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WHY> Week 3: Why Should I Trust the Bible?

September 28, 2008

Several years ago, I completed one of my greatest parental projects of my life.  I went to Home Depot, bought the kit to build Maggie and Lacie their first playground with a swing, playhouse, and slide.  I bought this kit that said 12 hours of labor and for 12 days I followed every step of the instruction manual to finally present to my children their birthday present.  I don’t know about you, but I am one of those people that cannot put anything together without first reading the entire instruction manual, identifying every part that is labeled in the instruction manual, and gather every suggested tool that is suggested in the manual for assembly.

All this has made me wonder. Wouldn't you like to have an instruction manual for life? An instruction manual that could really help you piece your life together in a way that would work, a way that would be positive, a way that it would work out so when you got to the end of your life you didn't have regrets. You look back over your life and you say, “I'm glad I did it that way.

I'm glad it worked out this particular way.” I have good news this morning.  The Bible is that instruction manual.

Sometimes when we turn to the Bible we feel like we are reading the instruction manual for the backyard playground. You can open it up and read it. Passages can be tough to understand. If we read it in certain translations it can be really hard to follow. Then the whole question comes, “Can we trust the Bible?”

The Bible is the number one best-selling book in the world. It sells over a billion copies worldwide every year. It was the number one New York Times best-selling book for so long that they took it off the list. Americans alone spend over two hundred million dollars a year on Bibles. The question isn't, “Is it popular?” The question is, “Can I trust it? Is it reliable for my life?” We know it's popular. It's in every hotel. It's all over. But is it reliable?

This is the question we are going to look at this morning, “Why Should We Trust the Bible?”

I want to share with you THREE reasons that you should value the Bible found in 2 Timothy 3.

Read 2 Timothy 3:1-17 in English then in Spanish.

The entire context for chapter 3 is a focus on the importance of God’s Word, the Bible.

1)    The Bible supplies answers in the midst of life’s chaos.  2 Timothy 3:1-9

Notice here that Paul promises life will chaotic.  Sin and disobedience will run rampant in this world, but noticed that verse 9 says that, “they will not get very far because…their folly will be clear to everyone.”  What does this mean?  This means that there are no answers to life’s chaos when someone is living for themselves. Or when living for your own lustful desires.

The Bible is the only place to get real answer to life’s chaos.  All answers fall short when trying to explain why people are greedy, selfish, boastful, abusive, disobedient, brutal.  Many people who have rejected the Bible have rejected any real answers to life’s most important questions.  They might be able to address a surface problem, but all these problems are issues of the heart.

The Bible is the only book that supplies answers in the midst of life’s complexity and chaos.

A big assumption people make about the Bible is that it's just hard to read. It's flat, difficult, and challenging to read. Most of us picture a Bible as that big family Bible that sits somewhere in the house on a coffee table or bookshelf that is large and if you have ever opened it up, it is written in a language you don’t understand.  It’s written in a language from long ago.

It reminds me of the story of Pepe Rodriguez who was one of the oldest bank robbers in the west. He would go over the border of Mexico to Texas and rob these banks, then head back over the border. The Texas Rangers would get so frustrated. They tracked Pepe down in a bar in Mexico. They crossed the border illegally, they pinned him in a corner, drew their weapons, and translated through the bartender because Pepe didn't speak English. They said, “Tell Pepe that if he doesn't tell us where the money is right now we're going to shoot him dead.” The bartender translates all this, and Pepe is terrified and freaking out. He says to tell the guys to go to the town well. Go to the handle and count down seventeen stones, and pull that stone out. There they will find all the money. The bartender nods at Pepe, turns to the Texas Rangers, and says, “Pepe is a very brave man. Pepe says you are a bunch of stinkin' pigs, and you should go ahead and shoot him. He's not telling you where the money is.”

Something got lost in the translation. Sometimes that's how we feel when we open up the Bible. I want to encourage you to give it an honest read for yourself. Don't just go by hearsay. Don't just go by what other people say. Give it a read for yourself.

One place you can start is to pick a good translation for yourself, something that you can read. My encouragement is to go to Lifeway Christian Bookstore in Cary, sit down and find a translation of a Bible that works for you.

2)    The Bible gives clear principles on living a way that pleases God. 2 Tim 3:10-15a

Notice the contrast that Paul gives in his instruction to Timothy.  He is telling Timothy to follow his teaching, his way of life, his purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance.  Now, where do you think Paul learned all this?  It is the same place that Timothy learned.  In verse 15, Paul says, “And from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures.”

The Bible instructs us in how to live our everyday lives in way that pleases the one who created us.

Some people say, “Okay, that's all good but the Bible is just out of touch.” I've actually heard people say, “The Bible is a bunch of stories of goody-two-shoes people who don't drink, don't smoke, and don't dance. It's not related to life. Life is different than that.” They feel like the Bible is unconnected to the journey that they are going through.

I'm always thinking, “Man, what Bible are you reading? That's not the Bible I read.” The Bible I read ought to be rated NC17 in certain places because of the level of content that's there -- the violence, the raw grit of life that's told right there in the Bible.

John Ortberg talks about the dysfunction in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. Ortberg says, “Cain is jealous of Abel and he kills him. Lamech introduces polygamy to the world. Noah, the most righteous man of his generation, gets drunk and curses his own grandson. Lot, when his home is surrounded by residents of Sodom who want to violate his visitors, offers instead that they can have sex with his daughters.  Later on, his daughters get him drunk and then get impregnated by him.”

Ortberg says, “These people need a therapist. These are not the Walton's. They need Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Spock, Dr. Seuss…they need somebody.” That's just the first book of the Bible.

That's what surprises me so much when I read the Bible -- how realistic it really is. It's true to life. It's not too far from Jerry Springer in some sections. You realize, wow, this stuff happens. It happened then, and it happens today.

3)    The Bible makes one wise for salvation. 2 Timothy 3:15b-17

Let me make sure that you understand that when I say you need to value the Bible, I am not saying that the Bible saves you.  Only Jesus saves you.  But, the Bible is God’s Word which is used to bring us into that personal relationship with Him.  We only know about Jesus by reading the 66 books of the Bible.  The Bible is God’s revelation of the life and work of Jesus.

I think of books like Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. Some of you may have read it.

It's a novel that came out a couple years ago. It's been on the bestseller list.  Tom Hanks stars in the movie based on The Da Vinci Code.   In one place The Da Vinci Code has a character that says, “The Bible is just a product of man, my dear, it is not a product of God. History has never had a definitive version of the book.”  That just sort of continues this assumption that the Bible isn't true.

What I find is that when I begin to do research on the reliability of the Bible, there is a lot of evidence out there.  There is a lot of evidence that is manuscript evidence or archeological evidence.  You will study this in your readings this week.

What I find as I begin to go back and look at archeological evidence for the reliability of the

Bible is that it has stood the test of time for thousands of years. In fact, it was an archeologist

at John Hopkins University, W.F. Albright, who said the “excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible has progressively been discredited.  Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of the numeral details. It has brought increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a source of history.” The Bible has stood the test of time.

I believe there is all kinds of evidence for our faith that the Bible is indeed a trustworthy document. There is not only archeological evidence, there is manuscript evidence which you can read about in your WHY> daily devotional this week. There is internal evidence.

We have a document that was written over a 1500 year span by over forty authors. There

are sixty-six books written in over three different continents in three different languages.

Yet the internal coherency is absolutely stunning.

After you find a translation that you are comfortable with, I would encourage you to start a reading plan.  Start reading it every day that you can.  And I encourage you when you read it, you take the next step and put its words to practice in your life.

Jesus says this in Matthew 7:24. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

Here's the deal, the storm is coming to every house. Nowhere does it say that if you build your house on the rock the storm won't come. The storm is going to come to all of us one way or another. But when it does, Jesus says, you build your life on my word and it will stand the test.