Bible Survey. The Bible: The inspired inerrant word of God.
Vern Peterman · Jan 12, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926412212103

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Let's see, a few different things to look at. Last week we looked in this Bible survey, now here's five revelations of God, and we had those as nature, providence, conscience, scripture, and Jesus Christ. But let's just ask this question, what difference does it make that God revealed himself? What difference does it make that God revealed himself?

To know him. Pardon? To know him. To know him, okay. And that also says since God intentionally revealed himself, that he wants us to know him. So that's God's intent. Why else would God reveal himself? Can you think of some other reasons why God would reveal himself?

I provide this recognition that there's order, there's authority. There's order, authority, and love. Love is key because what it says is that God cares about us. He didn't just make us and say, hey, we'll just see what happens. It wasn't just some experiment where God just made us and didn't care about us. In fact, He revealed Himself because He cared, just like He sent Christ for us because He cared, because He loves us.

Yes? There's also the sense in which the difference between deists and theists. He revealed Himself rather than just created and stood back and watched the sea. Here it is. He revealed himself to show that his creation was intentional, that there was purpose, that there was a plan, and that he wanted us to be involved in that plan. Here is a God who deliberately reveals himself. One of the ways we've summarized it here is God's eternal purpose is to reveal and declare and share his glory, that he might be glorified in those four components there. So God revealed himself very intentionally. He loves intentionally. He sent Christ very intentionally.

And rather than just kind of making everything and just walking away and just sort of observing the experiment, Now, you mentioned deist. A deist is one who believes there is a God, but that God has created everything and is just observing. It is not involved and it doesn't seek fellowship and relationship with us. So, a big difference there.

Okay, let's take a look at, you've got your handout here. This one, we have the Inspired Inherent Word of God. It all reads from the Holly Hill Bible Church statement on the Bible. We believe that all of the authors of the entire Old and New Testaments wrote by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is verbal inspiration. Those books are completely inerrant and infallible in the original writings. They are the final authorities for faith and practice and the means through which believers behold Christ. And then we give all the references there.

We're going to be looking at the first two sentences in that doctrinal statement and hold off until the 26th for the third and last sentence there. What difference does it make that when we say scripture is inspired and inerrant, what difference does that make?

Well, if it's not inerrant, then that means there's some truth and some not-truth. And you might have to sort that out. It depends on the individual who's going to determine what's true and what's not true. The same thing, how do you figure out which part is inspired and which part isn't if it's not throughout? I heard it once expressed.

The difference between our view and a more liberal interpretation is that there are those who want to know everything about a faulty scripture, as opposed to us who don't know everything, but we have at least a partial understanding of the solid truth. What we know is not exhaustive. We don't know everything. But what we have, we can count on. What we have is true as the light. God, the history of his dealings. Let's talk a bit more about why does it matter that it's It's without flaw, it's without error. Why does that matter? Let's talk more about that. What difference does it make?

If you're building a life on your worldview, if your worldview is cracked and crumbly, the structure you build on it is not going to be very dependable, and it will get swayed by every wind of doctrine and every new idea that comes along. You'll say, well, maybe this is a better one, or maybe this is the truth. Whereas if we are persuaded that God revealed himself in these different ways and now in our time we've got it as his printed word, as it were, that What we do understand is a foundation on which we can do your life's two sentences. Build a life that pleases God and that accomplishes His purpose.

If it wasn't inspired, it would have been improbable. The author, whoever wrote or happened to write that particular book, could have his own opinion about how things transpired that he was supposed to write about. This is the way I saw it, or this is the way I think it happened, but their personal writing form, I think, is probably denoted in their writing, but not the facts that Max Saar can tell. The other thing is, if it's just a bunch of contributors, well, I think I would contribute, too. Yeah, I could write a book and leave my own thoughts, and here's what I think. It's all just opinions.

That's the problem we have today with so many different denominations and also New Age religion and Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and the whole group of those because they all have a book, or some literature, or something that they go by. In fact, Scientology goes by fictional books, and they've developed a religious system out of those fictional books, like an absolute truth.

I'll just concoct some of them. Diabolics. I'll just invent some of them. Here are some thoughts, and I have my own. And anyone can come up with anything. if it's not God's specific, inspired, precise revelation. Let's think also about one other thing.

The Bible is a lot about what happened in the past, correct? It's not all about what happened in the past, because there is prophecy about the future. We mentioned last week, there are 5,000 individual prophecies, approximately, that have been fulfilled, and the 5,000 that are yet to be fulfilled. So it's not all about the past. But, if what is recorded about the past is This is not flawless.

It has error in it. What confidence do I have about what is going to happen in the future? Am I going to be with the Lord someday? Do I have certainty about that? If this is a flawed document, I really don't have absolute certainty. I don't have a blessed hope. I have an I-hope-so hope. Well, and then who gets to be authoritative on what is accurate and what is not accurate? Yeah, and then who gets to be authoritative and people come up with various answers on it, right? Yeah. Okay, so let's take a look here.

The Jews of Biblical times did not refer to what we call the Old Testament books with that term. If you were to come up to Jesus and the disciples and refer to the Old Testament, That wasn't a term that they had. So what they did is they typically called it something like the Law and the Prophets. We have a few references there from Matthew, Acts, and Romans, or variations on that theme. And then the modern Jewish name for what we call the Old Testament is the Tanakh, and it's basically an acronym from the Torah, the Negev, which is the Prophets, and the Ketuvim, which is the Writings. And so they put that together, so they call it the Tanakh.

So the Bible, having been written by about 40 mostly Jewish authors over a period of about 1,500 years, actually a little bit more, is a work superintended by God Himself. God provides us with some essential insights regarding the character of what God has revealed. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work. This word inspired means God breathed. God breathed.

God worked in and through the individual personalities and personal histories of the authors of Scripture to produce the original writings of Scripture. This does not refer to the writing of scripture being inspired in a subjective sense. In other words, it's not saying that it's just inspiring. It's not talking about your personal response to it. It's talking about God himself originating the message of scripture.

Accordingly, the Bible is called the Word of God, Hebrews 4.12, the Word of Righteousness, and other terms. It comes from God himself. It's not just a collection of spiritually inspiring books. So the words, all scripture is inspired, tell us that scripture is God breathed, not just here and there, but throughout all of scripture. It doesn't say some of scripture is inspired. Parts are parts, right? And parts are inspired. It doesn't say that, right? All scripture is inspired.

All scripture is God breathed. So the term scripture is used exclusively in the New Testament of the sacred writing of some portion of the Bible that is sometimes used of the entire Old Testament, although it doesn't use that term, and sometimes used of a specific passage.

The authors of the New Testament were either apostles or were sponsored by an apostle. The apostles knew that what they were writing was scripture. Let's talk about that. We introduced that last week. All the New Testament was either written by an Apostle or sponsored by an Apostle. So which books were written by Apostles? Here's Matthew of the Gospels and John. So Matthew and John were Apostles of the four Gospels. So two of the four were written by those.

Now how about Luke? And Mark, who sponsored Luke? As you mentioned before, he was with Paul. Okay, Luke was with Paul, and we have record of him personally being with Paul from Acts 16 to the end, and also writing some of Paul's letters that refers to Luke the physician. So Luke was there after the end of the book of Acts, so the last part of Acts from Chapter 16 on, So here was Luke, who wrote two books, and by the way, the New Testament, he's the one genital author. So Dr. Luke wrote Luke and Acts, and the rest of the books were all written by Jews, out of the New Testament.

Alright, so we have Matthew and John, written by Apostles. Luke, sponsored by Paul. How about Mark? Yeah, you mentioned him last week, but I forgot. In other words, what we see is Mark had contact with both Paul and Peter, so they had two different apostolic sponsors. Starting from Romans on into Philemon, those were all written directly by Paul. And then you get towards the end of the New Testament, and you've got letters by John and the book of Revelation. You've got Peter writing 1 and 2 Peter. How about James? Was he an apostle? He was James the Jew, where Jesus' half-brother, okay? Who are they sponsored by?

Where did the apostles hang out until later on in their lives? They hung around Jerusalem and stuck around Jerusalem. So, except for those where we know they went somewhere else, like Paul, you had all the other apostles that were with James and Jude. So you go through the Holy Testament, there's an apostle either writing or sponsoring every book. So you had the apostles directly involved with the writings of these books, either writing it themselves or sponsoring someone else's writing.

Was Barnabas considered an apostle? Barnabas was not considered an apostle in the official sense, although he and Paul were both sent out. One other thing, who did Barnabas tend to hang out with? He hung out with Paul initially and then John Mark. So here's another connection.

Why isn't he considered an apostle? Who are the apostles? Well, the original band, of course, were those called directly by Christ. Right, so you had 11. Okay, let's do this, right? And then they added Matthias to there. And then who else aside from those 12?

You talk about Paul, and you have a direct representation. The Apostle Paul, right? So you have those are specifically named Apostles. There are places where others are called apostles for a specific purpose, but it's not an official message. Yeah, sent out for a specific message, but not officially an apostle of the Catholic faith, so to speak. Okay, let's look at page 2.

So here's the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 4.1 is one of those places where he expresses that he is responsible for revealing truth. Here it says, Let a man regard us in this manner, the servants of Christ and stewards of the mystery of God. One of the things I'll tell you is, let doesn't mean allow anywhere in the New Testament. Okay? So this is actually an imperative. Literally, a person must. It's not a man, male. It's anthropos, which is both male and female. So a person must.

So Paul had been entrusted with the mysteries of God. Now, we think of mysteries, what do we think of in our culture? Something you don't understand? Yeah, something that stays mysterious. That's the way we use it in our culture. It has a specific meaning throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. A mystery is something previously unrevealed, but now revealed. So a distinction there.

Colossians 1.26 is the defining passage on that, where Paul uses the word mystery and then explains it. Something previously unrevealed, now revealed.

When Isaiah was writing the book of Isaiah, 66 chapters, just the same as the number of books in the Bible, right? He was writing the book of Isaiah. Did he have any idea that there would be something called a church? He didn't know because it wasn't revealed. Right?

So with the Apostle Paul, he uses the word mystery again and again to say that he's revealing something that wasn't previously revealed. Even though Isaiah in his writings had things that would refer to the church, because he talked about a people who are not my people, and so on. So he was inspired to write references to the Messiah and to the church, but not the details of how it was going to be accomplished. So now here's 2 Peter 3, 14 and 16. This reveals a different thing than what we had previously.

Therefore, beloved, since we look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless. And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you. as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures."

So does Peter consider the Apostle Paul's writing of the Scripture? Yes, because he's saying here that Paul is an author of scripture, and then the rest of the scriptures, other things that Paul didn't write, are also scripture. So, Peter refers to Paul's writings of Scripture, that's verse 16, as well as the rest of Scripture. So, it's among those things that are Scripture. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 also tells us that the Word of God is profitable for these constructive purposes and spiritual events and processes. So, we have there teaching, It is in a personal or group context. In a personal or group context. Can you teach just one other person? Is that possible? Can you do that? Sure. Mentoring is? Sure. You can teach one other person. And you can teach, as we're doing now, in a group context. You can teach a larger number of people. So that's one.

Then reproof. This is the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit by the Word of God. Now, we have right below that, correction. What's the difference between reproof and correction? To me, reproof is just saying, stop, you're doing the wrong thing, you need to get right. saying what needs to be done.

That's right. Let's get on the path. So reproof is recognizing, hey, wait a minute, I got an issue here. Correction is what do I need to do to get back on the right path? So this is the difference. One is a recognition of things. I could compare it to something. Ever been driving around and you all of a sudden have this realization, you know, I'm lost, I'm going the wrong direction?

And then the correction is, what do I have to do to get going in the right direction, get headed to the right place? So that would be the difference between recruitment and correction here. You can't very well correct yourself on something unless you realize you've got something wrong to begin with. So would repentance be considered part of correction? Yeah, let's think about that. What is repentance? Because that's something we talk about. Repentance in the Bible is metanoia.

It's a change of mind. People confuse it with something emotional. But repentance is a change of mind from, we mentioned, from someone who doesn't believe to someone who believes. But it may also be a change of mind from thinking, I'm doing okay, to a recognition, no I'm not and I need to get back on the right path. Right? So it's important to get clarified.

Repentance is not just I feel really bad about things, or I come up and try to make safety again, or any of those sorts of misunderstandings. Sorry, I got caught. Yeah, I'm sorry, I got caught, yes. So actually it's both. It's reproof and it's also correction. Yes. Ultimately, it's recognizing I need to make a change, and then it's also saying this is the direction the change needs to be.

And then finally, training in righteousness. So teaching, let's say there's teaching, is teaching the whole picture. So why do we teach? Here we've got three different electives going on, and we've got people teaching. Why do we have people teaching?

So other people can learn. Okay, so people can learn. So they can have a true picture, so they can learn the truth. Right, so they can understand the truth. That's what we have here. That's why the warning about being teachers, lest you be blind, leaving the blind, and both falling. Yes, make sure you're teaching the truth. So you have teaching, and then you have reproof and correction. Reproof to recognize, hey, I've got an issue here. I need to change something. The correction is, how do I get back on the right path?

And then the training in righteousness, how is that different from the first three? How is training in righteousness different from the first three? Yeah? I would say that training in righteousness has more to do with an example. where teaching is more of a lecture, presentation, instruction. The principle of training and righteousness I think has to do with the process of sanctification. It's that application of the knowledge and that it's a development of time that, oh, this doctor, you know, like as I understand position and condition, I understand how that doctrine applies to my life. As I grow, as I go through different periods in my life, it becomes applicable in new different ways, but the Word has to train those things into my perspective. Yeah. You see, we can teach, but by itself that could be just kind of dry intellectual, right? It's here to give you a bunch of spiritual data, right? It could be that.

And the reproof and the correction is a rather instant situation. That is, here's someone who needs to recognize they've got an issue and needs to get back on the right path. But the training in righteousness recognizes a process, and it says spiritually I'm going somewhere. As you pointed out in our study in Hebrews, that when we start out we are all babes in Christ, no matter what our age or experiences, we're a babe in Christ. And just piggybacking on what Randy said, Then as we grow and are nurtured, that's that training in righteousness.

And Paul gets exasperated. You're supposed to be ready to be teachers and lead others into the truth, but you're still needing Yeah, back in Hebrews 5. You guys ought to be here, and yet you're back here. What's the problem? Is this training in righteousness process has somehow gotten halted and stuck? Yeah. It doesn't say here in John or someplace, but that the righteousness of God was manifested which would be Jesus, right? Here's Christ, yes. He's the example of who God is. Well, let's ask a question.

The word disciple or disciples, what books do those words show up? Disciple or disciples? What books does that show up in? I'm holding up five fingers from the earth. Okay, we've got four Gospels where the word disciple or disciples takes place. And interestingly enough, that's it.

The word disciple or disciples does not show up even once in any of the books of the New Testament after that. But what does show up is the verb form of disciple. And the clear picture is, is we, even now, are disciples of Christ. It doesn't matter who your teacher is, you're disciples of Christ. That's what the New Testament teaches. So the word disciples is used in the Gospels and even of Christian believers in Acts.

But after that, not once does it show up. Only the verb that we're being taught as disciples of Christ, that's it. So it's real important to look at. It's not, you know, this teacher says this, and this teacher says that, and we always listen to what this guy says. We're disciples of Christ. That's ultimately what's going on. As you're pointing out down here in your own segue there. Yes. Yeah. And so ultimately I think that's the thing for us to keep in mind.

We're not following what this guy says or what that guy says. We're ultimately disciples of Christ. We don't go with the latest book that talks about how to build the church or 30 ways to... Yeah, you know, a lot of Christians will get really big on following a teacher. And, you know, I follow this guy and I really like this guy. We get into the various isms with the guy's name on it. We'll really get into those things following a person, and ultimately what a scripture keeps pointing to is we're disciples of Christ.

And here's the Apostle Paul, who wrote a number of the books in the New Testament. And when it comes time for, you know, addressing things with the Corinthian believers, what do they say? You guys follow this one and that one and this guy and, you know, and you have people saying, forget that.

Okay? We're disciples of Christ. That's what God intends. That's it. Okay? Lord, would that be considered a conditional? As you're going, you're being disciples? Yeah, in other words, one of the things we can look at is if God has intended processes in the believer, and it's key in looking at the Bible to see that the Bible is essential to the processes God has going on in our lives. We said in a previous class a couple of years ago, you know, what God's doing in the life of the believer. And we said there's two ways you're being shaped into the image of Christ. And one is being conformed, and that's frequently circumstantial. God is using circumstances to conform us to the image of Christ. And there's one other.

Transformed, 2 Corinthians 3.18. That is also a matter of being changed and it says right there, into the image of Christ. Growing from glory to glory.

So the key thing to remember is that God has processes and this training in righteousness fits right along with that set of processes that he's got going on in the believers life. And the direction of those processes between circumstances and God's Word, the direction of those is to transform us into the image of Christ. He's using His word to do that.

You think of Romans, the start of chapter 12, don't become conformed to the world, don't get squeezed into it. The world has a process in mind, and that's not the one God has in mind. You transform by the renewing of your mind. That's right. And God does have in mind that transforming process that as we go through life, He is transforming us, using His Word, transforming us into the image of Christ. And let's ask this question, Cap. I've been a believer for 56 years now. Is God done with this process with me? No. No. So scripture is still useful in these processes for training righteousness. Here's Ephesians 4, 11-13. He engaged some as apostles, some as prophets. And that apostles and prophets combination is three times in Ephesians. So He gave some as apostles and prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for what?

For the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. Until, and this is where it's headed, and this is key, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Okay, so we say individually we are being conformed, individually we are being transformed, and there is a process taking place as a corporate church body. So there is an individual process for each one of us, and then there is a process together as a church body. So God has both of those kinds of processes taking place, which is one reason we don't just stay home and do things. We actually do gather together because there is a growing together that God intends, and there's an equipping that doesn't take place just sitting home as good as that is. Now, so the pastors and teachers are to be equipping the believers in the body of Christ by means of the word of God, which will prepare them for the work of service and every good work. It isn't just hypothetical and academic. It's to prepare us for doing something. So let's look at the top of page three. So here's 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 that told us about the fact and the what of inspiration. 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21 will tell us about the how and whom of inspiration. So 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21.

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So the first part of this parable tells us that the interpretation of scripture is not to be done subjectively.

I think it means this. Or, I feel like this. Or, nah, this doesn't really cut me. So it's not a subjective interpretation. It isn't to be manipulated by others, by a smaller group or single person. Oh, this guy says this about scripture, and so I always believe what he says. It's not a subjective interpretation, and it's also not a manipulated interpretation. And it's not to be used for manipulation. But the point to bring forward for our purposes here is that the human authors of scripture are moved, literally carried along, carried along by the Holy Spirit in what they wrote, such that their words were as if spoken by God Himself.

So here we have 66 books, about 40 authors, 1,500 years span of time. Just to kind of give you some sort of a point of reference, What's 1500 years added to where we're at now? We just passed the year 2000 in rough terms. Add 1500 to it, so it's the year 3500. That's a ways away, isn't it? So it's over that span of time that God directed the writings of the Bible. So while you have 66 books, while it's spread out over 1,500 years, God is the ultimate author behind all of Scripture.

So we're going to see the individual personalities and personal histories of the authors of Scripture coming forth. What these men wrote ultimately came from the mind of God, expressing the message He intended to be written. See, what we have here is God's thoughts. This is what God intended to be written. It's purposeful.

For about 40 authors writing over about 1,500 years, we still see a common thread through all 66 books, because behind the human authors, God carried the authors along such that His intended message was conveyed. So in summary, we see that God breathed all of Scripture by carrying along the authors of Scripture such that they expressed the message that God intended. Another key point is that Scripture, in the original writings, is without error either spiritually or historically. To put it simply, the Bible tells the truth because God, who is Truth, capital T, loves us unconditionally.

God didn't say, hey, you know, I think I'll just kind of put something out there and, you know, who knows what they'll come up with and, you know, I hope it helps. So God didn't just kind of cast something out there. He didn't let just have the Bible be an accident of history. It just kind of happened to come along.

He instead directed it all the way along, directed the writers as they were writing, directed the collection, and even the preservation of those books. During the time of the Roman Empire, there were 10 waves of persecution. And towards the end of it, it became a capital offense that if you're going to die, if you have copies of the scriptures, in spite of that, Scripture was preserved. And during that early era, right after the New Testament, if we didn't have any copy of the New Testament, we could, from the writings that we have from those early centuries, after the New Testament era, we could, from the writings that we have, put together all but less than a dozen verses of the Bible from the things that other people wrote about the Bible. Okay, so here's several passages, John 14, 17.

That is the spirit of, and one thing you'll note in here, I inserted the definite article because that's what's in the Greek, the spirit of the truth. So it's not just truth in a general sense, it's specifically the truth. The spirit of the truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.

So here's Jesus at the Last Supper telling the disciples about the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the truth, and then that's John 14, John 15 says it again, when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of the truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me."

And by the way, the starting point of the division in church history between the Roman Catholic Church and what became the Orthodox Churches, that is Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, the starting point was division over one doctrinal question. was the Holy Spirit sent by the Father or the Father and the Son. The Orthodox churches said that only the Father sent the Holy Spirit. What became the Catholic Church said that the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit, and they divided over that one point. And what does chapter 15 verse 26 say? I will send from the Father. So the answer is both the Father and the Son, says the Holy Spirit. So here's John 16, 13, but when He, the Spirit of, and it's again, the truth that's consistent.

The spirit of the truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will guide you into what truth? All truth. All truth. The whole thing. And then here's John 17, 17, where the Lord is praying to the Father, and in that prayer He prays for Himself, the disciples, and for us. But here in verse 17, John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth, definite article. Your word is, again, the Greek has the truth. Your word is the truth.

And then Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2.15, his last letter that we have any possession of. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of the truth. So the word of the truth, the spirit of the truth is a consistent pattern in Scripture. And let's talk about this word accurately handling.

King James translates that rightly dividing. But let me tell you what's behind that. What was Paul's occupation aside from being an apostle? He was a tent maker. And this word for accurately handling means to cut the tent material along the pattern line. So that when you put the pieces together, there's no gaps and there's no gaps.

So this is just word accurately handling. So it's as you look at God's word to put it together accurately. That's what it's talking about. He uses this term from hymning to do that. And Timothy, having spent lots of time in Paul, probably very familiar with that term. Very familiar with the term. Okay, let's take a look. You've got a color. Yeah. Back on this verse of receiving from the Father. Yes.

So, is this saying that the source is the Father? Kind of like a What are we going to call it? Here's a source, and then Jesus, he like catches it and then sends it. So is it proceeding as a source and then sending as one who caught it and passed it on? Well, this is very interesting. What you have is, here's the Trinity. They're essentially of one mind on sending the Holy Spirit. And obviously, the father and the son have different roles that they've taken, right?

And what's happening, Jesus is shortly, I mean within less than two months, He's going to be gone. Within less than a day after He says this, He's going to be crucified, right? Then resurrected. And then, but less than two months, He's going to be gone.

Why is He leaving? Well, he said that if I don't leave, I can't send the Spirit. Yeah, in other words, his departure is going to be a key event in bringing the Holy Spirit. into what is to be the church. So his departure is one of the key things. Now, so the Father had a part in sending the Holy Spirit, but Christ also had a part in that he had to leave and depart so that the Holy Spirit would come.

That's one of the key ingredients in this transaction that he spelled out. Did that get to your question? You brought another dimension in, in that Christ paved the way the soul and spirit could be set on. That's right. Now you have a color handout here, and I'd like to take a look at it.

Here are the 39 books of the Old Testament by category, and then below that, the 27 books of the New Testament by category. And so let's talk about that. What's called the Pentateuch or the Torah is the Jewish name. For the first five books, Moses is credited with writing those five books.

How could Moses be credited with Genesis when he wasn't around until the beginning of Exodus? How could he be credited with Genesis if he wasn't around until the beginning of Exodus? I have a supposition so I won't say this is historically precise but Joseph came as a prince of Egypt and he instructed the scribes to write down his family's history and it was documented and Moses would come years later as a prince of Egypt, centuries later, and have access to those documents. So there is a quality of Moses compiling the written history of Israel that Genesis carries with it some veracity from that. So Moses was working off of documents that he had essentially inherited. and compiled this book we call Genesis.

We're back to the idea of revelation from God. He had direct revelation from God, and maybe not all of it is listed for us in Scripture. We have the burning bush and other things that were part of the history, but obviously from the standpoint of a time view, he would have had to rely on what had been passed along. And once upon a time, before we had the easy way of transmitting information, people memorized whole sections of the law, whole books and the rest. accounts from ancient times were passed along orally, and sometimes we don't think of that as being very dependable, because we play a hearty game called gossip, where you whisper in Randy's ear here, and by the time it gets back around to you, it doesn't resemble what started out. But if God is superintending it, if we really believe that God is able to keep that message, the essence of it, the important parts of it, then He could reveal to persons later in historical time things that by oral tradition had been done.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are so exact, precise and precise that to me only the Holy Spirit could have inspired that. a lesson to write creation. And if you were in some kind of PhD or something like that, who in the world could write that down in like four pages and have it that exact and that precise and to fit historically through the course of time?

I mean, that's just, to me, that's, you know, they definitely get an A plus. You have what are called the historical books in the next column, but let's ask this question. Is there history in the Pentateuch, the first five books? Yes, there is. So, one thing when you see these summary terms, it is not an exclusive thing. That is, it doesn't mean there's no history anywhere else.

Isaiah is included at the top of the major prophets in the prophetic book, and yet some of what he wrote was historical. He writes about what happened, for example, during the time of King Hezekiah and the attack of Sennacherib's forces. So you will have sometimes things in other parts of the Bible. When Moses brought the Israelites through the Red Sea, through the sea, and then got them through and they were miraculously delivered from the Egyptians, he began writing poetry, and basically in song.

So these are not pure terms in terms of saying it's just this or it's just that. You've got poetry and wisdom books, and then you've got prophetic books. One of the points we made earlier was, just like we would say from A to Z, Or in Revelation you see Alpha and Omega, and the rabbis would say the Aleph and the Toph, the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. You have reference to the Old Testament using the Law and the Prophets. implying everything in between. So they have the first books and the last books. The first books were the Law, and the last books were the Prophets. So they would say the Law and the Prophets, and that was their way of quickly addressing the Old Testament. We'll be going over these more individually a little bit at a time, but just to kind of get the big picture here.

What you have is, here's from the time Moses wrote until the end of the Old Testament period here, Malachi, the last Old Testament book, you have a period of about a thousand years, roughly a thousand years. Then you have, in the New Testament, these 27 books. You've got the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and Acts. Luke being an author of Luke and Acts, and the one known Gentile author.

And then you have what's called the epistles, Paul's epistles, and the general epistles. And in fact, the book of Revelation is then an epistle. By the way, what's an epistle? A letter. An epistle is basically a letter. Revelation falls into a different category because it's a message to the seven churches And then John writing, as he was told in Revelation 119, the things which were and are and will be. So there you've got the sweep of the Old and New Testaments. And what we haven't talked about here is the 400-year, approximately, gap between the Old and New Testaments. And later on, we'll talk about that. But this is the big sweep, or the big picture, of the Bible and some of the major categories that things are placed into. Now, when you see this miscellaneous collection of books written over 1,500 years, 40 different authors approximately, most of them Jewish, How could you possibly look at this and say, this is some God-inspired writing?

Would God do this? Would you do this? If you were to say, hey, it's your job to manage this revelation from God, would you do this? Would this be the way you'd carry it out? We wouldn't naturally be prone to do this, but one of the amazing things is that you have this thing spread out over all this time, you know, one and a half millennia, and over 40 authors, mostly Jewish, and you have it spread out over all this time, and yet there is this thread of God's message all the way through. the thread of God's message all the way through it.

What you see is what happened with Adam in the first two chapters impacts the whole rest of the Bible. What you see is the issues that are brought up in the early chapters of Genesis are all addressed in the last chapters of the Book of Revelation. What you see as you go through here is that Even spread out over 1,500 years and 40 authors, there is amazing consistency. God makes promises to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.

And by the way, why hasn't God just wrapped everything up and said, you know, let's experiment. You're on a planet, Earth is going pretty crazy. Why doesn't God just end things? and say, you know, this world, we're just done, and I'm just going to call it quits. L-O-V-E. Yeah, first of all, it's clear He loved us and loves us. But, you know, it's really strange.

Here was this one guy who was actually a Gentile that God selected, and he made promises to Abraham, and he's still fulfilling those promises to Abraham. And of the 5,000 prophecies yet to be fulfilled, many of those relate to the Howell and what he promised to Abraham. Old evangelist by the name of Bainstabner said what he liked about the Bible was the first couple of chapters you didn't have the devil, Satan. And by the time you got to the end of the story, he was taken care of.

Yes, yeah. And I think that's the thing. The Bible begins presenting a problem. And then what you see is God's solution. And by the time you get to the end, you see God's solution worked out. You get a new heaven and a new earth. All the problems, God's dealt with. by the time you get to the end.

Man can't resist tinkering, though, with what is simple and truthful. Whether it's a human document like the Constitution, or whether it's a God-given document like the Bible, people start getting in the words of men, as you said before, I follow Apollos, I follow Paul, no, I follow Christ, etc. And one of the big differences It seems to me, between us and the Catholic Church, there's a basic issue of sola scriptura versus the traditions of man and the old, the ancients' writings, and pretty soon all those things take precedent over what's revealed in Scripture. So you have this dividing of the Bible plus, sort of. And the Jews run into that problem with the Torah and the Talmud. People want to complicate it and add to it, don't they?

Yes. Back to this verse, John 15, 26. Yeah. One of the main points is, the Spirit, He will testify about me. Yes. Now, what is He saying on behalf of Scripture? Yes. What's different? It seems like there's a point in this Scripture that He will testify about me. How is that? Yeah, let's talk about that. That's a very good point.

What's the Holy Spirit's job? In other words, the Holy Spirit actually has a number of different ministries. If we itemize them, we've got close to two dozen ministries of the Holy Spirit. They just spend a year talking about the Holy Spirit. That's right. We just had a class downstairs where they talked about the Holy Spirit for a year.

But the Holy Spirit will point people to Himself. The Holy Spirit will point people to Him. Christ. And this is key. Some Christian churches have gotten really big into pointing to the Holy Spirit. But what's the Holy Spirit going to do? The Holy Spirit is going to carry out all these ministries and point the believer to Christ. And this is a key understanding. If we get all zeroed in on the Holy Spirit, then that means we missed on what the Holy Spirit came to do, and that's to point us to Christ, to justify about Christ. As we are transformed, we behold the Lord through His Word. Is the Holy Spirit involved?

Yes, the Holy Spirit is mentioned in that passage. The Holy Spirit is the one who grows us from glory to glory as we behold Christ in the Word. So the Holy Spirit is involved in pointing us to Christ, and as we behold Christ who is the Word, the Holy Spirit then grows us. So the ministry of the Holy Spirit is not to draw attention to the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to focus our attention upon Christ.

That's how we get transformed. And by the way, if you're conformed to the image, whose image? The image of Christ. If you're transformed, whose image? Christ. So either process, conformed is by circumstances, transformed is by beholding Christ in the Word. Either way, you're being conformed to the image of Christ.

You're not being conformed to the image of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is involved in the process of pointing us to Christ. I think it's also interesting when you look at all the people that you have on that list that wrote the different books of the scripture.

They are not the people who were revered. They were the people who were hated. And most of them died an awful martyr's death. And yet, the things that they wrote Later, those letters were what were in scripture, and you don't see anything by any kind of Pharisee or any kind of Sadducee or any kind of intellectual that lived during those periods of time. I mean, isn't it interesting? It's not one. It's not one. It got filtered out.

You bring up a good point, and that is that many of the authors of scripture, especially when you talk about the New Testament, many of them died a martyr's death. And many in the Old Testament. And many in the Old Testament as well. Many of the prophets also died a martyr's death. Here's Isaiah, 66 chapters, phenomenal book. I would call it an anthology. It's a collection of different kinds of writing. The record we have was that he died by being swallowed too. I'm sure that wasn't comfortable.

John of the Apostles, John is the only one, so far as we know, that died a natural death, died of old age. All the others died of martyrdom. Some died in North Africa. Some died, often, farther to the east. And some died up in southern Europe. But except for John, they all died a martyr's death, and they reckoned the after. Matthew was in North Africa. He was screaming out the gospel while they were driving wooden stakes through his body. Died a martyr's death.

So yeah, many of these authors, and certainly all the apostles except for John, died a martyr's death. So proclaiming these things was not something that brought them fame and glory and comfort and people's applause. It was instead something that was very pricey. They did it at the cost of their lives in many cases. Other thoughts? Pat's comment about his questions.

I think our own personal experiences, which are all different, I'm sure, in terms of the exact details, but often we have a knowledge of sin, both in general and in our own lives. We have knowledge of the Scripture, but the Scripture talks about unless God draws you, you won't really appreciate what it's all about. And for me, the problem of individual interpretation, the Holy Spirit was the active agent that took the knowledge and moved it from the brain to the heart and made it something to be acted upon, not just something to be thought about.

Maybe that's part of the testifying of Christ. Maybe his saying, this is not for your information, you know more than somebody else, and that's sort of an intellectual pride. But it's about becoming a child of God. Let's pray as we've got people pressing up in this class here.

Lord, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for what you have inspired. Because you love us, we thank you for the spirit of the truth. And just, Lord, we're grateful for what you've revealed here that we can count upon, not just now, but forever. And so we just thank you for this time of understanding and insight. We pray in Jesus' name.