Transcript
Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? What is my resting place? All these things my hand has made and so all these things are mine, says the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit who trembles at my word. Come let us worship God.
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Let us pray. Let the good news come now, oh Lord, not only in word but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. Listen now to the word of God as it is read from 2 Timothy, chapter 3, beginning at the 10th verse. Now, you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and suffering the things that happen to me in Antioch, Equinium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured, yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus will be persecuted, but wicked people and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for
training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. This is the word of the Lord. A motorist was driving through the desert one day when he passed a man walking by the side of the road. The man was carrying a canteen, a loaf of bread, and a car door. This so intrigued the driver that he stopped the car, backed up to the man, and then asked, what are
you doing out here? I like to hike, came the reply. Yes, yes, but why are you carrying all that stuff? Well, explained the hiker, when I'm thirsty I take a drink of orange juice from my canteen, and when I'm hungry I eat some of my bread. Well, that I understand, said the motorist, but why are you carrying a car door? Because, the hiker answered in exasperation, when I get hot I can roll down the window. For
many people today, some ministers, and not a few seminarians, the Bible is like that car door, excess baggage. And why not? After all, the Bible has its origins in antiquity, and we are oriented to modernity. The Bible is a religious book, and we live in a secular world. Worst of all, the Bible is pre-scientific in its views, and we are committed to a scientific worldview. No wonder, then, that the Bible has become, for many, as
useless as a car door in the desert. For Christians, however, the Bible is anything but a car door. Believers in Jesus Christ recognize that the Bible has been instrumental in their coming to faith, and they further recognize that it continues to play an important role in the nourishing and the maturing of their faith. For all of its antiquity, the Bible functions as a vital book in the contemporary community of faith. In other words, the Bible works.
It serves a God-given purpose. It accomplishes a God-intended task. And this is not theory, it's a fact. It's an empirical fact based upon the pragmatic experience of countless Christian men and women across the centuries. The Apostle Paul articulated this functional view of the Bible in his second letter to Timothy. He exhorts his son in the faith to continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how
from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. That's very pragmatic. That's very functional. That's the way it works. What then follows in the letter has become the classical text for the Christian doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. Paul goes on to affirm that all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
that everyone who belongs to God may be complete, as the RSV has it, or proficient, as the NRSV has it, equipped for every good work. That's pragmatic. That's how it works. Now, the term that catches most of the attention in the Greek text is theonebstuous. Its literal meaning is God-breathed. Our English version translates it by the phrase inspired by God. But what is the sense of the statement that all scripture is God-breathed or inspired
by God? The term itself is more suggestive than definitive. And the problem of its meaning is complicated by the fact that this is the only text in all the New Testament where that term is used. In fact, the term is not found at all in the Greek version of the Old Testament. But there are two passages in the Old Testament which use the concept, if not the word. One is found in the Psalms, in a verse
that speaks of God's creation of the world. It reads, Psalm 33-6. Now, this is typical Hebrew poetry in which the second line says the same thing as the first line, only it says it differently. Scholars call this poetic parallelism. In this particular example, the phrase the breath of his mouth in the second line parallels the phrase the word of the Lord in the first line. So these are two ways of saying the same thing, and
both ways refer us to God's creative activity. God-breathed scripture in this sense is literature created in some way by God. It is the product of the word of the Lord. The other helpful passage in the Old Testament is the second chapter of Genesis. In this story of the creation, we are told that the Lord God formed Adam of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living
being. Applied to the Bible, this metaphor signifies that God-breathed scripture is living literature. It is what Karl Barth calls divinely spiritual. That is impregnated, filled, and governed by God's Spirit. God's Spirit breathing, diffusing, illuminating it. And both of these nuances are important. The first points up the role played by God in the authoring of the Bible and the second underlines the role God plays in the reading of the Bible. And by that I mean that
the sacred writings are not only the product of the word of the Lord, they are the media for the living word of the Lord today. Unfortunately, the first of these nuances has received the lion's share of the Church's attention in the doctrine of Holy Scripture. Most of the emphasis has been given to the role of God in the creation of the Scriptures, to the mechanics of their composition. Not that Christians have gone as far as Muslims
in their view of Scripture. Muslims hold that the Koran was written by God in heaven and delivered to the earth in its present form. I know of no serious Christian who has ever said anything like that about the Bible. The Church has always recognized that the Scriptures are historical documents written by humans at particular times and in particular circumstances. The Bible as we have it today is the product of a long process of oral tradition, writing,
editing, collecting, and selecting. Yet in spite of this acknowledgement of the human side of the Bible some Christians have come close to the Moslem view. I'm thinking of the community of faith in which I was raised which came very close to holding such a view of the origin of Scripture. Which is why I went to college with my Dukes up. In a freshman course on religion I got stuck with the toughest member of the department, Dr.
Ralph Wilburn, a Chicago University Ph.D. One day he was lecturing on the inspiration of the Bible and he said something like this, We cannot believe that the biblical writer sat down under a tree and took dictation from God and I smirked visibly and turned toward the window and thought to myself, Have I been warned about people like this? And he saw me. And the next thing I knew I was being addressed by name. Mr. Gillespie,
he said, I can see that you disapprove of what I've just said. Perhaps you would care to explain to the class just how God did inspire the Scriptures. And in that moment I had a theological awakening. I'm serious. That was the beginning of my theological awakening. Because in that moment I knew two things. One, the biblical writers did not sit down under a tree and take dictation from God. No they didn't. They just didn't. And the
second thing I knew was I didn't have a clue as to how God did it. And really that got me into thinking about such issues, not only about inspiration, but about revelation and led me really into the whole theological process. And I want to tell you now that 40 some years later after having a minor in religion in college and having a wonderful education at Princeton Seminary and a doctor's degree in New Testament studies, I still
don't have a clue as to how God did it. The how of God's inspiration of Scripture remains a mystery to me. But the same time while I've been trying to figure all that out, you see, the Bible has continued to be at work in my life. And I believe more firmly than ever, and I hope more deeply and wisely than ever, that the Scriptures really are God breathed. And I believe it not because I have been
convinced by logical arguments or rational theories, I believe it because I have heard myself the word of the Lord through the sacred writings, God speaking to me. And because I have heard God speaking to me in my reading and studying and pondering of Scripture, I'm prepared to believe that God had a hand in the writing of the Bible, even though I cannot even begin to explain in what sense that is so. What I am saying is
that I believe the Bible works. It has worked in my experience, it continues to work, and it works just the way Paul told Timothy that it works. It works first by instructing us for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no way to come to Christ himself apart from the way of Scripture. And once one has come to faith in Christ, then all kinds of new questions and new issues arise. What does it mean to
believe in Jesus Christ? What is required of me as a Christian believer? What is the walk that matches the talk? And Paul says the Scriptures undertake that task, they are profitable for teaching, for reproof. I hate to be reproved. For correction, I hate to be corrected. And for training in righteousness, I don't like that either. But it's all necessary. So that those who belong to God, men and women, may be complete, may be mature, may be
proficient, equipped for every good work. Through the Scriptures, God brings us to faith in Christ, and through the Scriptures, God brings us to maturity of faith in Christ. That's how it works. Some time ago there was a book published called The Battle of the Bible, but the Battle of the Bible really is not over the inspiration, the Battle of the Bible is really over the reading of Scripture. The Battle of the Bible for me is fought
not at the point of how God created the Scriptures, but at the point at which God speaks to me today through the Scriptures. That's where the battle is going on. That for me is where the battle is being fought in my life, and that's where it will be won or lost in my life. You see, the ultimate question is not whether we have God in the Bible, but whether the God of the Bible has us. Like
the story of the little girl who asked her mother one day, where is God? God is everywhere, her mother explained. God is present everywhere all the time. She shouldn't have said that. Mother, the little girl pressed, is God in our house? Yes, honey, God is in our house. Mother, is God in this room? Yes, dear, God is here in this room with us now. The little girl toyed with her breakfast for a moment, and then her
eyes fell on the sugar bowl. Mother, is God in the sugar bowl? Trapped by her own logic, the mother replied, yes, sweetheart, God is in the sugar bowl. Quick as a flash, the little girl grabbed the sugar bowl, put the lid on tight, and said, gotcha! Now, some people think they can do that to God with the Bible. They act like they have God caught between the leather covers of the scriptures. Like the student who approached
the late Paul Tillich one night after a guest lecture, he clutched his Bible with both of his hands and he held it up in Tillich's face. Dr. Tillich, he demanded, do you believe this book is the word of God from cover to cover? Tillich looked at him for a long moment and then said deliberately, young man, when the God of whom the Bible speaks, the God who speaks in the Bible, has a hold on your life
as firm as your hold on that book, you will know the answer to your question. But my dear friends, unless we be wise in our own conceits, it's not only the fundamentalist who grabs the Bible like this, we grab it too. With our methodologies, our historical critical methods, we've got it and we've got him inside it. But when the God of whom the Bible speaks and the God who speaks in the Bible speaks to us and
holds us as firmly as we hold our methods and our convictions, then we will know who wrote the Bible. Let us pray. Thy word is a living word, O God, it is your word not ours. We are grateful to every expression of it, for every witness to it, for every moment in which your Spirit speaks it afresh to us, that it may be a light unto our path and a lamp to our feet, that it may
illumine our minds and warm our hearts, that it may guide us and direct us, that it may judge us and renew us, that it may lead us to Jesus Christ and in him to the life of faith and in the life of faith to ever growing maturity and obedience. And we pray that it may be so for each one of us this morning, for we pray in the name of the living word, even Jesus Christ our
Lord and Savior. Amen.
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And now go in peace and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.