Rev. David Holwick W I Believe in God, But...
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 9, 2017
Hebrews 4:12, Colossians 3:16
I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THE BIBLE
I. It is owned more than used.
A. The Bible has permeated our society.
1) 85% of our households have one, and the average family
has 4.3 of them.
2) One-third search for verses on their cell phones.
3) 80% of Americans think it is holy.
4) 79% say they are knowledgeable about it, but only
54% can name the first five books.
5) And almost half of Americans think the Bible, Koran and
Book of Mormon speak the same spiritual truths.
B. The new generation is more questioning.
1) "The Simpsons Movie" of 2007 skewers a lot of American
church pieties.
At a crisis moment in the film, with his family in church
beside him, Homer riffles through a pew Bible and
exclaims, "This book doesn't have any answers!" [1]
a) Lots of Americans agree.
b) They like God, they have sampled the Bible, and they
don't get it.
2) Of course, the Bible does have answers, if you know where
to look, but modern people don't like those answers.
a) They see it as too anti-sex.
b) It has too much violence.
c) The ancient history is too obscure.
d) Much of it doesn't seem historical - a garden of Eden,
a floating ark, people rising up our of graves.
e) And it is way too long.
C. What do you think about the Bible? Really??
II. The Bible is a hard book.
A. Christians can agree on this.
1) After years of study, it can still stump you.
2) Even sincere Christians have erred in their understanding
of it.
3) There are passages and principles that every Christian
will struggle with.
4) For some, those struggles result in a loss of faith.
B. The Bible has been under attack for a long time.
1) Modern critical studies of the Bible began 400 years ago.
a) Scholars began to question the traditional authorship
of various books of the Bible, and how they were
put together.
b) They often concluded that the books were cobbled
together from a multitude of sources, over centuries.
1> Different sections would contradict others.
2> Scholars began to see the Bible not as the inspired
Word of God, but a very human book about God,
from many different perspectives.
2) This attitude has had a negative impact on many.
Jessica Misener grew up in a non-churchgoing family,
but accepted Jesus as her savior at age 16.
In her teen and college years she says she was in a
"Bible bubble."
She was the chaplain for her college sorority.
Jessica then went to graduate school to study religion
at Yale.
They took a secular approach to the Bible, treating it
like Shakespeare or any other work of literature.
The attitude began to rub off on her.
She saw discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible.
Her doubts grew rapidly and she concluded she couldn't
take the Bible literally any more.
As she wrote in an essay, if you toss out a literal
meaning of the Bible, then what does it mean to talk
about Jesus literally dying for your sins?
She lost her faith - and she misses it.
She liked who she was when she was born again.
She was more selfless back then and put others first.
She was a more caring friend.
Now that she no longer believes God has a plan for her,
she wonders if life has any meaning after all.
#64915
This is where questions about the Bible can lead - but
it doesn't have to.
III. The Bible presents itself as a Divine Book.
A. Almost all the authors make this claim.
1) Jesus himself referred to it as the Word of God.
2) The Bible was his ultimate source of authority and he
consistently used it to defend his teachings.
a) He believed the prophecies.
b) He accepted the moral teaching.
1> His apparent contradictions of the Old Testament
are actually intensifications.
2> Anger is the root of murder, and lust is the
root of adultery.
B. The Bible has a better track record than many realize.
1) We have a wealth of manuscripts of the Bible, some of which
are within 25 years of the original writing.
a) There are variations within these manuscripts, such as
you see in the notes in your Bibles.
b) However, we have enough sources that we can confidently
believe we are close to the original writings.
c) Muslims don't have this option - they destroyed any
copies of the Quran that had differences.
1> Which could mean that the original text is forever
lost in some cases.
2) Some books of the Bible were written hundreds of years
after the events described, but others are close.
a) The gospels were probably written 20 to 60 years after
the death of Jesus.
b) Paul's letters can be dated quite precisely, as well
as many of the prophets of the Old Testament.
IV. What should we do with the Bible?
A. Read and study it.
1) It doesn't do you any good if you don't crack it.
Writer Kathleen Norris visited a man named Arlo.
He was a rugged, self-made man who was fighting terminal
cancer.
During their visit, Arlo started talking about his
grandfather, who was a sincere Christian.
On his wedding day, he gave Arlo and his bride a present:
an expensive leather Bible with their names printed in
gold lettering.
Arlo left it in the box and never opened it.
For months after the wedding his grandfather kept
asking if he liked the Bible.
Arlo said that his wife had written a nice thank-you note
and they had thanked him in person.
But grandpa wouldn't leave the subject alone; he frequently
asked about it.
Finally, Arlo grew curious enough to open the Bible and
found that his grandfather had placed a twenty-dollar
bill at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and
at the first page of every book.
When he added it all up there was over $1,300 in that
Bible.
Arlo then said, "And he knew I'd never find it."
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2) It helps to have a plan and a habit.
a) Read the Bible systematically, not randomly.
b) Join a Sunday School class - mine is going through the
entire Bible.
B. Apply it to everyday life.
1) Wedding yesterday, with Colossians 3:12-17 as its text:
a) Forgive each other.
b) Put on love.
c) Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.
d) And let the word of Christ dwell in your richly.
2) Expect the Bible to get under your skin, as Hebrews 4:12
promises it will.
C. Consider the one the whole Bible points to - Jesus Christ.
1) The Bible is an extension of Jesus on this earth.
2) He called himself the Word, and says the purpose of God's
Word is to direct people to believe in him. John 5:39
V. Millions have been transformed by this book.
A. A Chinese scholar's testimony.
Tao Lu grew up in a large city in China.
In the first 26 years of his life, he never saw a Bible.
One of his English textbooks mentioned Christmas and
Christianity as a part of "Western festivals," but that
was about it.
Tao wasn't hostile toward Christianity or any other religious
faith; they just seemed irrelevant to his life.
At the age of 26 he attended a college in Richmond, Virginia.
When he arrived he wanted to practice his English and socialize
with other Chinese, so he went to a Chinese Baptist church
near the university and began attending a Bible
discussion group.
Since he had grown up as a communist, Tao considered the
concept of God to be ridiculous.
But the more he read the teachings of Jesus Christ, the more
intrigued he became.
He was amazed by Jesus' command to "love your enemies and do
good" to them (Luke 6:35).
The question Jesus asked in Luke 6:41 -- "Why do you look at
the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice
the log that in your own eye?" -- challenged him to stop
judging others so harshly.
He was moved deeply by Christ's teaching not to be anxious
about our needs, since God takes care of the lilies of the
field and loves us much more (Matthew 6:28-32).
Tao thought those teachings were not only persuasive, but
beautiful.
But becoming a believer is not easy for a modern Chinese
scholar.
If Christianity was correct, that meant the things he had
learned in China were wrong.
He dug deeper.
He read a book by Lin Yutang, a renowned Chinese author who
embraced faith in Christ.
Tao systematically listed the teachings of Jesus and found
he agreed with all of them.
A Christian lawyer named Jim Fiorelli volunteered to help him
with his English by studying the Gospel of John with him.
Jim said, "There's almost no substitute for giving someone the
chance to read Scripture, think about it and talk through it.
If you can get people into the Word, to read it for themselves,
the Word will speak for itself and go deep into a person's
heart."
The time had come for Tao to make a decision, and in June 2015,
he made it.
He prayed the sinner's prayer with his pastor and immediately
shared the news with Jim the lawyer.
Soon after this, Tao's wife was saved.
Tao reflects that he came to believe in Jesus not just on his
rational, logical consideration.
There was also emotion. He knew that he was a sinner.
He believed that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for him
and that Jesus's blood cleansed his sins.
#65181
B. Do you believe these things?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
1. WikiSimpsons; <link>.
#64915 “Why I Miss Being A Born-Again Christian,” by Jessica Misener,
BuzzFeed Staff, May 21, 2014; <link>.
#65181 “Chinese Scholar Finds Bible ‘persuasive, Beautiful’,” by Erich
Bridges, Baptist Press, http://www.baptistpress.org,
April 12, 2016.
#65646 “He Never Cracked His Bible,” Rev. Ken Larsen, Kerux Sermon
#65626, quoting from Kathleen Norris’s book, Amazing Grace:
A Vocabulary of Faith.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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