The Wonder of God’s Word: Why do we believe the Bible is God’s Word?

The Inspiration of the Bible
2 Timothy 3:14-17

INTRODUCTION:
When we lived in Romania, there was a young woman who lived in our apartment building named Adriana, who became a friend of the family. As we got to know her, the men on the mission team would have her look over our sermons, to correct our Romanian. We also had her translating books and other materials to use in Bible study. Rachel and I also had her spend time with Jewell, to get her ready to go to a Romanian kindergarten. Adriana would take Jewell out to play and speak Romanian to her and try to help her learn and understand some basic Romanian so she would fit in when she went to school. In other words, we were close to Adriana, the longer we stayed there.

One year, we hosted our own Gospel meeting and we had a Romanian brother do the speaking. Adriana accepted our invitation to come to the meeting. She sat behind us during worship. After the worship was over, I turned around and said, “Adriana, you are close to our family and we love you. Are there any questions you have about the Bible, or Christianity, or anything like that?” While I don’t remember exactly what she said, it was something like this: “I don’t understand why anyone would adjust their behavior based on what a book says that’s 2000 years old.”

Why do you and I adjust our behavior based on what a 2,000 year-old book says? That’s the topic of our discussion this morning: The inspiration of the Bible.

We talked a few weeks ago about the idea that you can’t prove that God exists in a laboratory. What you will discover in a laboratory is that life cannot create itself and that life is intricately designed. Both of those points, that you will discover in a lab, point to the existence of a powerful and wise God. The fact that life cannot create itself shows that everything that is created must have a Creator. That is known as the Cosmological argument for the existence of God. The fact that life is intricately designed shows that everything must have a Designer. That is known as the Teleological argument for the existence of God.

What I am going to show today, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the Bible itself proves the existence of God because the Bible itself argues for a source, an origin, that is outside of mankind.

When the apostle Paul wrote Timothy from prison in Rome, among the last words Paul would ever write, he said, “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:14-17).

Among the statements Paul makes are these:

1. Continue in the things you have learned.
2. From childhood you have known the sacred writings.
3. These sacred writings are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation.
4. This salvation must be based on faith which is in Christ Jesus.
5. All the sacred writings, which Paul calls “Scripture,” are inspired by God. That word “inspired” means “breathed out.” It refers to the breath of God, which we could also translate as the “Spirit of God.”
6. The sacred writings are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.
7. If we follow the sacred writings, then we will be adequately prepared, properly equipped for every good work God requires of us.

So, how does the Bible prove itself to be “breathed out” by the breath or the Spirit of God?

THE BASIC ARGUMENT FOR THE BIBLE’S INSPIRATION:
If the Bible has characteristics that show that it cannot be a mere human book, then the Bible is the production of a divine mind.
The Bible does have characteristics that show that it cannot be a mere human book.
Therefore, the Bible is the production of a divine mind.

Now, let’s briefly point out the characteristics the Bible has to show that it cannot be a mere human book…

THE PREDICTIVE PROPHECY OF THE BIBLE:
In 2 Peter 1:20-21, the apostle writes: “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Biblical prophecy is more than just a mere guess.
It is also more than vague generalizations.
Biblical prophecy relates to events and things that could not have been expected logically.
Biblical prophecy needs to be clear and unambiguous.
Biblical prophecy is also far enough away in time from the event it predicts that it is obviously a prophecy and not a guess.

The most important group of prophecies relate to the coming, person, and work of Jesus Christ. It is estimated as many as 60 prophecies found in 300 references are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Now skeptics will often retort that the man from Nazareth just altered His behavior in order to “fulfill” the statements of the OT. But all you have to do is read the text itself and you’ll see where that quibble doesn’t explain the vast majority of the prophecies.

Think about the prophecy of Isaiah 53. There are at least 10 prophecies of Jesus Christ and His suffering and death recorded in that context.

One mathematician estimated that the possibility of one individual fulfilling eight specific prophecies are 1 in 1017. That’s a 1 followed by 17 zeroes!

THE NATURE AND WORK OF JESUS CHRIST:
Take a look at Romans 16:25-26: “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith.”

The coming of Jesus Christ throughout the OT was a mystery. Jesus came and clarified that mystery - how could a holy God sanctify sinful man? What human being would come up with the whole idea of God dying for His own creation? Just think about the religions of the world; what you know of them: modern Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all the rest.

What human being would ever come up with the idea that man is saved from his sins by God dying for him? Think about all the religions that man designs and observe that they all have to do in some way with salvation by works. But Christianity comes along and says, “No, salvation is by grace.” Not a single human being could come up with such an idea.

What human being would come up with the idea that our Savior would be sinless? The fact that this concept is so hard for modern man to grasp shows how strange and unexpected the whole idea is!

Just about everything dealing with Jesus is beyond what man would expect: His kingdom, His mission, His person, His character.

The Bible’s presentation of Jesus shows that it has the characteristics being beyond mere human production.

THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE:
Perhaps you have seen some of these images before - bloopers in movies, specifically those that show something is out of order relative to time. Like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, in middle earth, wearing a watch!

But there’s nothing like that in the Bible.

The Bible presents itself as having been written by 40 different men and women, across three continents, over a time span of about 1500 years! And yet all those men and all those books - 66 of them - all relate to one theme: the salvation of man through Jesus Christ to the glory of God. Genesis begins in the beginning, with God creating the world for man’s dwelling, how man sinned against God, and how God began working through a nation - the family of Abraham - to bring His Son into the world.

Every single book of the Bible relates to that story line. The book of Genesis proves itself to have existed before the Law of Moses was given. It reflects the culture and the customs of the land of Canaan before the Israelites dwelt in that land. Every single book of the OT reflects the culture and the customs - and the language of the book as well - of the land where it took place. The book of Daniel shows itself to have been written in Babylon. Esther shows itself to have been written in Persia. The apostle Paul’s writings largely reflect what Luke wrote about Paul in the book of Acts. There are some details that are challenging to fit into the chronology of Acts but that doesn’t mean they are impossible. It just means we don’t know.

THE BIBLE’S VIEW OF THE ORIGINS OF MANKIND:
It is absolutely certain that science cannot explain where man came from. In January, we will show a series of videos on Wednesday night that argue for the biblical account of the creation of man and the world. Science cannot answer the question where man came from. You can always ask one more question: Where did that come from?

The Big Bang? Where did the energy come from that caused the big bang? Whatever the substance was that exploded… where did that come from?

There are two fundamental things that relate to this question: mind or matter. It is absolutely certain that matter is not eternal. No single scientific arrow points to matter being eternal. Therefore, mind has to be eternal.

That mind is identified as God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:26-27).

That makes sense. And, quite honestly there are only three of the world religions that argue that God created the world: Christianity, modern Judaism, and Islam. But, the “holy” books of Judaism (the OT is incomplete without the coming of Jesus) and Islam do not meet the same criteria for inspired writings.

The Bible is consistent from beginning to end relative to the creation of man in God’s image and the creation of the world for man’s use.

Just to give you one example, Genesis presents Adam as being the first man and both Jesus (Matt. 19:1-9) and Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:45 are consistent with that. In a second example, in Genesis 1:26-27, God made man in His image. In James 3:9, James writes that you don’t curse your fellow man because he is made in the image of God.

So, the biblical view of the origin of mankind is consistent with what we know of the nature of man and the nature of the world around us.

MEDICAL SCIENCE IN THE BIBLE:
When Moses wrote the law, the nation of Egypt was the most advanced nation in the world. Moses left Egypt, of course, choosing to suffer oppression with God’s people rather than grow up in the house of Pharaoh.

There are papyri known as the Ebers Papyri and Edwin Smith Papri which date from Moses’ day. It contains potions, medical recipes, and rituals from their day. The Egyptians’ prescriptions for various ailments reveal the contrast between ancient Egypt and ancient Israel:

Pinkeye - urine of a faithful wife
Baldness - Fat from a horse, hippopotamus, crocodile, cat, snake, and “wild-goat”
Splinters - salve of worm blood and donkey dung
Sick children - Skin baby mice and feed them whole to the children

True, the Bible does not deal with these types of ailments, but what the Bible does prescribe is years ahead of its time. When it comes to leprosy, the Law required priests to quarantine patients, to examine boils, burns, itching, leukoderma, baldness as it related potentially to leprosy. The law is found in Leviticus 13 & 14. Wash the clothes. Fabrics that could not be salvaged were to be burned. The guidelines almost sound like they came straight from the CDC.

The fact that circumcision was commanded on the 8th day in Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3 has proven to be ahead of its time. Blood clotting would be essential, of course, We know today that the blood clotting cascade of enzymes is at its height in baby boys on the eighth day. Today, we can circumcise boys at a younger age because they are injected with .5-1 mg Vitamin K in their muscles shortly after birth. We could go into more details than that, but let’s illustrate some other areas.

ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE:
When God made the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day, recorded in Genesis 1:14-19, He made them for the benefit of mankind. Our Milky Way galaxy has some 100 billion stars as well as other objects. It is an incredible 100,000 light years in diameter. That’s the distance of travel at the speed of light for a year - 186,282 miles a second. That means to travel from one end of our galaxy to the other side, it would take 100,000 years if you could travel as fast as light.

The Bible, in fact, presents the vastness of space. When God promised Abraham that he would be the father of nations, He told Abraham that his descendants would be as numberless as the stars of heaven (Gen. 15:5; 22:17). God made the same promise to Isaac (Gen. 26:4).

God made light before He created the sun (Gen. 1:3). Curtis Jones’s class of junior high boys asked how that could be. Curtis asked me. I didn’t exactly know either. But I emailed brother Branyon May who has his doctorate in astrophysics. And he uses his education to strengthen Christians’ convictions in God’s word. He sent me several articles and listed about 5-6 different sources of light in outer space not associated with the sun or the stars. Isn’t that incredible?

If any of the evidence for the “Big Bang” theory is true, the galaxies are moving outward from a central point, it simply confirms what the Bible teaches - that the universe had a beginning. True science never contradicts what the Bible says.

I want to share one more tidbit of information with you that I got from Dr. Nobie Stone. He is also a member of the church and worked for NASA for decades. Meteoroids drawn to earth because of our gravitational pull would strike the earth at 25,000 miles per hour. Large meteorites are rare but even their dust would be deadly - a particle of a meteorite the size of three kernels of rice, traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, possess the energy of a 165-grain bullet fired from a 30-06! But we don't have to worry about it because God created a shield in our atmosphere that pulverizes the dust so that is not deadly.

An estimated 10,000 tons of dust settles on the earth every day, from meteoroids that get pulverized. Incidentally, that is evidence that our earth is relatively young - the crust of the earth is not thick enough to have had that much dust settle on the earth over billions of years’ time!

The topic of a young earth is a subject for a different time…

ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE BIBLE:
Let’s conclude with one more broad area of discussion - archaeology. You would expect that since the Bible is a book of history, that all of those events and peoples and nations which it records would be accurate.

There were a series of articles in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review in 2014 and 2017 that points out that at least 70 people appear in the Bible who are found in extra-biblical sources, including John the baptizer and Jesus Himself.

Again, in contrast with other religions, only Christianity and Judaism are grounded in real history. Much of Buddhism and Hinduism have histories that are shrouded in controversy, an inability to separate fact from fiction and myth. Even Islam’s holy book, the Qu’ran is not a book of history. It gives us very little information about Muhammad. Only the Bible, the book of the Jews and of Christians presents its religions grounded in historical events which are verifiable outside of the Bible.

If I were to go into a lot of detail here, it would bore most of you to tears. I’ll just mention a few of those individuals: Shishak, king of Egypt, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, Tiberias Caesar, Mesha, king of Moab, Gedaliah, son of Pashhur and Jucal son of Shelemiah, Gallio from the days of the apostle Paul.

CONCLUSION:
Each one of these points could be a sermon in and of itself. But I remind you of our basic point:

If the Bible has characteristics that show that it cannot be a mere human book, then the Bible is the production of a divine mind.
The Bible does have characteristics that show that it cannot be a mere human book.
Therefore, the Bible is the production of a divine mind.

We have given 7 points to establish our minor premise - the Bible has characteristics that show - when they are taken all together - that it cannot be a mere human book. No human book could be so comprehensive and yet so accurate on all that it teaches.

Take home message: Why should we regulate our behavior based on a 2,000 year old book? Because it contains the mind of God in the words of man, to lead us to Christ - through His gospel.

Start an evangelism conversation: “What do you think would probably surprise most people about you? Why?”

Much of this material is summarized from the book The Utterances of God published by the Warren Christian Apologetics Center.