Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 9, 2023 | Reconstructing Faith - Is the Bible Irrelevant?

Transcript

July 9, 2023 | Reconstructing Faith - Is the Bible Irrelevant? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: So last week we started a new series called Reconstructing Faith.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the aim of the series is that we're looking at something because if you weren't with us last week, you might have missed our vocab lesson.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a new word that we're really focusing on, which is deconstruction.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Deconstruction is basically what is happening in the Christian world right now, where we are questioning the things that we have believed for a very long time, the traditions.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that deconstruction can go too far.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it can lead to this sort of place of perpetual criticism instead of what we are trying to do, which is take the good of that criticism, because there are some institutions, some traditions, some practices that have sort of glommed onto the way that we worship God that deserves some criticism.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But to not just leave it there to then rebuild our faith from that point and recentering ourselves on what Jesus has done, right?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning I want you to think about like you've gone into a store, like a grocery store or a hardware store, and you walk in and somebody asks you, Do you need any help?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I've been here before.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: No thank you.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know where it is, probably more than you do, right?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the way that a lot of people, a growing number of people, are viewing the Bible.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically, a growing number of Christians are viewing the Bible is that it is a text that is only relevant in certain situations when we need its help, and in many other situations when we know better or have other preferences or think we know where the mayonnaise is, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to find the Bible.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is kind of what we're looking at this morning.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The criticism or the question that is being posed is why would I trust the Bible if it's irrelevant?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps you think that that is a silly question, but it's not a silly question when we look at what I would just call the exit polls.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The people who are walking away from the church, and they might say that they still believe in God or a higher power, but for various reasons, either because of bad experiences or unanswered questions or a whole host of things, they are now leaving the organized Christian faith, worshiping in a local church with a body of believers, and these are the kinds of things that they're asking is why are you telling me that I should be following a book that is so out of touch with reality?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Since 1993, the number of people in our country who think that the Bible is a series of fables and messed up history and moral lessons has doubled to 29%.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But also, and actually much more significant than just what the country thinks about the Bible, is that now one in five Christians, people who say that they believe in Jesus, are saying that they believe in Jesus but not what the Bible says about Jesus.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or rather, they believe in God but not what the Bible says about God.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to see that that is that's a a significant distancing from how Christianity is supposed to be operating, which is that the Bible is this authoritative text that is supposed to direct the way we live and move and breathe and think and all of these things because it is inspired by God.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so if 20% of those who say they're following God are not using God's own definition for Himself, we find ourselves in Dutch.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so this idea of being irrelevant, okay, where is it coming from?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a lot of times it's going to simply be looking at the fact that the Bible doesn't agree with the various parts of our culture.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in those areas where it doesn't align exactly with our culture, it is obviously out of touch.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we begin to justify that, it comes along and saying, well, it's, you know, the most recent addition to the Bible is about 2,000 years old, and there weren't any cars or guns or air conditioners in ancient Israel.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so why would we expect that what they're saying about the world back then would apply to us today?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that we don't really have a problem with the age of really any other book.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like we'll quote Aristotle or Plato or Sun Tzu's Art of War or something like that, even though it's not that interesting.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't have problems with the age of books.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's never really been a thing that we've struggled with.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we often revere them.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Really, when it comes down to the Bible, is we are giving various reasons why it's irrelevant for our life because we don't agree with parts of it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I kind of want to press into this morning.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal is actually not talking to those who just simply say they don't believe in God or reject the Bible, but to those who are sort of in this 20% space, or those that you might know who are in this 20% space, that say, I believe in God, but you know what, the the teachings of Jesus are the only thing that I'm going to focus on.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or this part or that part doesn't really apply to me.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible itself does not speak about itself the way that we speak about it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that it is an internally consistent and God-inspired document.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul says to his mentee Timothy.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: For 2 Timothy 3 verses 13 through 17.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be breaking down this passage this morning, and uh you're probably familiar with the second half of it, but I wanted to kick us back a couple verses because I wanted you to see that the most important part doesn't just begin with all scripture is inspired by God, but rather that there's an argument that Paul is making that leads into that point.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And granted, it does begin earlier even than this, but really what is happening is Paul is speaking to a Timothy who is being persecuted and who is struggling as a very young leader in the church that he is an elder at.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul is giving him encouragement for how to sort of weather the storms of criticism in a pagan environment.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so this persecution that's coming, Paul says, evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So not every person who disagrees with the Bible is evil in the way that we might think of being evil.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not making that claim, okay?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to understand that the vast majority of the time, the people who are criticizing the Bible, and again, specifically, we're going to say Christians who are saying they like this part but not this part, is that there is some ulterior motive there, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is something to be gained if the Bible is proven to just be a grab bag of good ideas.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the time, it's that their way of thinking or their lifestyle is affirmed, and so there's no sort of like uh rub in between what God has said is best for us and the way that they are living.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very comfortable place to be, right?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: We all get that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: We all want to be in a place where we are living the way that God has designed for us to live.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is saying is that there are some who come from the outside, though, who are bringing criticisms that are beginning to influence and harm those who have trusted in faith.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we can, I think, very easily imagine some of the examples that Paul was probably thinking of when he was speaking to Timothy here.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, previously Paul had gone to Ephesus, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the book or the letter to the Ephesians was written.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was in Ephesus, and Paul was there doing a lot of miracles.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is in Acts chapter 19.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's healing people, he's casting out demons, he's telling people about the name of Jesus, and all of this is happening, and it is so moving and it is so world-changing that the entire city of Ephesus, which has this grand, you can uh see the reconstructed images today of the ancient temple of Artemis, it's now destroyed, but this grand, huge uh temple to this god Artemis that was centered in Ephesus, the entire economy of religion is based around worshiping Artemis, and the whole city begins to turn away from it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the context when we look at Acts 19 and read about a man named Demetrius who was losing something because of Paul's proclamation of the gospel.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: About that time there was a major disturbance about the way.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was the early name for Christianity.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: For a person named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, provided a great deal of business for the craftsmen.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: When he had assembled them, as well as the workers engaged in this type of business, he said, Men, you know that our prosperity is derived from this business.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You see in here that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this man Paul has persuaded and misled a considerable number of people by saying that gods may by hand are not gods.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not only do we run a risk that our business may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be despised and her magnificence come to the verge of ruin, the very one all of Asia and the world worship.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So facing the loss of business because nobody was needing silver images of Artemis any longer, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Demetrius gathers together a group of people.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: They end up actually capturing two of Paul's companions and bringing them before this huge sort of theater space that you can still see in Ephesus.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they were about to do something with them, but the crowd ultimately was dispelled by a ruler who came along and said that that wasn't a good idea.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Demetrius is making a couple claims, though, that we're probably familiar with, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That our way of life is being threatened, that Paul or whomever is speaking the word lacks credibility, that he is lying, and ultimately we see the basic motivation, which is what they worship will lose its power.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so my point in bringing this up is not to say that everybody who criticizes the Bible is evil, but to understand that the criticisms that are often aimed at the Bible, especially those who exist outside of the academic space, okay, that they are often biased in their own way.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they often are behind or in front of somebody who has something to lose if the gospel is believed and the Bible is understood to be true.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Paul is speaking to Timothy, we can imagine that this idea of Demetrius, this experience that Paul had of almost being thrown out of the city of Ephesus because he was changing the economy was one reason that he was trying to help Timothy understand the motivations of others.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But as we keep going, he says, But as for you, Timothy, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere, Paul recognizes that Timothy was brought up in his faith by his mother and his grandmother.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: He lauds them as being these wonderful women who love Jesus and love God and have raised up this young Timothy to now be sort of the leader that he is, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: He credits, Paul credits Timothy's faith and growth to his mother and grandmother, and that is surely who he's talking about here.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying to Timothy is not that he would be blind to any sort of thought that comes at him that he is wrong, but rather that he is to weigh the accusations of those who are trying to undermine the faith over and against this legacy of faith that he has had since he was a child.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that just because you believe something since you were a kid that it is right, or that because lots of people believe something that it is right.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the burden of proof does come from the outside.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is based upon those who are saying that Timothy's faith isn't real, that it's fabricated, or as they were leveling it against God, or leveling it against Paul, excuse me, that he was lying about what God's meant.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The burden of proof is on those who are disagreeing with the Bible.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Paul is doing here is he is encouraging Timothy.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not telling him to be anti-intellectual, to not use his mind to understand his faith, but he is saying, weigh these things out a little bit.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Timothy, you were on YouTube the other day for a really long time, and you saw some comments from people who were questioning the faith.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they asked a question about the Bible that you didn't have the answer to, or had a criticism that you weren't really able to respond back with in a way that you liked.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, it planted this seed of doubt in your mind that has continued to grow and fester because you've done nothing to address it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are questions that we hurl at the Bible all the time.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that we don't fully understand.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: God is above us, his ways are above our ways.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it is important that we continue to engage with these things because there is a lot more momentum going behind the truth that the Bible is God's revealed word in its entirety than it is not.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to ask questions, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're doing this whole series.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're talking about reconstructing faith.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: As we're saying that some of the questions that are being leveled at Christianity are good questions to ask that have real criticisms behind them.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But baby with the bathwater is never a good idea, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I asked somebody the other week, they were not familiar with the phrase, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I recognize that if I'm saying that and somebody doesn't know what that means, that sounds very, very weird.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just in case for the one person doesn't know, I mean we don't throw everything away because there's some of it that should be distanced.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Baby with bathwater.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: But God's word does not answer all of our questions.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is irrelevant in certain situations.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's irrelevant if you want to know how to change the oil in your car, okay?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's irrelevant if you want to know how to grow the best tomatoes in your garden.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's irrelevant if you want to know what color scarf goes best with your jacket, okay?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is irrelevant in certain situations.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to know about the world, about human nature, about the holiness of God, and about the path of salvation, it is very, very relevant.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the difficulty that we have is we oftentimes forget that the Bible is a complete package.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is not designed, and internally it does not discuss itself to be or talk about itself to be something that is to be separated.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: That we only think about Jesus and the path to salvation that He offers through the Bible and not any of the other things that the Bible says.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or for that matter, that we look at Jesus, and maybe you're somebody who's like, I'm a red letter Bible kind of person.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like whatever Jesus says, that's what I'm gonna hold to, but these other things don't follow along, right?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: They don't agree with really the world that we're living in right now.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that that is not the purpose of the Bible.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of the Bible is not to agree with every single thing that the world says.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of the Bible is that it would give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have faith in Christ Jesus, then all of a sudden that is the key that opens this lock, and everything else in the Bible becomes relevant to you because it is all a part of the story of Christ Jesus.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we are looking so often, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we do studies in Leviticus and Numbers.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you, maybe you've had this thought, at the beginning of each of our series in Leviticus and Numbers, I have had a lot of people who are like, no, don't want to do it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not a big fan of Leviticus, not a big fan of numbers, especially not for four months.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Am I a fan of numbers?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that's why we do it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: We do it because we believe in Jesus and all of the other things come along with it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we say that the whole Bible is inspired by God.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is because Paul says that all scripture is inspired by God.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: All scripture is inspired by God, all of it, from Genesis to Revelation.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every single word in its original manuscript, meaning when Moses wrote down the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, we say that is authoritative.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: That he was inspired by God along with the other some 39, roughly, authors of the Bible who wrote these books, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: These 66 books of the Bible over roughly 1,500 years, that they were inspired by God.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we say that they were inspired by God in the original manuscripts, because we look at the Bible as we have in its completed form for over 1,700 years now, and we say that it is internally consistent, that it is able to interpret itself, that it is true, not just because we say it is true, but because over and over and over again it has proven to be true.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole rabbit trail that I'm not going down.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tempted, I'm not going down the rabbit trail, where we begin to just list out all of the reasons why archaeology and prophecy and different things have shown the Bible to be this trusted document.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is not just the art of war, right?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the Bible, we are still tempted, and this is where I want to lean into.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We are still tempted to say that there are certain parts of it that we agree with and we're gonna live by, and there are certain parts of it that we'll set aside.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Smithsonian has this book called the Jefferson Bible, or properly known as The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was written by Thomas Jefferson, uh founding father and third president of the United States.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this book, what he did was he took copies of the New Testament and he literally took a penknife and cut out passages and pasted them together into what he said was the best and most moral representation of the Christian faith.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what he also did was exclude in his cutting out any reference to miracles, any reference to the deity of Christ, and any discussion about the resurrection.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we have at the end of the life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth is him dying on a cross.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It does not conclude with his resurrection.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at this, right, when you see this sort of cobbled together New Testament, it is the perfect example of the way that we, many of us, are living, or at least are tempted to live.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And even if we don't believe that we should be taking parts out of the Bible, this is how we act.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that ironically, the one that Thomas Jefferson was saying should be followed as this great moral leader, actually said that the whole Bible should be trusted.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself, see, this wasn't included in the Jefferson Bible because it was something that Jesus said after he was resurrected and returned to the disciples.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus told them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus looks back at the Old Testament and he goes, That was about me.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: All of it?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Me.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say it that way, but that's what he meant when he said it.
• 21:59
  unknown: We look
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Back at the Old Testament, and this is why.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying, I promise I'm not just up here to like justify going through the series of numbers, but this is why in the series of numbers, almost every single lesson, we're like, don't you see how this connects to Jesus?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you see how God was laying this foundation so that we might understand Jesus later on?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you see how this was prefiguring the sacrifice of Christ?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you see how the blood and the avengers and the wars and the conquests and the division and the wandering and the promised land, all of these things are pointing towards Jesus.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said that they point towards him.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I want you to see there is simply that even for those who say, I only listen to the words of Jesus, Jesus said, You should listen to the whole Bible.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why Jesus said that is because the whole Bible is his word.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's John 1.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go back, though, to our final section of 2 Timothy, we see the purpose behind understanding the entire Bible, not setting aside parts of it, but knowing all of it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are complete.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are well-rounded, we are balanced, and we are healthy when we read the entire Bible.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: You get out of joint, just like you would if you were going to the gym and you skipped leg day every single time.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna look a little top-heavy, okay?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you're only gonna wear pants and not shorts.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not good.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that Christians sometimes read.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a New Testament person, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I only like reading the Gospels.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I only like these sections.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love the Sermon on the Mount just as much as anybody else.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Genesis is great too.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are complete when we are reading all of these things and allowing God's word to teach us, rebuke us, correct us, and train us in these things so that we might be equipped.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens when you begin to take things out of the Bible that you don't like.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to move beyond that.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens when you begin to take things out of the Bible that you don't think are true.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even matter if you don't like it, that you just don't think are true.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: When that happens, what you're doing is you are redesigning the Bible in your own image.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're Thomas Jefferson.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity, loved the natural world, and was influenced by enlightenment thinkers.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: The life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth looks like a New Testament constructed by somebody who is a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity, who loved the natural world, and was influenced by enlightenment thinkers.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you begin to take parts out of the Bible and say that certain things aren't true, you're doing the exact same thing.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you are molding God's word into something that is affirming to you, right?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: An easy test for this is when you see a section of the Bible that sort of conflicts with the way that you're living, what is the thought that comes to mind?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you first trying to figure out why it isn't true?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or is your first reaction that you might be wrong?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: When we redesign the Bible, we make it in our own image.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And making things in our own image is not only idolatry, but it's foolish.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's foolish because you and I are not reliable or worthy of trusting for ultimate authority, right?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: You might disagree with that.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: You say I'm a pretty smart person, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got a lot of wisdom, got a lot of years where I know that the way that the world works, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me show you the first couple posts I ever made when I created my Facebook account.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: That first one, I don't even know what it means.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I bought a chicken suit, and it actually was not a waste of money.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great use of money, and currently it's sitting in the student ministry costume closet.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I was 15, and these are the things that some 15-year-olds say, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: When I look back on myself at that point in time, I say, I'm a bit smarter and wiser than I was back then.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're 15 right now, just think about how you think about a sixth grader.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: We always look backwards and we say, you know what, I've grown.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lord willing, I've grown.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've become smarter and wiser.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And five years from now, chances are you're gonna look back on where you're at right now and you're gonna say, I'm smarter and wiser than I was back then.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing to be growing, but it also means that you are finite and not perfect and not worthy of ultimate authority, because you are changing and improving as God has intended you to be, growing hopefully into the image of Christ, but you're not Jesus.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, what you have to understand, if I could make one very specific link for people, is that the act of redesigning the Bible in our own image, of explaining away things that are clearly presented in the text, it is tantamount to saying that you are of a higher authority than God because you know what should go in the Bible and he doesn't.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And your authority, your highest authority that you've placed yourself in, which is what is effectually happening, whether or not you think of yourself in that way, what is happening there is you have made the decision about what is right and what is wrong.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you are not in a good position to be deciding what is right and what is wrong.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at the Bible, when we understand God's word, when we see all of these things, right, we have to understand what is going on when we disagree with them.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: When we begin to say that the Bible is ultimately irrelevant.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible has a purpose, and this purpose is that God has given it to us for the sake of our growth, so that we might be taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when we begin to disagree and diverge from that notion, we are now saying that we know the direction that is best, and God doesn't.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so, so captivating to make that kind of decision because the Bible is hard to follow, because it shows us God's perfect holy character and not the way that we are natively and intuitively living.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our human nature is that we sin.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's like what we do.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're really, really good at it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Human nature is that we rebel against God.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we shouldn't expect to go to the Bible and think that everything that we do is going to be affirmed in his words, in his holy directives, in the way that history goes, and that history shows and God's will shows, that it's ultimately not us that can save ourselves, it's him.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're flowing with that argument, right, if that makes sense to you, if you're like, I'm a sinner, I need God's Savior, I need Jesus on the cross, so that I might be in heaven, so that I might be forgiven of my sins, if that is the narrative that's going through your head, then the course of the river is also that the rest of the Bible is true.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Paddling upstream is saying that there are certain sections that we don't like.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the direction that God has given to us.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: We can have arguments about subjective things, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like which college team is best, um, you know, uh the best restaurant, uh, the best color of like blue to paint a wall.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: But there are certain objective things where either side of them are mutually exclusive to the other.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: One of those things is that the Bible is both God's word and not God's word at the same time.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is illogical.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is either God's word, because he said it's his word, and in which case the whole Bible is important and exceedingly relevant for our lives, or it's not God's word, and in which case you should look at it like a cookbook.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is good ideas and nothing more.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible is not both his word and not his word at the same time.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: If the Bible has become irrelevant to us, it is because we have chosen to make it irrelevant.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is relevant to every single person on the face of the earth, because it is the only way that we have the knowledge about salvation is through the words of the Bible.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is the only place where it is found.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so for that reason alone, it is relevant.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if people understand that, then they begin to broaden.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fine if a brand new Christian, I will tell you, when we have people who come in and they say, I don't know anything about Jesus, I don't know anything about this Christianity stuff, we send them to the gospels.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, hey, I want you to understand Jesus, I want you to know who he is, that he died for your sins so that you might be saved and that he is God.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to read these things and understand these things as central to your faith.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if we keep going, if they pursue that, we're gonna start bringing in the whole Bible because every single part of it is important.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So why should we trust the Bible if it's irrelevant?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 48 says, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God remains forever.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: In that passage, the grass that withers and fades is humanity.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity and our frailty, and the fact that we die on average after about, you know, 80 years, and God doesn't, that is the thing that is posed against the eternal and abiding nature of God's word.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that we have, that Timothy had a legacy of faith to look back upon is because God's word is not finite and changing with the times.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: If it was, it would be worthless.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it has worth specifically because it has not changed.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it is our duty to look at those things and understand that even if they're difficult, that our community and our faith is based upon this book.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that true obedience to God is looking at the Bible and not finding the parts where we explain it away, but finding the parts that disagree with us and conforming our lives to them.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because we make very poor gods if we place ourselves in his authority.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: What should we do?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, each one of these lessons, each one of these messages kind of has a simple phrase that we trust the Bible and not ourselves.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: We trust the Bible and not ourselves because the Bible is worthy to be trusted, because it is relevant and because it is God's word.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: We don't trust ourselves because though we think we're relevant, we are often irrelevant.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our perspective is shifting and it changes as soon as we're influenced by a good argument.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We move around all the time on what we believe and think, and every single one of us thinks that we're right.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a single one of you who is living in a way, oftentimes I should say, where you think that you are wrong the whole time.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: And simply our divergence of opinions and backgrounds and beliefs should lead us to the truth that this one abiding thing that has been consistent is where we should be putting our attention.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because if that's the case, if you and I can both look at the same book, this inspired word of God, and say, This is his word, he has given it to us, this is where I'm going to put my authority, this is where I'm going to direct my life, this is how I'm going to choose the way I'm going to live, then you and I begin walking the same path together.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: You and I as a church are walking the same path together.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are Topeka Bible Church after all.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is a thing we really enjoy doing.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you and I are walking this path together.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if we break up and we just start having arguments about the parts that we like and don't like and about whether it really did say that in that context, in that culture, listen, there's a place for some of that at a base level, and it often exists in commentaries and academics.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: But for you and I, the application for how we live our life is that the Bible is true, that we live the whole Bible, we read the whole Bible, we trust the whole Bible, and we act the whole Bible.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Final thing I want to say.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest reasons in those exit polls, right, that people are deconstructing their faith and they say that the Bible is irrelevant to me is because they have seen Christians who say that the Bible is the way they're going to live their life and is their authority, and consistently and deliberately live their lives in a way that is the opposite of what God has intended.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, it tells everybody who's just sort of on the fringes and watching and not really sure what they're going to believe, that we don't really think it's true, otherwise we'd be acting on it, that we don't really feel like it has authority over our lives, otherwise, you know, we would be acting on it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And third, that it is simply just something that we're saying so that we can fit in instead of something that is directing our lives.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are deconstructing their faith, many of them are doing it because they have seen things that are hard to accept within Christianity.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the solution for us, especially for those of us who say, Hey, I believe the Bible and I do my best to follow it every day of my life, is that we continue in that regard, that we continue to push forward into these things, that we continue to read the Bible and study it and learn it so that we might be complete.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because, as Paul says, we are incomplete if we are just picking and choosing things.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we're cutting and pasting like Jefferson, we are going to be imbalanced all day long and we are not going to know which way to go because we are just going to be a weather vein that is moving with the wind.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let us find this main truth because it is relevant.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you as a people of your word, understanding, Lord, that we often do have questions about it, understanding that it doesn't always make sense to us, but Lord, also believing at our very core of our being that it is true because you wrote it.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is inspired by you.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is your word, as you say, that you have given to us, you have revealed it to us, so that we might understand, Lord, as you say the mysteries of the ages, and most of all that we might know Jesus Christ, who is the Word, made flesh.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: God, as we look upon your scripture, I pray that by the power of the Spirit, you would help us to sort of address those areas of our lives where we're neglecting certain parts of your word, where we're choosing to not live by the things that we know are true, and Lord, where we have made ourselves the highest authority.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: God, we ask for forgiveness in that regard.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, that we might, as a community of believers, be a people who are living by the Bible, so that others who are interested might see how we are captivated by your truth and by your mercy and by your grace, and they would want to be people of your word too.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to not be, as James said, like a sea that is being tossed and turned by the waves and the wind.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that we are people who are steadfast and immovable because we are resting upon your steadfast and immovable word.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, everyone.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.