1.7 About The Bible

Before we actually talk about what the Bible says, I think it's so important to talk about what actually the Bible is. The Bible is a collection of 66 books, that's 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New. They were written over a period of roughly 2,000 years by over 40 different authors from three different continents who wrote in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. The amazing part is that this collection of writings, as diverse as they are, are astonishingly unified and tell one incredible story of love and redemption. They are not disjointed books all over the Bible that tell different stories. They all point to one narrative, one hero, and one rescue mission. It isn't by accident. It is proof that the Bible was divinely inspired with a very specific intention. We believe that the Bible is God's word to all people of the earth, not just pastors, not just scholars, not just for people who grew up in the Bible Belt or grew up in church, but the Bible is meant to be accessible and meaningful and life-giving to everyone, to tell the truth about who they are, to tell the truth about who God is, to tell the truth about who Jesus is and what he came to do and how accessible salvation and redemption is to anyone

who would dare put their trust in Christ. While the Bible was written by human authors, it tells us clearly that they were guided by God himself through the power of the Holy Spirit. Second Timothy chapter three, verse 16, teaches that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for correction and teaching and reproof. That word inspiration is the Greek word theonoustos. Theonoustos, it literally means God breathe, the breath of God. It literally means the breath of God. It means that real people wrote it with real language and real context, but God was engaged in leading the process and guiding their pen and their hearts and their minds in every step of the way. We believe the Bible to be the supreme source of truth for Christian belief and for Christian living. That does not mean that every verse is easy or that living it out or fleshing it out is easy or that reading it is always easy to adopt or easy to embrace. It does not mean that every passage is gonna be simple to flesh out. It does not mean that questions are unwelcome either. It means that when we wanna understand who God is, we wanna understand what he's like and how he invites us to live, the Bible, the scripture, God's holy word is our starting point and our finish.

It is our starting point and our finish line. Everything that we will ever need for this life is in the word of God. Psalm 119 verse 105 teaches us like this. It says that his word is a lamp unto our feet, that it's a light unto our path. In other words, that the word of God is the one thing in this universe that illuminates the darkness for us so that it allows us to see with clarity the truth of God, the truth about ourselves and the truth about this life. It's not always a full roadmap. It is a direction giving process. It gives you just enough light for the next step. I always say this when I preach that it doesn't say that it's a floodlight to our steps. It's not a spotlight to our steps. It doesn't illuminate out seven paces ahead of us or 20 paces ahead of us. The word of God gives you just enough illumination to take another step of faith and when you do that, it illuminates the next step of faith. So that's the process by which we learn to grow and live in the beauty of Christ. The Bible is our ultimate standard for truth. Psalm 119, verse 160, John 17 and a plethora of other scriptures tells us that the very essence of God's word is truth. That you can hang your life on it.

That you can put all of your trust in it. That you can put all of your faith in it because it is truth. I'll never forget reading a parable, an old parable from a neighboring nation that said there was a man walking through the desert and he comes upon this old dried up stream bed full of rocks and pebbles and as he stands there looking at these rocks and pebbles, this bed of pebbles, he hears this voice, clearer than he's ever heard a voice before in his life that said, reach down and pick up some of the pebbles and put them in your pocket. Tomorrow you will both be glad and sad and he thinks to himself, what is this about? Am I hearing things? I mean, I've been out in the desert. Is this a delusion? Am I hearing voices? And again, he hears the voice. It says, reach. down and pick up some of the pebbles and put them in your pocket. Tomorrow when you wake up, you'll be both glad and sad. And so just out of obedience, he reaches down and he grabs a handful of pebbles and he puts those pebbles in his pocket. The next morning, he awoke wondering what would be. And when he reaches into his pocket, instead of ordinary pebbles, he pulls out diamonds

and rubies and emeralds and topaz and all sorts of precious stones. And so it was, he was glad he had taken some, sad he hadn't taken more. This is the word of God. We hold in our hands, the literal wisdom of God, the literal word of God to us. The spirit of God is saying to each of us every day, reach down and get as much of it as you can in your soul and your spirit. Fill your heart, fill your mind with it as much as you can so that you won't be sorry later that you didn't have more. True treasure truly lies within.