18:50,818 --> 01:18:51,901
I can't sing.
1598
01:18:53,118 --> 01:18:55,319
And you know, I just can't sing.
1599
01:18:55,319 --> 01:18:57,276
That's not a gift that God gave me.
1600
01:18:57,276 --> 01:18:59,959
And I can't say, I mean, silly example,
1601
01:18:59,959 --> 01:19:02,978
but I can't do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.
1602
01:19:02,978 --> 01:19:06,258
But the "all things" is pointing back
1603
01:19:06,258 --> 01:19:08,380
to what Paul just said,
and Paul just said:
1604
01:19:08,380 --> 01:19:11,019
I am content in all circumstances.
1605
01:19:11,019 --> 01:19:12,402
Good times and bad.
1606
01:19:12,402 --> 01:19:14,199
Persecutions and not.
1607
01:19:14,199 --> 01:19:16,418
In having money and not having money.
1608
01:19:16,418 --> 01:19:20,059
I can do all these things,
is what it really says.
1609
01:19:20,059 --> 01:19:22,878
I can do all these things through
Christ who strengthens me.
1610
01:19:22,878 --> 01:19:25,420
So Paul's not just carte blanche saying:
1611
01:19:25,420 --> 01:19:28,220
Christians can do anything they want.
1612
01:19:28,220 --> 01:19:32,387
But Christians can learn to be
content in all circumstances.
1613
01:19:33,819 --> 01:19:37,420
- We can't make one part
of scripture say something
1614
01:19:37,420 --> 01:19:40,178
that contradicts the rest of scripture.
1615
01:19:40,178 --> 01:19:43,719
Therefore, if we are having
difficulty with this section,
1616
01:19:43,719 --> 01:19:46,338
then perhaps we don't know the totality
1617
01:19:46,338 --> 01:19:48,818
of scripture well enough
to be able to place
1618
01:19:48,818 --> 01:19:52,796
this properly and then to
interpret it accurately.
1619
01:19:52,796 --> 01:19:57,479
- We can say, dogmatically,
God loves the world.
1620
01:19:57,479 --> 01:20:00,418
We can say that without
fear of being contradicted.
1621
01:20:00,418 --> 01:20:03,020
We may not know everything
that we could know,
1622
01:20:03,020 --> 01:20:04,780
should know, would like to know
1623
01:20:04,780 --> 01:20:07,659
about the word "God", or
even the word "loves",
1624
01:20:07,659 --> 01:20:10,140
or even the word "world",
but nevertheless,
1625
01:20:10,140 --> 01:20:13,522
the proposition "God loves
the world" is a faithful
1626
01:20:13,522 --> 01:20:17,378
interpretation of John three
and many other passages.
1627
01:20:17,378 --> 01:20:19,698
- We have to make clear
the difference between
1628
01:20:19,698 --> 01:20:21,858
meaning and significance.
1629
01:20:21,858 --> 01:20:24,258
Sometimes people have
tried to point out, well,
1630
01:20:24,258 --> 01:20:27,508
look, you can hear 10 different sermons
1631
01:20:28,482 --> 01:20:31,900
about Jesus's encounter
with the woman at the well,
1632
01:20:31,900 --> 01:20:34,599
and one preacher will make
the text about evangelism
1633
01:20:34,599 --> 01:20:36,299
and another one about apologetics,
1634
01:20:36,299 --> 01:20:38,119
and another about confronting sin,
1635
01:20:38,119 --> 01:20:40,418
another about how to befriend strangers,
1636
01:20:40,418 --> 01:20:43,719
and someone will say: look, no
one can agree on the meaning.
1637
01:20:43,719 --> 01:20:45,938
Well, no, the issue there
is really significance.
1638
01:20:45,938 --> 01:20:49,959
The text of scripture will
never be fully exhausted,
1639
01:20:49,959 --> 01:20:53,260
and any good preacher is
going to find ways to apply it
1640
01:20:53,260 --> 01:20:55,980
in a number of different avenues.
1641
01:20:55,980 --> 01:20:59,313
But the meaning, nevertheless, is fixed.
1642
01:21:00,338 --> 01:21:04,759
That the meaning of the text
is what the author intended
1643
01:21:04,759 --> 01:21:08,882
to communicate by that text,
which, dealing with scripture,
1644
01:21:08,882 --> 01:21:12,300
uniquely, means there
is both the intention
1645
01:21:12,300 --> 01:21:16,380
of the human author and
sometimes even superseding that
1646
01:21:16,380 --> 01:21:18,578
in ways they may not
have fully understood,
1647
01:21:18,578 --> 01:21:21,993
is the intention of the divine author.
1648
01:21:49,196 --> 01:21:51,058
- We work on the basis of evidence,
1649
01:21:51,058 --> 01:21:54,519
not on the basis of
speculation or weird ideas
1650
01:21:54,519 --> 01:21:57,772
or philosophy, and whenever you argue
1651
01:21:57,772 --> 01:21:59,899
with somebody who is not a believer,
1652
01:21:59,899 --> 01:22:02,322
they almost always bring in non-evidence.
1653
01:22:02,322 --> 01:22:03,778
Well, God would not have done this.
1654
01:22:03,778 --> 01:22:05,719
Or this is really what I think happened.
1655
01:22:05,719 --> 01:22:08,338
It's just all speculation.
1656
01:22:08,338 --> 01:22:10,638
Let's look at what the evidence says.
1657
01:22:10,638 --> 01:22:13,042
Our faith is rooted in history.
1658
01:22:13,042 --> 01:22:16,300
And consequently, we
need to use the evidence
1659
01:22:16,300 --> 01:22:18,060
and never be afraid of it.
1660
01:22:18,060 --> 01:22:21,543
- Half the battle of dealing
with the trustworthiness
1661
01:22:21,543 --> 01:22:24,300
or reliability of the Bible is to know:
1662
01:22:24,300 --> 01:22:26,380
what are the subjects of the Bible.
1663
01:22:26,380 --> 01:22:28,540
And the subjects of the Bible
are really pretty simple.
1664
01:22:28,540 --> 01:22:30,684
History, theology, and ethics.
1665
01:22:30,684 --> 01:22:34,562
The three major subjects
of the Bible are history,
1666
01:22:34,562 --> 01:22:36,300
because we have a historical God
1667
01:22:36,300 --> 01:22:38,380
who intervenes in human history.
1668
01:22:38,380 --> 01:22:40,763
It's about theology, the character of God,
1669
01:22:40,763 --> 01:22:42,240
and the character of his people.
1670
01:22:42,240 --> 01:22:43,659
And it's about ethics.
1671
01:22:43,659 --> 01:22:47,643
How should we behave in
response to all of that?
1672
01:22:47,643 --> 01:22:49,983
- It's very sad in our
culture that we've seen
1673
01:22:49,983 --> 01:22:53,963
the body of Christ called,
charged, and mandated
1674
01:22:53,963 --> 01:22:56,877
to proclaim and even defend the faith,
1675
01:22:56,877 --> 01:22:59,782
but in many quarters,
the church has denied,
1676
01:22:59,782 --> 01:23:01,984
questioned the faith.
1677
01:23:01,984 --> 01:23:05,824
We're not to spin it,
nuance it, change it,
1678
01:23:05,824 --> 01:23:09,324
undermine it, we're called to proclaim it.
1679
01:23:11,243 --> 01:23:13,421
- The church of Jesus Christ always faces
1680
01:23:13,421 --> 01:23:17,562
a tremendous temptation,
and that is to deviate
1681
01:23:17,562 --> 01:23:19,904
from the word of God.
1682
01:23:19,904 --> 01:23:22,923
And when we do that, what happens?
1683
01:23:22,923 --> 01:23:25,581
First of all, we may get wrong doctrine,
1684
01:23:25,581 --> 01:23:29,104
because we no longer see
the clarity of the deity
1685
01:23:29,104 --> 01:23:33,403
of Jesus Christ and the
issues of salvation.
1686
01:23:33,403 --> 01:23:34,861
The other thing that's going to happen,
1687
01:23:34,861 --> 01:23:37,846
almost immediately, is
there is going to be
1688
01:23:37,846 --> 01:23:41,302
a devaluation of moral teaching.
1689
01:23:41,302 --> 01:23:46,077
And pretty soon we begin to
reason based on our own notions,
1690
01:23:46,077 --> 01:23:49,542
based on our own desires,
and the word of God is there,
1691
01:23:49,542 --> 01:23:52,864
but it is not believed,
it is not preached,
1692
01:23:52,864 --> 01:23:54,781
and it is not lived.
1693
01:23:54,781 --> 01:23:58,362
- Often, a contemporary drifting
church is very comfortable.
1694
01:23:58,362 --> 01:24:02,000
What is preached may sound very orthodox.
1695
01:24:02,000 --> 01:24:05,302
But it doesn't challenge anybody.
1696
01:24:05,302 --> 01:24:07,981
It doesn't call them back to the gospel,
1697
01:24:07,981 --> 01:24:09,901
where they are drifting.
1698
01:24:09,901 --> 01:24:12,144
This saying is attributed
to Martin Luther.
1699
01:24:12,144 --> 01:24:14,304
So many pungent sayings are.
1700
01:24:14,304 --> 01:24:15,981
I'm not sure if it comes from him or not,
1701
01:24:15,981 --> 01:24:17,680
but it's a true saying.
1702
01:24:17,680 --> 01:24:21,462
If you preach the gospel, at every point,
1703
01:24:21,462 --> 01:24:24,781
except where the gospel
is being challenged,
1704
01:24:24,781 --> 01:24:27,302
you're not preaching the gospel at all.
1705
01:24:27,302 --> 01:24:29,184
If you preach the gospel to a church,
1706
01:24:29,184 --> 01:24:33,163
at every point except the
place where they need it,
1707
01:24:33,163 --> 01:24:34,843
or the place they need to be called back
1708
01:24:34,843 --> 01:24:38,784
to obedience to God, you're
not preaching the gospel.
1709
01:24:38,784 --> 01:24:39,617
At all.
1710
01:24:42,381 --> 01:24:45,920
- If you can get people
to doubt the Bible,
1711
01:24:45,920 --> 01:24:50,003
then you will get them,
sooner or later, to deny.
1712
01:24:52,800 --> 01:24:56,282
But you have to doubt
first, before you can deny.
1713
01:24:56,282 --> 01:25:01,280
Then as they deny, then you're
going to get them to disobey.
1714
01:25:01,280 --> 01:25:05,504
And that's worked so well
since the Garden of Eden,
1715
01:25:05,504 --> 01:25:08,342
he hasn't had to change his tactics.
1716
01:25:08,342 --> 01:25:09,759
He still uses it.
1717
01:25:17,280 --> 01:25:19,447
- God made us for himself.
1718
01:25:21,181 --> 01:25:23,931
He has made us for his own glory.
1719
01:25:25,981 --> 01:25:30,148
He communicates with us,
telling us how we ought to live.
1720
01:25:33,661 --> 01:25:37,828
Through his word, he has given
us an entire library there,
1721
01:25:39,563 --> 01:25:43,840
to fit into quite a lot
of the various words
1722
01:25:43,840 --> 01:25:48,064
in which we think, and
all that is authoritative.
1723
01:25:48,064 --> 01:25:52,231
So we don't go to the Bible
wanting to judge the scriptures.
1724
01:25:54,464 --> 01:25:58,480
We go to the Bible with
a sense of submission.
1725
01:25:58,480 --> 01:26:03,184
Wanting to hear what the
living God has to say to us.
1726
01:26:03,184 --> 01:26:04,767
And that's crucial.
1727
01:26:07,882 --> 01:26:11,901
I have a good friend who
is famous for saying:
1728
01:26:11,901 --> 01:26:13,840
I love the word of God.
1729
01:26:13,840 --> 01:26:18,282
He loves it, and he does,
he truly loves the Bible.
1730
01:26:18,282 --> 01:26:20,759
We're talking about it
one day, and I said:
1731
01:26:20,759 --> 01:26:23,162
I have a question for you.
1732
01:26:23,162 --> 01:26:24,384
You love the Bible, don't you?
1733
01:26:24,384 --> 01:26:25,722
You love the word of God, don't you?
1734
01:26:25,722 --> 01:26:26,902
Yes I do.
1735
01:26:26,902 --> 01:26:29,485
I said: do you love its author?
1736
01:26:30,582 --> 01:26:34,144
And do you know that there's a difference?
1737
01:26:34,144 --> 01:26:36,592
And he just went blank.
1738
01:26:36,592 --> 01:26:38,560
It had never occurred to him that there
1739
01:26:38,560 --> 01:26:41,310
was something beyond Bible study.
1740
01:26:43,082 --> 01:26:46,363
- I've read from Genesis
to Revelation in the Bible.
1741
01:26:46,363 --> 01:26:50,800
And not once does anyone
ever have an encounter
1742
01:26:50,800 --> 01:26:53,802
with the true and living
God and come away and say:
1743
01:26:53,802 --> 01:26:56,282
it was kind of boring and irrelevant.
1744
01:26:56,282 --> 01:26:59,728
He said: people encounter God and die.
1745
01:26:59,728 --> 01:27:03,803
They encounter God and they
are paralyzed with fear.
1746
01:27:03,803 --> 01:27:06,923
They encounter God and
they're overwhelmed with joy.
1747
01:27:06,923 --> 01:27:09,184
They encounter God and they
cry because all their hopes
1748
01:27:09,184 --> 01:27:13,387
are realized, but nobody
ever encounters God and says:
1749
01:27:13,387 --> 01:27:15,686
that was boring and irrelevant.
1750
01:27:15,686 --> 01:27:18,280
Well, when people say that
about the Bible, it just says
1751
01:27:18,280 --> 01:27:20,827
to me they've not encountered
the God of the Bible.
1752
01:27:20,827 --> 01:27:23,664
If you think the Bible is boring,
1753
01:27:23,664 --> 01:27:27,331
then either you don't
realize what you need,
1754
01:27:28,638 --> 01:27:32,347
or you've never met the God
that the Bible talks about.
1755
01:27:32,347 --> 01:27:35,227
And very frankly, I do think
that there are a lot of people
1756
01:27:35,227 --> 01:27:39,206
that are preachers by profession
that have never met God.
1757
01:27:39,206 --> 01:27:43,373
Or they'd never say his word
is boring and irrelevant.
1758
01:27:47,707 --> 01:27:50,624
- I love the way Psalm 119 unfolds.
1759
01:27:51,686 --> 01:27:53,560
It's the longest chapter in the Bible,
1760
01:27:53,560 --> 01:27:55,504
and it's all about the word.
1761
01:27:55,504 --> 01:27:58,921
And you see there what the word produces.
1762
01:28:00,603 --> 01:28:02,270
It produces delight.
1763
01:28:04,267 --> 01:28:06,517
It produces desire for God.
1764
01:28:07,563 --> 01:28:09,396
It produces obedience.
1765
01:28:11,000 --> 01:28:15,024
So, sometimes it's helpful to
look at a text like Psalm 119
1766
01:28:15,024 --> 01:28:18,326
and say: what does it
look like and feel like?
1767
01:28:18,326 --> 01:28:21,707
What's the experience of
the person, of the heart,
1768
01:28:21,707 --> 01:28:25,664
of the soul that's been
captivated by the word of God?
1769
01:28:25,664 --> 01:28:27,728
And you see there
they're singing the word,
1770
01:28:27,728 --> 01:28:31,606
they're storing up the word,
they're treasuring God's word.
1771
01:28:31,606 --> 01:28:34,427
They have the greatest
sense of delight in it.
1772
01:28:34,427 --> 01:28:37,344
They are pained when
people don't follow it.
1773
01:28:37,344 --> 01:28:41,387
It's their greatest longing to obey it.
1774
01:28:41,387 --> 01:28:45,563
They see God's character and
smile, and that's what we want.
1775
01:28:45,563 --> 01:28:50,283
That's why having the right
view of scripture matters.
1776
01:28:50,283 --> 01:28:53,003
Because without it, we're going to come to
1777
01:28:53,003 --> 01:28:55,000
not only wrong conclusions
about God and the gospel
1778
01:28:55,000 --> 01:28:58,144
and ourselves, but we won't think rightly,
1779
01:28:58,144 --> 01:29:00,683
we won't feel rightly,
we won't be the sort
1780
01:29:00,683 --> 01:29:04,107
of human beings that God made us to be,
1781
01:29:04,107 --> 01:29:08,274
if we don't take him at his
word, and understand all
1782
01:29:09,606 --> 01:29:13,227
that he means for us
to know about himself.
140780
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