Cross Training: Can I Trust the Bible ?

To any wondeful FBCA student who may be looking at these notes I want to explain a few things. Fist is that I am only putting up the second half of the lesson becuase if I put it all up it would be 10 pages long! For some of the same information I talked about last night (like the Bible is self authenticating, History that supporst the Bible, How do we know which books go in there etc.) go to this wonderful website that is easy to use and has the most of the same information:
http://www.everystudent.com/features/bible.html?GCID=S15542x003-Bible&KEYWORD=is+the+bible+true

Next remember what I am putting up is my notes so it does not have all the information I was talking about last night so feel free to post questions for things that need explanition.

Ok here is where the lesson picks up on what does the Bible say about itsself:

Now that we have tons of reasons to believe the Bible is true lets see what the Bible has to say about itself:
A good place to look is Psalm 19. Remember how we talked about General Revelation now it is time to talk a about specific revelation
7The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
8The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward.
12Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
13Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression.
14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.
This Psalm say a lot about God and how he reveals himself lets looks at it piece by piece..
It starts with the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. Here the scripture is claiming its inerrancy that the it contains no mistakes what so ever and it is what God has given to convert the soul.

Compare this to Romans 1:8
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek

God’s word communicates the power of salvation!

-Make wise the simple compare this with 1 Cor 1:18 1 Cor 2:14-15
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

It provides the spiritual instruction to make you wise in spitual things avoiding the foolishness of the world

Then Note the response to revelation that should be the Christian’s response to God’s

The Bible is written by the Holy Spirit and is completely sufficient to meet any need a Christian can have.

The Bible is also given to make you complete for every good work. 2 Tim 3:16-17
16All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The word for inspired is the Greek word Theopneusis meaning God breathed. God breathed out the scriptures and they are directly from him. Inspired does not mean inspired like an artist gets inspired or as in inspiring but God breathed.

1 Peter 1:20-21
20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Human authorship is does negate divine authorship The Bible is like Jesus in that it is both divine and human as well as perfect.!



The Bible is living
Heb 4:12
12For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The bible knows you. It can discern the your motives and thoughts!

The Bible is eternal
18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

God gives us the power to understand the Bible and speaks to us through it. John 16:12-15
"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
The Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture and lives in us! So he will guide us in truth as we read the book he wrote!. We also have fellowship with God as read the scripture. The number one reason I love scripture is because when I am reading I am spending time with my heavenly father.
God expects us to be in the Bible
Josh 1:8
8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Ps 1
1Blessed is the man[a]
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2but his delight is in the law[b] of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish

You will be judged by scripture
17"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

READ SCRIPTURE LOVE SCRIPTURE

In number a places in scripture the Bible is compared to food. Remember Jesus told Satan that man shall not live bread alone, but by every word that proceeds our of the mouth of God(Matt 4:4, Jesus was actually quoting scripture there too from Deut) . Well lets suppose you only ate twice a week. Like Sunday Morning and Wednesday night. And it was a group meal you did not have your meal. Would you be a very healthy person with that much intake of food? Obviously not the same is true of scripture. You can not be spiritually healthy unless you are constantly taking in scripture.

Or lets say you only spent time with a particular friend twice a week and it was only big group settings and never on any one on one time. Obviously this not the closest friend you have and you probably do not know that person all that well. Well it’s the same thing with God with our fellowship with God by continually being in the scriptures we are not going to get very close to our Savior who loved us to the point of death on the cross. Think about this many of you may spend 20 hours a week watching T.V. but only spend 4 with God. If you going to have relationship with somebody you must spend time with them. God is most of all worthy of your time! Give it to him and you will enjoy fellowship with your Savior,

If you are not in the Bible daily already I simple plan I suggest to help get you in everyday is to read one Chapter of the New Testament a day. That is no major time commitment (under 15 mins) and will have you in Bible everyday. Plus you will have the New Testament read in under a year. Then as you may feel led spend more time with God as realize it is not really that hard and it is time well spent!

John Babri Returns

I know many of you were wondering hey where is John? No emails, phone calls or new blogs for a week! I can hear the devastation... Well I was gone wth my Church on Mission Trip to Brookville Oh.

What did I do? Well my Church with a group from Mississippi came together to help build Sycamore Ridge Community Church. This is a Church God has been clearly blessing and expanding to new building. The Mission Trip was with Builders for Christ, a group that brings teams from SBC churches together from around the country to work together to volunteer time, people, and resources to build churches.
Check out the Church's website here http://www.sycamoreridge.org/
They have pictures of the building process there. Not many with people strangly but good photos of the building. And to prove the blogosphere is every where the church has blog that speaks about the work being done their http://ridgebuilding.blogspot.com/ My church worked on electricty, siding, and a backyard Bible club.

Anyway I just got home a little bit ago and am pretty pooped so I have just a few reflections:
1) People from Mississippi can cook
2)Nothing can stop Pastor Keith's desire for Starbucks
3)Its awesome to the body of Christ at work together
4)Puppet Ministry is actually a fun Ministy when there are kids watching
5) Do tons of praying when its time to drive home
6) I am not called to be a construction worker

Trash For Treasure

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post is being republished. It was orginally posted Feb 9 2005. I am republishing it because I have not written anything new for the Blog for awhile. Enjoy.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew13:44 (ESV)

What is salvation? This one verse describes it. This verse is a picture of someone finding the kingdom of heaven. It does not say that the man “asked Jesus into his heart.” He also does not appear to have his eyes closed or his hand raised.

What does he do? He sells everything and buys the field! That seems a little extreme. He sells everything. How could someone part with everything? Who knows what the guys had maybe a nice house, car, good job, wonderful family. So why sell all that for something else? He completely sold out. Probably because he was completely sold out! What he found was obviously greater than what he had. It was worth it all. Not just parts of his life but all of it. It was a no-brainer to give himself up completely to something greater. It may look hard but the equation is simple. Kingdom of heaven > everything I have. He also made the transaction with joy once he found the treasure! It was a bargain! And that is a gross understatement. He got to sell something so much lesser for something so much greater.

So what does salvation look like? It is realizing God offers so much more than anything you have. It is then gladly trading in all you have for what is greater. So why not trade what you have for the greater thing? Or would you rather keep something you have? But I assure you it is not worth it. Go back to the equation and look at it. Kingdom of God equals more than what I have. Don’t miss out. Don’t let your lesser rob you from perusing what is higher. Don’t worry about what you have to lose, it does not compare to what you have to gain. But here is the question: Will you be sold out or will you be content in the lesser things not fully giving yourself to what is infinitely greater?