Episode 25

Hannah speaks on Treasuring God’s Word at the Flagstaff Christian Fellowship retreat

*LIVE AND UNEDITED*

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“I am really excited for the opportunity to teach on Treasuring God’s Word. 

This is a subject that I am extremely passionate about, and I hope everyone here leaves feeling confident that God’s word is accurate, true, and capable to make us all complete and equipped for every good work.

Throughout this weekend retreat, I hope we can all find rest as we fellowship with one another, and I hope we all leave feeling blessed by God’s word. 

God’s word is a treasure that surpasses all other worldly treasures. It is more profitable than all the gold in the world, because it makes us wise unto salvation in Jesus Christ. 

This message is going to be a little more academic than the other messages because we will be exploring the history of the Bible, but my prayer is that we will all come to appreciate our Bibles more, and that we will have a greater urgency to pass on this treasure  to the next generation. 

Starting out, let’s open up our Bibles to 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and read it together 

“14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom[a] you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 

We are going to cover three major points.

The first point we are going to look at is What is Scripture?

The second point is How is God’s Word Treasure? 

And lastly we will be looking at How do we Pass on this Treasure? 

Starting with our first point, What is Scripture? Please read along with me starting in vs 14 through 15

“But, as for you, 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 make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” 

In this letter, Paul is writing to Timothy. He is urging Timothy to continue in what he has learned and believed from his childhood. Paul reminds Timothy that he has been acquainted with the sacred writings.

In this context, Paul is referring to the OT as the NT had not yet been complied. And we see here that the Old testament is able to make Timothy wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. 

It is important that we first establish the parameters of scripture. More simply, What is God’s word? 

We have something called the Christian Canon. Canon is a rule that provides direction, a standard against which to measure. The Christian Canon is a list of authoritative books that properly belong in the Bible. 

This includes the 39 books of the OT and the 27 books in the NT that Christians believe God inspired and preserved as His Word for His people. 

In Exodus 24:3-4;7 we see God command Moses to write down the revelation and covenant to His people, Israel.  We find this written account of Moses contained in Genesis through Deuteronomy which is also known as the Torah or the law of God.

    In Exodus 25:26 we see God command that His Word be preserved in the Ark of the covenant.

And since God’s word was preserved, no ruler or leader of Israel would have an excuse for not knowing or understanding the requirements of God. 

After Moses, the major and minor prophets and the authors of the OT wisdom literature were also inspired by God and the people of Israel came to recognize that these writings were also part of the canon of scripture. 

We know Jews alive during the time of Jesus, believed the canon extended to the 39 books we have in OT  today because Jesus demonstrated in Luke 24:44-47 that he came so that the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the psalms would be fulfilled. 

At the time of Jesus, referring to all the wisdom literature as the Psalms was common. So we know that all 39 books were believed to be inspired by God.

You may be thinking, so what? How do I know if the Bible is even accurate at all?

Well, The NT quotes the OT approx 300 times. And we just saw that Jesus himself affirms the 39 books of the OT as God’s word. The OT has always been accepted by the people of God as God’s word. 

Again, we saw in 2 Tim 3:15 that Paul affirmed the sacred writings as well.

But can we prove that the NT is accurate about the claims it makes? And How do we know if it is also God’s word just like the OT?

Well, we know that the New Testament has more preserved manuscripts than any other text from antiquity. 

There are over 5,700 fragments and complete copies of the New Testament in Greek. 

There is a scoring system that is used by scholars to rate the accuracy of a book of antiquity. The NT has a rating of 99.99% accuracy. 99.99%!! 

The only other book to even come close is Homer’s Iliad, which is a famous book, and it has a rating of 95%. You may be familiar with Plato and Socrates, they do not even come close to this level of accuracy when comparing the manuscripts that we have today. 

However, people are quick to dismiss the Bible as an inaccurate book written by men, with precious truths removed, or even containing errors that make it more like a historical game of telephone rather than an accurate summary of events that occurred 2000 years ago. 

We must remember though, that God’s Word “is breathed out by him” And if they are the very words of God, he is able to protect them throughout history. Not only that, but the historical evidence is in favor of the NT. 

If you consider yourself an intellectual and you affirm that Plato or Socrates or even Homer’s iliad are accurate documents, then you must also affirm that the Bible we have today is accurate. 

And not only accurate, but the most accurate out of all books of antiquity. To reject the Bible is to reject all books of antiquity as false, and if you are unwilling to do that – you must embrace the historical reliability of the NT. 

So now that we have established that the NT is accurate, how do we know that the NT is God’s Word?

The test that determined how we got the 66 books in the Bible that we have today include that

It had to be written by a recognized prophet or apostle (Isaiah/Paul) or one closely associated with a prophet or apostle (Timothy/Luke)

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