You may have heard. We have learned now that "There is no such thing as "truth." Don't you believe it, friend. Stay with us and let us see if there is anything to the idea that, "You shall know the truth and truth shall make you free."
Thank you, my friend, for inviting us into your home for Bible study in Search of the Lord's Way. How pleased we are for the invitation! You know now-- don't you-- that we are closed captioned? And unless you are a new viewer of our program, you also know that we are here every week-- free of any appeals for money, because of the love and generosity of members of churches of Christ in the area of this station.
However, we would like very much to hear from you this week about how the program has been a blessing to you in some way. Don't be afraid we are going to read your name on the air. And we won't pass it along to someone else either without your permission. We don’t do that. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@aol.com. And our toll-free telephone number for your convenience is 1-800-321-8633. And you might like to visit our website too-- at www.searchtv.org. Ken Helterbrand is in charge of our music. Oh yes! We do have music. It is vocal music. And Ken will lead us now as we sing together. And then I will be back.
We are reading today from 1 Timothy chapter 3. We will read verses 14, 15, and 16. “These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.” Now let us go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for the revelation of Your word in the Bible and for the proper translations of it that we have so that we can have some measure of surety that we have the word of truth. And help us as we strive to be in the church of our Lord today the pillar and the support of the truth. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
A Gallup Poll along about the middle of 2002 (and I haven’t seen a more recent one) revealed a significant drop in the percentage of Americans who continued to have confidence in "church" or organized religion. In a year's time that confidence had dropped from 60% to 45%, to the lowest since Gallup had been taking those polls. I am personally concerned about that and I have been asking why? And, what can we do to reverse that trend. It has been a difficult and disappointing and dangerous task because it is meant being critical of some things that are being done in the name of Christianity. And that is sometime thought to be heretical. However, we have our Better Business Bureau by which the business community protects us from cheats and scams in business; and we have our Medical Associations in which the medical profession polices its own and protects us from quack doctors; we also have the Bar Association by which upright and honorable attorneys protect the public from shyster lawyers, but there is no one to point out the deceitful and false teachings and practices in religion. It is almost considered blasphemy in the religious community to even suggest that there are such people and such practices going on. Consequently, public confidence in church has been sacrificed. So, in an effort to restore trust in the church that Jesus said He would build-- and did build, we are teaching about that church. That church is still worthy of our confidence and emulation. That is our study today.
My friend, I am fully persuaded that it isn't real and pure and true Christianity; but it is the departure from it, that has caused the loss of public confidence in what is being promoted as Christianity. Much of it is plainly and simply not Christianity at all-- it is not the church that Jesus built-- the one that you read about in your Bible. It doesn't even resemble. As a matter of fact, many of the proponents of today's "show time religion" as it has been called, admit to not even trying to preach and teach Bible doctrine about the church and worship and mission and morals and ethics and service, and all of that. They proudly advertise that they provide an atmosphere of freedom in which people may believe-- and be whatever they please to be and do. And it is that that is causing the loss of public confidence in church. It sounds like a place a person would really like to go. But, upon further investigation people are discovering that a god or a faith that conforms completely to our individual liking is incapable (by its very design) to lift us to spiritual heights above what we are pleased to go. Such a god will never inspire any "reverence and awe" in worship as we are taught in Hebrews 12:28. Nor will it ever be more to us than what fits easily into our personal comfort zone.
The passage we read a moment ago says that the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. The church of Jesus Christ was designed by the Creator, Himself, to be the pillar and support of the truth. A pillar is a column supporting the weight of a building. W.E. Vine says in his "Word Studies of the New Testament" that the word is used in this passage to describe "a local church (and) its responsibility, in a collective capacity, to maintain the doctrines and the faith by teaching and practice."
Well, the wise men of "the postmodern world" say, "The truth is that there is no such thing as truth,"-- hmmm, well ya know, if that is a truth (that they have discovered that one truth that there is no such thing as truth), who knows but what there are other truths that they haven't discovered yet. And, one of them just could very well be that there is such a thing as truth. Another could conceivably be the church Jesus built which He bought with His blood (Acts 20:28), is "the pillar and support of that truth." So, like the great apostle Paul, "We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles (or Greeks) Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).
Well, it has been said, "First, God gave us a Person; then a proclamation, then a people." And those people constitute the church. And you remember, too, don't you, that the Person, Jesus Christ, is the Founder and the truth of His deity, is the Foundation of the church you read about in the Bible? He has the preeminence in all things pertaining to the church. And it was Jesus who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except by Me" (John 14:6). It was He, as well, who said, "If you abide in My words, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32). When He prayed to God, the Father, for His apostles He said, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17). So, maybe Jesus knew something that modern wise men still don't know. That is, that there is such a thing as truth. And the Word of our God is truth. And the church is the pillar and the support of God's eternal truth.
I was reading the other day, and I can't remember in what book I read it; I have been reading so much on this problem that we are addressing today; I just don't remember it, but it seems to me it may have been John Stott in his book, Basic Christianity; I can't be sure. Anyway the statement that impressed me so much-- I can remember it verbatim-- it said, "In the absence of sound preaching, God is silenced." “Sound preaching, or sound teaching" being of course, Biblical teaching. In the absence of Biblical teaching, God is silenced in this world; because the Bible is God's Word. Furthermore, it is His only way of communicating with man in these last days. Churches ought to be ashamed and afraid when they fail or recuse themselves in the matter of supporting and upholding sound doctrine, preaching the truth in love.
From the writing of the first books of the Old Testament, the Bible has had a tremendous impact on the way people have lived. Because of its high moral standards and ethical principles, it has always had its enemies. Of course, it has. History records many attempts to physically destroy the Bible by Bible burnings and by killing people who were found in possession of a Bible. Unbelievers at times have attacked it philosophically with hopes of destroying its credibility and its influence. But, there has risen a more subtle kind of opposition to the Scriptures. And it is in sermons (of all places), sermons saying the Bible can't be trusted to be true and accurate in all instances, and was never intended to be a guide in faith and morals. But faith, whatever it is, must be founded on credible information or the faith itself is unreliable and untrustworthy. Well, that is a root cause of the problem we are discussing today.
The Christian's faith is founded on the teachings of the Bible. If we are to enjoy a meaningful faith in God and genuine, rather than an illusionary relationship with God, it is imperative for God to have revealed Himself and His will to us in some way. And we must be able to believe that revelation, whatever it is, is absolutely accurate to the smallest detail. It must include all that God intended to say and it cannot contain anything that God never meant to say. And, it goes without saying, because "revelation" simply means an "unveiling or making known, or an unmasking" man as the recipient of that revelation, must be able to understand it. And the church was designed by the Lord to be the pillar and the support of that truth.
Much of the New Testament preaching fits the description one of our, well much of the modern preaching fits the description, one of our viewers gave in a recent letter. He said, "I go to church to find answers to Bible questions and I come home with more questions." Seems inconsistent for a person, regardless of his personal charm or gift as an entertainer, to profess to speak or to preach from the Bible then discredit its reliability. "Faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17). But if the Bible can't be relied upon for being true, faith founded on it is ill-founded, too, isn’t it? Well, of course it is. Such preaching is a disservice, and should not even be tolerated in the congregation of the Lord's people, in spite of its amusement qualities. Let the person who doesn't believe in the trustworthiness of his book, his source book, find another profession. Honesty and integrity demand it of him, and let him do it before he destroys the faith of much good people.
Well, as you can see, the question of reliability of the Bible is a very critical and crucial one, and Paul's admonition to Timothy is appropriate in the modern church as well as in the primitive church. "Be diligent,” he said, “to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). Three times in the epistles, the word of God is spoken of as "the word of truth." In this one we just quoted, and in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13, and again in James 1:18.
In the next chapter the apostle Paul writes, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
The word "Scripture" used in that passage is used 32 times in the King James Version of the Bible (31 times in the New Testament) and every time it has reference to what we call "the Bible",-- most often it is used to refer to, with reference to the Scriptures or a certain passage in the Scriptures. The word "Scriptures" (in the plural) is found 21 times (always in the New Testament) and always refers to "the book" that we call the Bible. So if "scripture" is used in this passage (2 Timothy 3:16-17) as it is in other passages it is not to be understood or interpreted that "all scripture that God wrote as opposed to scripture written by others people," but "all scripture is given by the inspiration of God." That would mean all the books of the Bible that were written subsequent to that time as well as previous to that time are inspired of God. And the church is the pillar and the support of that doctrine.
That word "inspiration" is found nowhere else in the Bible. It means "God-breathed." So, the Bible is "God breathed." It is the word of His mouth. Peter declared that none of the Scripture is of any private interpretation of the writer, or private message of the writer, but "holy men of God spoke as they were moved (or picked up and borne along as a sailing vessel is borne along by the wind) by the Holy Spirit (to write what they did)." (2 Peter 3:21).
Now I have just suggested a human writer, haven't I? Well, yes, I have. "Inspiration" implies dual authorship. God inspired (or breathed) His word to the human author who penned it, and thereby guaranteed the absolute accuracy of the original script. That means that the revelation was "without error"-- admitting no mistakes. Second Samuel 23:2 says that David wrote, "The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue." In his book, Inspiration and Authority of the Scriptures, (page 442), B. B. Warfield says, "What Scripture says is to be received as the infallible Word of God, and to assert biblical inerrancy and infallibility is to confess: number 1 the divine origin of the Bible, number 2 the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God." In other words, the Bible is true and trustworthy because it is the word of God, and God is trustworthy and true. And the church of Jesus Christ, the church you read about in your Bible, is the pillar and the ground of that truth. Pray with me. Thank you, God, for the revelation and the preservation of Your word that we can have confidence to ? truth in the world today. And it is in Your word, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Biblical inspiration not only implies accuracy of revelation, and authoritativeness, but completeness, as well. Our sovereign God is fully capable of revealing His will. And when He said what He did and stopped speaking, it was because He had said all that was to be said on that subject. It is presumptuous on the part of anyone to speak where God has not spoken, or to attribute his own words to God. Some have been known to retract those claims. And that is one reason for the loss of confidence in American religion. To the person who has adopted the rule of Bible study which says, "We speak where the Bible is silent, and remain silent where the Bible speaks," we recommend a better rule. It is to "Speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent." Even our Lord refused to presume upon the Father to speak where He had not spoken. He said, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me" (John 7:16). He said, "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is everlasting life: whatever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak" (John 12:49-50).
While "inspiration" has no bearing on "translation" and versions, we probably ought to mention this. To doubt the trustworthiness of the Bible as an inspired, infallible, revelation-- on the basis of translation, really is an absurdity, isn’t it? Christianity is a universal (or international) interest among men, just as modern business and government, both of which are conducted daily with full confidence in translation. And so we have no fear of our ability to accurately translate when entering into an international treaty of some kind between two nations that speak different languages, even when a mistranslation of only one word could conceivably result in war with that nation and the death of many thousands of people. In the transaction of business in the world market where billions of dollars are involved, we trust ourselves fairly and accurately to translate from one language to another. So, it should not be too much for us to grasp that the Scriptures can be translated into the languages of the peoples without the loss of its meaning.
Should you like to pursue this study a bit more and you would like a free audio cassette tape or cd or a printed copy of this message, please write us. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@aol.com. Or our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. Maybe you want to visit our website at searchtv.org. Would you like to enroll in a free Bible Correspondence Course? Well, it will help you in your private and systematic study of the Bible. You can do it at home at your own pace. Simply mail your request to the address above that we gave you a while ago. God bless you now. We love you. |