God-Breathed

And as I was preparing this message, it occurred to me that this type of series is something that has probably been going on for the last 2000 years. Cos in each generation there are new issues that face the church.

When the New Testament was written there were issues of false doctrine facing the church, when Jesus taught he spoke out against abusers of the law, and there were beliefs and new-fangled ideas like Gnosticism that were threatening the church...

Fast forward 2000 years and not much has changed.

Even if you go back a few hundred years, there may have even been sermon series on how to deal with this new-fangled worship that the young ones are brining into the church using something called an organ.

And you, yourselves, are no doubt seeing news items or reading about events and technologies and theories that are challenging what it is to be a Christian - some of it even challenges what it is to be human. So how do we prepare ourselves for this?

Well, it’s why we’re spending the next few weeks looking at some of the issues that the church face or perhaps will face in time…And we’re going to see what the bible has to say about these things.

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And so, by way of introduction, this evening we’re going to look at the importance of the bible as THE go-to document that can help us deal with any new challenge to the church and our faith. Cos we need to know how to handle the bible before we can tackle the issues that are thrown our way.

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Now, you may say to yourself, ok, the bible can deal with some issues, but there are many things that face the church that the bible says nothing about. For example, scientific and technological advancement has meant that we can change gender, we can clone animals, we can have a relationship with a robot - and I’ve read the bible and I don’t recall the letter that Paul wrote about robotics.

So how can the bible help us here?

Well, first of all, we need to remember what the bible is. And our passage today helps us to understand that.

Paul is writing to Timothy - a young pastor, guiding him in his ministry - mentoring and discipling him.

Now, look at the first few verses read earlier...

2 Timothy 3:10–12 ESV

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

As a disciple of Paul, Timothy did what disciples did - he followed the example of his teacher in the way he conducted his life - his patience and love and also endurance from persecutions.

And Paul explicitly says...

2 Timothy 3:12 ESV

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

So walking in the way Christ walked - living a Christ-like life will result in persecution. And you can see this come to light in these areas of big issues. And of course, Ahsers Bakery is a prime example. As soon as the church takes a stand on issues such as same-sex marriage or something like that then the abuse comes thick and fast.

“You’re intolerant, you’re narrow minded, Jesus was all about love so why are you against two people loving each other.”

And the abuse comes. And not just from outside the church, you can also get a fair amount of persecution within the church - for to preach and teach a godly life means that we must be living one and we must also call out others who aren’t.

- and not just from outside the church, you can also get a fair amount of persecution within the church.

And in our churches today, where there are so many who come to church out of tradition and where there is little spirituality, then calling people out on their sin could result in persecution, abuse, complaints - because a Christ-like life is NOT what many church-goes want. Many of them just want to feel good about themselves by coming to church - they don’t want to DO any of this Jesus-stuff - they don’t want to fully enter into anything, and God forbid anyone challenges their behaviour.

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And of course, while the righteous are persecuted, evil people are getting worse and worse.

2 Timothy 3:13 ESV

while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

And so this is Paul’s encouragement to Timothy...

2 Timothy 3:14–15 ESV

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 Christ Jesus.

Stay strong in what you have been taught from your parents, from me your mentor. Remember the teaching that has been handed down to you from your Godly family members - a lesson, once again, to remember how important it is to teach sound doctrine to our children in the church.

But not just what has been taught - remember the sacred writings. Because you can forget things - but we have something written down that will make us wise unto salvation. We have the Bible, Paul says - and don’t forget it.

And Paul gives the reason why...

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Paul is talking about the Old Testament here and quite possibly the gospel accounts. Now, we have the whole bible, which has been preserved through time and is a closed book - both old and new testaments which are God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.

God-breathed - come from God himself. Inspired by God, as some translations put it.

See, these aren’t just any words written on paper by people who think it sounds good. These are words from God himself. There is no better document than that which comes from God himself. Forget Max Lucado. Forget Tim Keller. Forget John Piper - the WORD OF GOD is primary and it is the word of God that is useful against any big issues that come our way.

But we need to know how to read it, and people like Keller and Piper can help us in that.

And the teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness all help make us complete and equipped for ever good work - including making a biblical stand against the big issues that face the church.

The problem that has happened, is that in so many cases, the bible is taken as an out of date or secondary source against certain topics, and instead reason and logic and the powers of deduction have ended up trumping the bible.

We need to START with the bible and work from there. We need to take it in its context. We need to not fall into the trap of proof-texting, which is another way of saying that we have our argument FIRST and THEN we go looking to the bible to back it up with a text plucked out of its context.

But we need to give the bible it’s place if we’re to be true to the faith.

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So I want to encourage you all to read your bibles and remember its importance as a tool for instruction in your walk with Jesus. It’s the reason we come to church - to learn from the bible - to be taught, from God’s word on how we live and love like Jesus - on how we treat others, on how we can get to know God better, and so much more. But we come to be taught FROM THE BIBLE!

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So, what about those things about which the bible doesn’t speak? What do we do then?

My advice - you start with the bible…but you take the MESSAGE of the bible as your basis, which is why it’s never good to proof-text.

So, I thought of a few issues that face the church or might in the future of which the bible says nothing. For example...

Cloning

Transgenderism - sex changes

Relationships with robots

Social media

Science

Now, these are just a handful of issues, some more prevalent than others. I’m not sure that relationships with robots is a big deal within the church, but it might be in the future. What happens if someone wants to marry their robot.

In fact, I read an article last year about a woman in America who married a…wait for it… a warehouse (which was apparently a female building so it was also a gay wedding).

Now, that was a civil ceremony, I’m pretty sure - but what happens when things like THAT infiltrate the church?…and it’s started with same-sex marriage.

But the bible doesn’t mention about marrying a building. No it doesn’t - but it DOES give a template for marriage - and it’s part of the sweeping message of the bible, that marriage is one woman for one man for life.

And so while the bible may not mention some issues, we can learn from what the bible SAYS and apply it to our issues.

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Let’s take another example - what about social media. The bible says nothing about that - but it DOES tell us how to treat other people. There ARE many guidelines and commands in the bible of how to interact and treat others that transcend one-to-one interactions and can be applied to social media.

The point is that we’ve got to start with the bible cos it’s the foundation of our faith. Cos if we DON’T start with the bible then where do we start? From reason? From science?

OK, let’s take science...

Science is where most atheists start - cos science can remove God from any argument. Cos before the advancement of science and evolution in particular, then people couldn’t explain many things and so put them down to the work of the almighty.

So thunder was considered God’s anger and so on - and now we know there IS a scientific reason for these things and it’s not God shouting at us. But it went too far, cos with evolution it’s taken God out of creation and without a foundation of God creating and a belief in God then WHERE to people get their standards?

They get them from wherever they want. WE get our standards from the bible, which is why people persecute us and call us narrow-minded and intolerant. But it’s because we have a standard to follow, given to us in the bible, and we must follow it because it’s from God himself.

Atheists, who fall back on science, make up their standards and can change them at any time because they have no reference point…and so ANYTHING GOES.

Which means that when culture says that same-sex relationships is wrong, then

So science has a lot to answer for cos it has removed the ‘necessity’ of God for so many people - and we’ll look at that next week.

We haven’t nailed down the issues that we’re going to focus on, but being a scientist, having done a masters on how science and the bible interact - not that I remember any of it, I think it makes sense that we look at that next week…cos the issue of evolution and creation is still a big one and it’s still one that threatens to knock the foundation from under our feet.

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So I’m giving you a taster of what we’ll be looking at in the next few weeks, but to get back to the text, let’s remember that we have a document, given to us by God, who is its source, and that document is useful and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.

In other words, it’s useful for teaching about Jesus, convincing people of error, correcting false doctrines and thoughts, and training Christians on how to live and love as Jesus did, not forgetting that it is Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit that gives us the understanding of God’s word and his will.

So let’s take a step back and THANK GOD that he hasn’t left us on our own, floundering - he has given us everything we need and it’s in black and white for us to use to teach each other, to reprove, to correct and to train.

AND, just as amazingly, he’s given us himself - the Holy Spirit - to help us understand these things and put them in practice.

So let’s not fear when these big issues threaten us - let’s rejoice that we have all the weapons we need to fight them and to prepare our own people to defend themselves.

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One last thing though - the bible is useless to us if we don’t read it.

Let’s pray.

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