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Can We Trust the Bible?

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Can we trust the Bible to be God’s living and holy word? The most direct response to this question is, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

In July of 1961 the Green Bay Packers were returning to training camp after losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 17-13 in the NFL championship game where they squandered the lead late in the 4th quarter. The Packers coach was Vince Lombardi, and a biographer wrote that the Packers had been thinking about this brutal loss for the entire off-season and now, training camp had arrived, and it was time to get to work. The players were eager to advance their game to the next level and start working on the details that would help them win a championship.[1] Lombardi had a different idea, however. As the team gathered for their first practice Lombardi held up the football and he said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” He began with the most elemental statement of all, and then he took these professional athletes back to the basic fundamentals of their craft. Lombardi told them, “if you see a football on the ground pick it up, if somebody hands you the ball run with it, if you see a football in the air catch it!”

That day in training camp became the beginning of a football dynasty as the Packers would go on to win 5 NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls, over the next 7 seasons.

Lombardi makes a good case for a consistent commitment to practicing the fundamentals. In the past generation (or so), there has been a chorus of theological voices, including the late Tim Keller that have encouraged the Church, in various ways, toward a “gospel-centered” or “cross-centered” faith. One of Keller’s more famous quotes was, “The gospel is not the A B Cs of the Christian life; it is the A-Z of the Christian life.” So, rather than moving on from the basics of the Christian faith these voices would have us go deeper into the basics and find true Christian maturity in the basics of the Christian faith.

From seminary Professor of Preaching, Jeff Arthurs’ book, Preaching as Reminding: Stirring Memory in an Age of Forgetfulness[2]: Preachers “remind the faithful of what they already know when knowledge has faded, and conviction cooled. We “fan the flames” (p. 3). We see this for example through what Peter says in 2 Peter 1:12-13 “…to stir you up by way of reminder…” And so, “Ministers must learn to stir memory, not simply repeat threadbare platitudes” (p. 5).

Martin Luther, famously said that we are to preach the gospel to ourselves every day (and even to the Devil, when we need to resist him!).[3]

Three simplified degrees of perceived inspiration related to the Bible:

  1. Natural Inspiration says, the Bible is human writing with great insight into the human condition—on a par with the Greek Philosophers, or Shakespeare, or Dostoevsky.
  2. Partial Inspiration says, the Bible is true in matters of faith but not necessarily true in matters of science, archaeology, history and/or ethics. What we don’t want to do is make the same mistake the Church made when Copernicus and later, Galileo, discovered the earth actually revolved around the sun. Contemporary theologians rigidly concluded that a moving earth and a stationary sun were in conflict with literal interpretations of Scripture and moved to debunk the scientific discoveries and threaten the scientists.
  3. Full Inspiration states the Bible is accurate and authoritative in all matters.

A typical church with a commitment to the historic Christian creeds would have a doctrinal statement that reads something like this, “We believe that all Scripture, by which we understand the whole book called THE BIBLE, is given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; that it is inerrant in the original writing and that its teaching and authority is absolute, supreme, and final.”

Does that mean the translation that you read is free from error? No. We rely on Greek, Hebrew and contextual scholars to help us translate and determine the best way to transliterate a word or phrase from the original language into English. Sometimes it’s best said in a phrase-by-phrase translation like the NIV, or a word-for-word translation like the NASB, or the ESV.

An important question that deserves an answer is, should we believe in full inspiration?

The doctrine of Full Biblical Inspiration (or plenary inspiration) states that the human writers and the canonizers of the Bible were led by the Holy Spirit with the result that both the Old and New Testament writings are what Paul told Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed” and asserts that every part of the Bible is equally inspired by God.

There are four considerations regarding Full Inspiration (with the understanding that a lot more could and should be said) …

The Unity of the Bible, Fulfilled Prophecy, Our Understanding of God, and the Trust Jesus showed in the Old Testament Scriptures

    Let’s consider them one at a time…

    1. The Unity of the Bible. The Bible is a really remarkable book written over approximately 1,500 years (1400 BC to AD 90) by approximately 40 different authors, on 3 different continents [4] and in 3 different languages, and yet it all blends together as one story of salvation, one metanarrative.

    Because of this prolonged internal consistency, it really seems like there was a single person writing, and guiding the different narratives of Moses, Isaiah, the Gospel writers, and Paul, et al.

    Consider how the Declaration of Independence was written. The Continental Congress commissioned a committee of five to write it—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and two other lessor known guys. But when the five of them got together they couldn’t make any headway, so the other four asked Jefferson to write the first draft and the others would edit it and then they’d present it to the Continental Congress. So, five guys in the same room, all of whom agreed on the basics of our emerging republic, but they still couldn’t write it as a committee. And yet here we have this book that took 1,500 years to write and the majority of the authors didn’t even know each other and yet our Bible contains one grand metanarrative of creation, fall, and redemption with a free and total salvation offered to every tribe and tongue through The Messiah, Jesus Christ, who condescended to leave the beauty, majesty and perfection of heaven to come down into our brokenness and live a perfect, sin-free life and die a criminal’s death so that we could have free and total access to a holy God.

    2. Fulfilled Prophecy. The Bible contains thousands of prophecies that were fulfilled with uncanny precision, including 300 specific prophecies in the OT that have been fulfilled in detail through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Most of these prophecies were written thousands of years before Christ, all of which were realized. We need to keep in mind that these OT authors didn’t have full awareness of what they were writing. Here’s what it looks like: somebody is standing outside of the time space continuum and inspiring the authors. Here’s one example: David in Psalm 22 (14-18), which is a prophetic overview of the crucifixion, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; 18 They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” –Psalm 22:14-18 This was written about 1,000 years before Christ and the earliest historical record of crucifixion dates to approximately the 6th century BC.[5]

    The odds of this depiction of the crucifixion happening by chance are less than one followed by 2,000 zeros. Here’s what one scholar said: “The very dimension of the sheer fulfillment of the prophecies of the OT Scriptures should be enough to convince anyone that we are dealing with a supernatural piece of literature.”[6]

    So, this topic of fulfilled prophecy is essential, and I would say, we need to let it affect how we grapple with theology, morality, and ethics.

    3. Our Understanding of God. So, if there is a God, Full Inspiration would rest in the belief that an eternal God would be active and intentional in communicating. Not just some force like Star Wars and not a distant God that created the world and then sits back to let it spin. Active and intentional Jesus followers believe that God is an active and intentional communicator. Another way to say this is God is love (1 Jn 4:16) and so we’re not surprised, that God would communicate through the beauty and wonder of creation as well as personal encounters, and through inspired writings.

    For years, I would relate that my conversion took place on July 24, 1974. Eventually, my study of theology revealed that I was not converted on July 24, 1974. What happened at that (Cru) gathering was a realization that the Bible was true—and I was actually kind of angry about it.

    God longs to be known, yet we don’t have the ability in ourselves to know God fully on this side of heaven. The best we can do is to position ourselves to encounter God—mainly through the overlapping disciplines of study, meditation, and worship. Some of the best advice that I have tried to put into practice is, “don’t just read the Bible but let the Bible read you.”

    And finally, in terms of our understanding of God, one of my mentors used to relate the Bible to a menu at a restaurant. He would say we don’t eat the menu, but the menu guides us as we seek to satisfy our hunger and longing. The Bible is intended to be a menu to satisfy the hunger and longing of our souls to know and be known by God.

    The Trust that Jesus Showed in the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus quoted the OT often, and here’s just one example: Mark 12:36. Jesus quotes Psalm 110, “David himself speaking by the Holy Spirit declared…” While Jesus did spend some time reinterpreting (and intensifying) the OT, as we see with the six “you have heard it said…but I say to you…” in Mat 5, we see repeatedly that Jesus had full confidence that what we know as the OT was “God-breathed.”

    In conclusion, I would acknowledge that there is SO much more that we can say about the belief in the full inspiration of the Bible, but allow me to close with two thoughts…

    1. I think CS Lewis can be quite helpful here… “It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. We must not use the Bible as a sort of encyclopedia out of which texts can be taken for use as weapons.”  –CS Lewis[7]

    And finally,

    2. I hope your church can be a community that is generous and patient with those who are currently deconstructing their faith. Deconstruction is not necessarily synonymous with deconversion. I hope your church can be a safe space for skeptics, strugglers, and doubters.

    My view of the last 5-years… With all that has happened—the pandemic, the deep cultural and political polarization’s, here’s what I believe happened, and is still happening, I see Jesus in the Temple turning over tables. Jesus is still turning over tables in denominations, in churches, and in our own lives. I believe we are being provided with an opportunity to reset, to re-focus, to pray, and to listen. If I had the opportunity to prophesy to the American Church, I would take us to 2 Cor 11:3: “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

    My hope is that the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ will be the basis from which we will apprehend God’s heart for the next season of exceptional ministry fruitfulness.

    [1] When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, by David Maraniss.

    [2] IVP Academic: 2017.

    [3] Tappert, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel: 116.

    [4] Most was written in what is modern-day Israel (Asia). But some passages of Jeremiah were written in Egypt (Africa) and several New Testament epistles were written from cities in Europe.

    [5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14750495/

    [6] R.C. Sproul.

    [7] From a letter to Mrs. Johnson on November 8, 1952, and in response to several questions that she asked of him. As noted in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 3 she had inquired “Is the Bible Infallible?”

    Oikos Evangelism

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    Mark 5:18-20

    This is an article about personal evangelism. Now, before the cold sweat comes or you begin to sink into the quicksand of guilt (Catholic or otherwise), I will say that my aim is to take a little different approach than many, if not most, contemporary churches.

    I’d like to ask the question, “What does the New Testament say about how God’s church impacts culture?” For some this may be a review but for many, this could be a whole new paradigm.

    The big picture overview that can be seen in the NT is that it’s not about launching a program, it’s about (re-) initiating a lifestyle perspective regarding the people that God has already placed in our lives.

    Consider Mark 5:18-20 “As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. 19 But Jesus said, “No, go home [oikos] to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.” 20 So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns [Decapolis[1]] of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them.”  

    Three thoughts about evangelism related to this passage…

    1. To take a quick look at the Greek word “oikos” (which is at the heart of this passage.)
    2. To help us consider who “our people” are.
    3. To provide some biblical perspective on how to identify begin to pray for, and to practically love and serve the people that (I would say) God has sovereignly placed in our lives.

    Consider them one at a time…

    1. The (Greek) word “oikos”

    You might know oikos as a popular brand of yogurt, but I would like to introduce what many theologians and church historians refer to as the oikos principle. The word oikos is used 120 times throughout the NT and is most often translated house or household—not the structure but the inhabitants. Here’s my best and most concise description (or definition) of oikos: Oikos is a social system composed of those connected to each other through shared ties and/or tasks. (Your sphere of consistent connections.)

    I would point out here that anthropologists have identified three universal units of every society and every culture throughout recorded history, which are social systems based on 1) common kinship, 2) common community, and 3) common interests.

    So, why are we talking about our oikos’? Because, in the NT the oikos principle became oikos evangelism, which became the chief strategy that God used to expand the KOG and populate the church. Michael Green, in his classic book, Evangelism in the Early Church, (1970) observes that the NT Church vigorously adhered to the oikos principle as its primary strategy for the advance of God’s kingdom. The early Christians knew when the message of faith was heard and demonstrated by friends and family who were known, and trusted; barriers to the gospel were removed and receptivity to the message increased dramatically.

    Epistle to Diognetus—a letter to a friend explaining why Christianity was growing so quickly. It has been dated between 130-200 AD… “Christians busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They live in their own native lands, but they live as aliens. For every foreign country is to them as their native land, and every native land is as their foreign country. They marry and have children, but they do not kill unwanted babies. They share their table with everyone, but they don’t share their bed with everyone. They love everyone but are persecuted by all. They are poor and make many rich. They are short of everything and yet have plenty of everything. They are treated outrageously but behave respectfully. They are mocked and blessed in return.  When they do good, they are attacked. When they are attacked, they rejoice as if being given new life.”[2]

    What we see is that life change—or life transformation—catches the attention of people. One of these days you might have someone at work say to you, “You’re kind of a jerk, so why are you being so kind to me?”

    2. Who are “our people”?

    This shouldn’t be too hard to figure out…Our oikos consists of all the people we come into contact with on a regular consistent basis. It encompasses our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, the other parents of your kid’s sport team, your hairstylist, your golf buddies, your business associates, your mechanic, your carpool buddies, your dentist, etc.

    In other words, we would say that every person likely has a distinct and measurable oikos. Husbands and wives certainly have overlapping oikoi but each one also has a distinct and separate oikos—and your children also have an overlapping oikos with you but they also have a growing distinct and separate oikos. Statistically, the vast majority of us have between 8-15 people in our oikos who are unchurched unbelievers, or “de-churched” people.

    3. How to pray for and practically love and serve the people that God has sovereignly placed in our lives.

    Write down the names of the 8-15 people that you encounter regularly that are unchurched or de-churched. Again, they could be relatives, neighbors, co-workers, fellow club or gym members, golfing buddies, barista at your favorite coffee shop, etc. After you’ve written down the names, place the card somewhere where you’ll see it consistently – your Bible, on the refrigerator, the dashboard of your car, or your bathroom mirror. Then pray for them. When you have the opportunity to interact with people on your list be fully present with them. Listen well. Don’t try to fix them or give advice that isn’t asked for. Empathy is a better relational connector than sympathy. The universal longing for full acceptance and belonging is the core issue that must be addressed (and hopefully experienced) in our evangelistic efforts. Remember what Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is always helpful to keep in mind that when we were at our worst, on the most depraved day (or season) of our lives, Jesus was loving us at that very moment.

    The oikos principle or oikos evangelism is not a program that needs to be introduced to try and grow a church. Church growth is the fruit, not the goal. What I’m talking about here is our desire to get back to the basics of the Christian life, which is to love God, love people, participate in the expansion of God’s Kingdom, and serve faithfully in a local church.

    [1] A federation of 10 Greco-Roman cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire where Greek settler-soldiers and their families lived and had their own court system, currency, temples, theaters, and armies. There was no love lost between the Jewish people and the inhabitants of the Decapolis.

    [2] Epistle to Diognetus. Dated between 130-200 A.D. The anonymous author of this Epistle gives himself the title Mathetes, which means “a learner, pupil, or a disciple.”

    EQUIPPING FOR EFFECTIVE SERVICE

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    “And He (Jesus) gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”    Ephesians 4:11-12 (NAS)

    THE EQUIPPING MINISTRY

    The Greek word translated “equipping” (NAS, NLT, and ESV), or “train” (MSG), or “to prepare” (NIV), or “perfecting” (ASV) is KATARTISMOS which means to com­pletely furnish or to fully prepare. This equipping is an internal work manifesting its fruit in external mini­stry service. As we trace the usage and application through the New Testament, we will find that the most effective equipping includes both “repairing” and “preparing” the people of God. What we will discover is that the equipping process is far more than dispensing information or teaching someone how to perform a given task. It involves the effective and pastoral preparation of one’s inner person.

    FOUR ASPECTS OF THE EQUIPPING PROCESS

    While KATARTISMOS only appears once in the New Testament, its related verb form, katartizo, appears 13 times. The following are four instances to help us better understand the equipping process.

    1.   The restoring of that which is separa­ted, alienated, or at odds. “Brethren, even if [anthrōpos] is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to your­selves, lest you too be tempted” (Gal 6:1). The words for “equip” (Eph 4:12) and “restore” (Gal 6:1) are the same Greek word! This aspect of the equipping process involves the honest, loving confrontation of sin and/or sinful patterns with the overall objective always being restoration. Sin cau­ses a breach in relation­ship; both in our relatio­nship with God and in our relati­onships with one another. Because sin and relational conflicts are inevitable, churches need to have a clear and written church restoration policy, which articulates their current thinking regarding church discipline. (Additionally, a church staff needs a clearly defined grievance procedure stated in an up-to-date staff handbook.) The Bible encourages us to see church discipline in the context of three important factors: the seriousness of sin, sacrificial love, and endless forgiveness. Therefore, teach regularly on the many “one another” passages in the New Testament as well as the peacemaking skills described in Gal 6; Mat 5:18; 1 Tim 5; and Titus 3:10.

    2.   The right ordering and arrange­ment of that which is without form and void. “By faith we un­derstand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of the things which are visi­ble” (Heb 11:3, emphasis added). The inference here has to do with the positive impact of God’s creative acts and the healthy systems that perpetuate what is created. In Gen 1:2 we read that the earth was “formless and void.” The result of God’s creative act was that order and form were brought to that which was former­ly chaotic. A second aspect of the equipping process involves the establishment of redemptive systems and structures—both individually and corporately—which sustain and nurture the body.

    3.   The supplying of that which is necessary or lacking. “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith” (1 Thess 3:10, emphasis added). Fai­th, in the above passage, has to do with one’s walk with Jesus Christ. Equipping, in this third aspect, has to do with a commitment to consistently and intentionally teach the sound doc­trines of Scripture and encourage prac­tical application. We want to get people into the Bible and get the Bible into them.

    4.   The mending of that which is broken, torn, or incomplete. “And going on from there He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother in the boat with Zebedee their fa­ther, mending their nets; and He called them” (Matt 4:21, emphasis added). A fourth aspect of equipping is to mend that which is torn. From a spiritual and emotional perspective, we will want to be prepared to provide the resources necessary for people to recover from emotional and spiritual wounding (see Mal 3:2-3). For all of us, this is a cyclical and developmental process. We do not want to encourage “naval-gazing,” yet we want to provide ongoing pathways to healing and growth.

    Summary – Our Commission to Equip (Eph. 4:1-16) – Leaders are called by God to develop pathways to repair and prepare the people of God, individually and corporately, for delegated roles in order to fulfill their divine destinies as well as carry out God-given vision.

    Equipping Metrics:

    1.  Quantitative — Recording quantitative metrics including Yearly and Quarterly (S.M.A.R.T.?[1]) goals, recruiting and coaching appointments, leaders developed and released into ministry, teams built, overall people involved in teams and ministries related to your role description, consistency and excellence of training events, a growing “New Community” of motivated, coachable, and maturing leaders.

    2.  Qualitative — Keeping track of: Unity, enthusiasm, genuine joy and excitement in the gospel and the church’s vision, your team members own sense of growth and calling, responsive obedience to God’s Word, the fruit of the Spirit, a humble willingness to follow (followership), eagerness to serve, conflict resolution skills, emotional health, openness and active receptivity to unchurched, de-churched, etc.

    [1] specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-defined

    Relational Reconciliation

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    Consider the chart below. Forgiveness, reconciliation, and the restoration of relationships is always the goal. Reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel and is not an option. As believers we have been assigned the ministry of reconciliation:  

    “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” –2 Cor 5:18

    While seeking to be reconciled, move towards forgiving those who have wounded and hurt you. (This is not an option either.) Now, it’s important to understand that forgiveness and restoration are not the same. You may choose to forgive, but the end result of reconciliation that leads to restoration may take more time. Notice the pathway on the chart below…

    Reconciliation can be a long journey, but it is one that believers are admonished to take. In Mark 11:25, Jesus tells us, “When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Paul tells us to “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col 3:13). To forgive as God forgives us, we must:

    a. See others as image bearers of God who are also given to sinful frailty

    b. Be willing to bear their debt.

    The word “forbearance” is a word that is used mostly in the KJV and can be defined as, “to abstain or hold back; forbearance is akin to patience and self-control.”

      Desire the other person’s good (sometimes at personal cost to you). People are not the hurt that they do to us. We are all broken yet God uses broken people to serve His purpose in a broken world.