The Authority of Scripture

2 Timothy 3: 16 – 17

Introduction

A couple of weeks ago, my family made a very quick trip to Mississippi and back, because my grandmother died. She was almost 90 years old and had suffered with some form of dementia for the past several years. It was not a sudden death, and it was not a sad death. We knew that she was a Christian. We knew that she would be better off in Heaven than she would be if she kept living. In many ways, her funeral was a family reunion. I saw cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts and great uncles that I haven’t seen in years.

I learned in my first churches that smaller churches usually have one or two prominent families in the church. Most of the church members are either members of the prominent family, or they married into the prominent Family.

My grandmother had been a member of the Farmington Baptist Church for over 70 years! And she had married into the Pittman family. At Farmington Baptist Church, the Pittman family is one of the prominent families in the church. My first cousin, Brandon, is the bi-vocational music minister in the church. His wife is the church pianist and children’s music director. My grandfather and his brother physically built the church buildings. The cemetery next to the church is filled with grave markers with the name Pittman on them.

Back in 2004, the pastor of Farmington Baptist Church called me. My grandparents were declining in health, and the pastor wanted to plan a special Sunday for them. He invited Shauna to sing, other grandchildren to participate in the worship service, and he invited me to preach.

I remember being very worried about preaching in my grandparents’ church. I wasn’t worried about preaching a good sermon and making my family proud of me. I was worried about not using my Bible. You know that I preach from the New International Version of the Bible. My grandparents’ church is a “King James only” church. I had to borrow a King James Version to preach in their church. (In fact, when I preached my grandmother’s funeral a couple of weeks ago, I was using Aubrey’s KJV Bible.)

I have no reason to criticize the KJV. In fact, I grew up reading and memorizing from the KJV. Some of you prefer to read the KJV. It is the Bible my grandparents read. It is the Bible my mother continues to read. She believes that if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for her.

There is no reason to criticize the KJV, because it has literally changed the world. The KJV was the best selling English book every year from 1611 until 1988—378 years! In 1989, the New International Version surpassed the KJV as the most popular English version of the Bible. Just try to think about how many churches, pastors and Christians have read from the KJV during that time.

The reason I bring this up is that Monday, May 2, 2011 is the 400^th anniversary of the King James Version.

The KJV was not the first Bible to be published in English. That distinction goes to the Wycliffe Bible around 1409. Then, there was the Tyndale Bible and the Great Bible. The Great Bible was so named, because it was a great size and a great expense. Later a group of Calvinists, who were facing persecution in England, fled to Geneva Switzerland. In Geneva, they translated the Bible into English and used the latest technology to print it economically and import it into England.

In 1611, King James I didn’t like the Geneva Bible, because it was a study Bible written by Calvinists. The study notes challenged the hierarchy of the Anglican Church. In an effort to protect the Anglican hierarchy, King James commissioned a team of 54 university scholars to translate the Bible into English from Hebrew and Greek and to print it without study notes. This Bible eventually became known as the King James Version, or the Authorized Version—because it had been authorized by the King of England. The King James Version was immediately accepted by the Anglican Church as the official Bible to be used in public worship.

In addition to being the year the KJV was published, 1611 was also an important year for Baptists in England. This is the same year that John Smyth and Thomas Helwys formed the first Baptist church in Spittelfield, England. I would like to find a book or another resource that can connect the dots between the KJV and the formation the first Baptist church. After all, two foundations of Baptist theology include the authority of Scripture and the priesthood of all believers. We believe every Christian has the ability to speak to God directly and to read the Bible and hear God’s word in Scripture. Surely there is a connection…

What exactly do we mean when we say we believe in the authority of Scripture? I suppose we could go back in Baptist history and read what our Baptist forebears had to say about the Bible. But, I think we would do better to look at what the Bible has to say about itself. One of the best Scriptures to define what we believe about the Scriptures is found in the writings of the Apostle Paul…2 Timothy 3: 16 – 17…

Read 2 Timothy 3: 16 – 17.

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

(NIV)

Tradition tells us that Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy from a Roman prison at the very end of his life. Since Paul is still alive at the end of the Book of Acts and was in prison in Caesarea, we have to believe that Paul got out of prison and was eventually arrested a second time and put in prison in Rome. This fits well with the tradition about Paul’s death. Church legend tells us that Paul was beheaded in Rome.

With this in mind, we ought to read the books of 1 and 2 Timothy with an urgent tone. Paul believes (correctly) that he doesn’t have very long to live. Therefore, he also feels a sense of urgency to communicate the most important details of life and ministry to his young protégé, Timothy.

Paul warns Timothy about false teachers infiltrating the church. These false teachers are dangerous for a couple of reasons. On one hand, they can easily lead people into believing false things about Jesus. On the other hand, false teachers stir up conflict in the church. Conflict in the church runs counter to what Paul wants to happen in the church. It can cause Christians to stop acting like Christians. But even worse, conflict distracts the church from the work of mission and ministry that God wants us to perform.

In the present context, Paul tells Timothy that Timothy has to make a choice between two possible influences. Timothy can be influenced by the false teachers. OR, Timothy can be influenced by the Scriptures. The false teachers teach a changing message. The Scripture teach an unchanging message. The false teachers teach a message that is new. The Scriptures teach a message that Timothy learned as a child.

One of the things we can affirm about the Scriptures is the way the message never changes. The story of Scripture is the old, old story. We learned it as children. We repeat it as adults. The message never changes, but the message never gets old. There are new ways to apply the message of Scripture to different stages of our lives and to the different cultures we find ourselves in.

All Scripture Is God-Breathed.

The world we live in is always changing. We are aging and changing. Our communities are changing as jobs come and go, as new people move in and move out, and as community morals and values change. But there is something that does not change. The Bible does not change.

The reason the Bible never changes is the fact that it has been breathed by God. This is where we get our concept of “inspiration.” The word “inspire” means to breathe in, or to inhale. It is the opposite of the word “expire,” which means to breathe out.

Do you remember the story of how God created the first human in Genesis 2? God reached down and picked up a handful of dirt. God molded and shaped that dirt until it took on the form of a human man. When God finished shaping the dirt into a man, there was no life in the man. So, God bent down and breathed his own breath into the man. Now, the man was alive. He had the breath of God in him.

There is an interesting thing about the Hebrew and Greek languages. In both Hebrew and in Greek, there is only one word that is translated “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” There is a close connection between the “breath of God” and the “Spirit of God.” (For example, in John’s story of the resurrection, he tells us that Jesus “breathed” on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit [John 20: 22].”)

So, when Paul says that Scripture has been “breathed by God,” he is telling us the Holy Spirit had a role in writing the Scriptures. On one hand, the Bible was written by human authors. On the other hand, these human writers were led by the Holy Spirit—the breath of God.

Technically, we have it backwards when we say that the Bible is “inspired.” That would presume that the Bible is taking a breath, breathing in the Spirit of God. Paul doesn’t say that the Bible took a deep breath from God. Instead, he tells us that God breathed his Spirit into the Bible. Perhaps it would be better to say that the Bible is “expired” by God… but that doesn’t sound right…

If the Bible comes to us from the breath of God, then there are several things we can affirm about Scripture. It comes from God, therefore it is Truth. It comes from God, therefore it is Unchanging. It comes from God, therefore it is Sufficient. God has given us what we need in Scripture. There is no reason to add to the Bible.

All Scripture Is Useful.

Of all the things we can claim for the Bible, there is one things we can say the Bible is not. The Bible is not an end in itself. It is never good enough to say that you believe the Bible. There are many people who claim to believe the Bible, but they never use the Bible. It simply sits on the coffee table, collecting dust. It’s not good enough to believe the Bible if you never use the Bible. The Bible is to be read and applied to your life.

This is why Paul tells us that the Bible is “useful.” God has breathed the Bible to us so that we will open it up and read it…study it…apply it to the way we live our lives.

The Bible is useful for teaching. God has given us everything we need in the Bible. The Bible can be read and understood by anyone who can read. We don’t need priests or pastors or biblical scholars to tell us what the Bible says. Some people believe the Bible was written to conceal truth about God and God’s plan for our world. There is a special code that only certain people can break to discern God’s truth from the Bible. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that the Bible conceals God and God’s plan. It was written to reveal God and God’s plan.

The Bible is useful for rebuking. Be careful here. Some people read this and get excited about going out to rebuke other people. (Some people are probably making a list right now of the folks they want to rebuke this afternoon after church.) Keep in mind; this is not actually your job. It is the Bible’s job. We can probably understand the concept of “rebuking” as something similar to “convicting of sin.” This is the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins. But, the Bible tells us what sin really is. Therefore, we can say that when we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit speaks to us about the sin in our lives. It is not our job to convict other Christians of their sins. If they are not listening to the Holy Spirit…If they are not listening to the Bible…Why do we think they will listen to us?

The Bible is useful for correcting. This is the positive side of “rebuking” and “convicting.” On one hand, the Bible tells us what sin is. On the other hand, the Bible shows us the correct way to live our lives. Ultimately, this is found in the example of Jesus. We read about the life of Jesus in the Bible. The way he lived and ministered to others and sacrificed his life to demonstrate God’s love…This is the correct way to live your life.

The Bible is useful for training in righteousness. We usually think of righteousness backwards from what God intends. We think that righteousness includes all the good things we do for God. The Bible teaches us that righteousness is the good thing God has done for us. We cannot live righteous lives. The only righteousness available to us is the way God makes us righteous through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. God places us in a right relationship with himself through Jesus.

All Scripture Is Equipping.

The point of the Bible is not to decorate our houses. The point of the Bible is to use it, so that through reading and studying and applying the Bible to our lives God can equip us for the good work God has planned for us. This is not something we can do on our own strength. We need God to work in us and to change us. Ultimately, the purpose of the Bible is to change your life.

We don’t read the Bible so that we can learn all the facts and dates about Israel and the church. We don’t read the Bible to memorize sound doctrine. We read the Bible so that we can have an experience with God that changes our lives.

The best place I know to find this is in the reason John gave us for writing his Gospel. “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20: 30 – 31 NIV).”

The Bible was breathed by God. But, it was written by humans who had experienced God in their lives. They wrote about their experiences, so that you and I could have the same experience with God. If we are reading the Bible and not meeting with God, we are doing it wrong. If we are reading the Bible and our lives are not being changed by God, we are doing it wrong.

Conclusion.

We believe in the “authority of Scripture,” because we believe the Bible has been “breathed by God.” In other words, the authority of the Bible comes from the authority of God. Therefore, we need to look in the Bible to discover how God exercises his authority.[1]

God is the Creator of the entire universe. God is in control of history from the way the creation began to the way creation will one day end. Everything and every person is under the authority of God. But, how does God exercise his authority?

God exercised his authority by demonstrating his love through Jesus. God sent his Only Begotten Son to live a sinless life as an example…to die a sacrificial death…to rise again as the promise of eternal life. God beckons for us to believe in Jesus and to follow him as our Lord. For those who believe in Jesus, God is molding us and shaping us into the people he wants us to become. God loves you and wants to change your life. BUT, God does not and will not coerce us.

That is like the “authority of Scripture.” It is one thing to believe in the authority of Scripture. It is another thing entirely to pick up your Bible and read it…to allow the Bible to change your life…to equip you for the work God has planned for you.

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[1] http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm