The Book you think you know
In this episode, I'm starting a series on the Bible; what it actually is, what it's for, what it isn't for, and why getting this wrong has consequences we often don't notice until we're already deep in them. If you've been walking with God for a while and haven't thought carefully about the book your faith is built on, this one's for you.
OK, so I need to tell you a story picture this third year
university, it's Valentine season.
So the vibe, everything, it's a bit different.
You probably get it. And so someone in my department
has a brilliant idea gift exchange, picking in from your
ballot, get a gift for that person.
You will know who is getting a gift for you.
You won't know what they're going to get for you, but you're
going to come on that day, on the day of the gift exchange
expectants. So the whole element of mystery
and surprise is what I like. I love the idea.
So I was down for it. Now here's the thing.
I'm so far away, so I know that I don't want to get a gift that
I will not end up using or I wouldn't like.
So I said it out loud that day, clearly, clearly for anyone to
hear. If you pick my name, I'm very,
very open to having a conversation about what it is
that I want. Like you picked my name, you're
giving me a gift, or you could ask somebody to ask me if you
want to keep the mystery however you want to do it.
I don't mind. I'll tell you exactly what it
is. I want no stress.
And then it happened. Someone came to ask me after
days, different days, when we meet at the department, guys,
just just saying, you know, reminding you.
Anyway, I was needed. Finally someone understood the
assignments, so I told them this is what I want.
Nothing extravagant, I just want a pack of joy fries from a
Pascal. There's a particular cafeteria I
wanted it from on campus, and I wanted a very cold bottle of
saucer to go with it. Saucer is in this drink that was
raining. Then preferably I wanted the
cranberry flavour, but I wasn't picky.
Anyone was fine. My whole idea was that I can
leave like on the day of the gift exchange, it's in the
evening that we meet as a department.
So I can leave the meeting, I can leave that day and I can
just go straight to my room, straight to my hostel instead of
having to battle long lines and having to greet different people
while I'm hungry. So what's the perfect plan that
etched out to my head and this person looks at me and says and
I goes no, why would I give you food?
I should get you something you can use.
Hello. Something I can.
Who told you I cannot use food to satisfy my hunger anyway?
She didn't agree. I don't know what exactly she
told the person who was to give to me, but the day of the
exchange came and I received a journal.
A journal which would have been lovely, except that I did not
journal. I was not someone who wrote or
did much of that. I tried to be optimistic.
I genuinely try to, I even try to use because while I don't
journal, I have sermon notes. I tried to use the journal as my
sermon notes, but it wasn't very comfortable.
Like the way out, the journal was structured and everything.
So eventually it just sat there accumulating just.
And then I say I was sad, not just because I didn't get what I
wanted, but because I had spoken.
It was a different thing. If you had no idea at all and
nobody asked me and you decided to go off of what you thought, I
think it would not have been as disheartening.
Maybe that's maybe that's too deep a word, but I probably
would not have felt somehow about it.
But because I had communicated, I had given someone the exact
information they needed and they set it aside in favor of what
they thought was better. And for the person I was
gifting, I went to find a person who I knew was friends with her.
I asked him, oh, what do you think this person would like?
She apparently she journals, right?
So I got a very nice journal parent.
She also likes planting chips. I got her the particular brand
of planting chips that her friend said she likes, you know,
put in a nice gift bag. But it got to my turn and it was
a different case. So her intentions were pure, no
doubt. Like I have no doubt about that.
But then pure intentions do not automatically produce the right
results. Now, I'm not telling you all of
this, so maybe I want to rant or to drag anybody.
It was a long time ago. We've all moved on, but I'm
saying this because it's a perfect picture of something
that breaks God's heart. You can be passionate, you can
be heartfelt, you can be fervent.
You can genuinely be well meaning.
You can pour your whole heart into something for God and be
completely convinced that you're pleasing because you're putting
your whole heart into it. It's like you're doing this from
the right motive, you know, with everything within you.
And so you're so convinced that, yeah, you're pleasing God.
Or you could still be getting it wrong because you're relying on
your own knowledge as opposed to his knowledge, right?
Or maybe you're not even relying on your on your own knowledge,
you're relying on the wrong knowledge of Him.
Hebrews 11 tells us that it is impossible to please God without
faith. And in Romans 10 you see that
faith comes by hearing. That's hearing the word of God,
which means that the knowledge we have of God determines
whether what it is that we are doing with our passion and with
our fervency actually pleases Him.
Like someone John 19 says, I delight in your command because
I love them. First John 2 talks about how if
we claim to know God. I think what I I think first
John 2. I also think John 1415 talk
about like, if we claim to know God, I would not keep his
commandments were liars. Like if you love me, you keep my
commandments. And so a sign of false faith, I
dare say, is a disregard for God's Word.
And when I say his word, I don't just mean his voice.
I don't just mean the prophetic. I don't just mean the
convictions or the inner workings of the Spirit of God
within you. I also mean his written word.
If anything, I most assuredly mean his written word.
And that brings me to what I want to talk about today.
Hi, welcome or welcome back to the rated podcast, right?
And here we talk about the faith in a way that's clear and that
hopefully leaves you loving God and in all of him more than you
can. So this is part of a series that
I'm going to do in the Bible, and I think it's quite
necessary. I didn't plan to have this
series. I didn't plan to talk about this
like I, I literally decided to change it to D, right?
Because some things that have been on my mind and before you
maybe maybe think you already know what it is I'm going to say
or maybe just click off and everything.
I want to implore you to stay with me because I think a lot of
us, myself included at some point have been holding this
book or have had access to this book without fully knowing what
it is that we are holding. Alright, so let's dive into it.
First of what is the Bible? I'm not asking for the textbook
answer. I want you to actually think
about it, OK? You know, what if somebody asks
me what is the Bible? What would I see?
What would you see? I, I, I want you to know that
the Bible is first and foremost the written word of God.
Like it's literally God's word written down.
Second Timothy 3, verse 6 tells us that all Scripture is God
breathed, right? So it's inspired by the breath
of God, by God. Every word originated from God
himself. And it's necessary that you know
and remember this, this God's Word communicated through human
writers who were moved or carried along by the Holy
Spirit. I think Second, Peter says that
these men did not speak of their own accord, did not speak of
their own will. It might have seemed like that
at the time to them, but really the way writing or speaking as
moved by God's Spirit. So it means that the Bible is
not a human document that contains divine ideas.
It is a divine document, First off, that came through human
hands. Like sometimes you have to
remember the Bible is divine. It's also historical and we will
look at that next week. But the Bible is divine.
It's divine because not because it has divine ideas.
It's divine because the source is divine.
The source is God himself. But beyond what it is, I also
want to talk about what it is for and what it is not for.
Sometimes if you want to know what The thing is, might want to
know what it is not. I hope we get the logic.
But anyway, the purpose of the Bible ships how we approach it,
and so we need to know what it is for.
And so the primary purpose of the Bible is to reveal God's
words. I can't remember the particular
verse now, but talks about the scriptures make us wise on to
salvation. Salvation is God's story of
pursuit for us. It's not a history textbook.
While it's contains history, it's not something that we go
to. Maybe we want to get motivated,
like maybe a collection of motivational speeches.
No, it's not even a manner for successful living.
While the Bible might speak to all of those things, that is not
what it is primarily for. It's primary purpose is to show
us who God is, what He has done, what He requires, and how we can
be in the right relationship with Him.
The entire narrative of Scripture from Genesis to
Revelation is ultimately the story of God pursuing humanity.
It's a story of redemption. And you want to do well to
remember that. So now that we've talked about
what the Bible is, let's also know what it is not because I
think a lot of misuse of the Bible of Scripture generally
starts from not knowing what it's for, right?
So it's like, OK, we come to the Bible with an agenda, something
we want to see, something we want to get from it, and then we
find a way to make it seem like the Bible is saying that.
And that's very, very dangerous. Like it's so dangerous.
It's so, so dangerous. So the Bible is not a fortune
cookie. It's not a lottery machine.
You don't come and just open a random page and then maybe you
need a word for the day. And then you just build a major
life decision on the verse you just pulled out of context.
Like you just opened your Bible and you saw the first verse and
you decided, OK, because it's remotely relates to what it is
that you were thinking about. That's the word for the day.
No, the Bible read in pieces outside of context.
It becomes a very different book from what it actually is
supposed to be. The Bible is also not a tool for
manipulation, right? Many times we see people use the
Bible over time. I didn't want to I'm I'm still
going to talk about this more, but people who have been so we
can have used the Bible out of context to control people, to
silence questions, to justify things that God never intended.
I'm definitely sure that all of them will get what is coming
their way. But anyway, this happens when
the Bible is in the hands of someone who has not handled it
honestly, who has not handled it with the respect they also
handle it with the Bible is also not a book of magical words.
It's not something that you know, you just go, oh, I want to
claim something, you know, claim it, name it, you receive it.
And so you just use particular verses in the Bible to get the
things that you want or to sort of sponsor the lost of your
flesh or maybe of your eyes, maybe pride of life, I don't
know. The Word of God is powerful,
yes, deeply, genuinely powerful, but it's power is in its truth,
not in being recited to get what it is that you want or to get
particularly material things. And most importantly, the Bible
is not something you come to confirm what you already
believe. You come to it to be corrected,
to be instructed in righteousness for a proof, for
correction. That's what Second Timothy 3,
verse 16 tells us. So you come for correction, you
come for reproof, you come to get doctrine right, which means
that sometimes it will tell you things that you don't want to
hear, or things that you don't particularly like, or things
that you're not particularly in agreement with.
And because it's the Word of God, you must treat it as such,
and you must honor it and must be in submission to it.
Which brings me to a very, very foundational truth about the
Bible. The Bible is inerrance, which
simply means that in its original writings, the Bible is
without error. It does not contradict itself.
It does not mislead. It does not lie.
Now, I know it sounds like such a big claim, like, oh, how,
Nathan, how are you so sure? You know, especially in the
world where people are constantly pointing out
contradictional supposed contradictions about the Bible.
And I'm going to address it more in the next episode of now I'll
just talk about why it matters. You see, if the Bible contains
errors, then we have a problem, because someone can decide or
can choose which parts are true, or can try to choose anyway
which parts are true and which parts are not true.
And when the human being becomes the decider of which verse of
Scripture is reliable, you replace God's authority with
human opinion. It has to be God's Word and
God's Word alone. That way you can stand and you
can bank on it, right? Psalm 12 or 6 says the words of
the Lord are like silver refined in a furnace, purified 7 times.
Provides 30. Verse 5 talks about how every
word of God is flawless. Not most words, not the
important parts, every word. That is the God we serve, One
who does not speak in half truths.
So if the Bible is the word of God, and if it is without error,
then it follows that it must be the final authority on which we
rely on for every matter. Not tradition, not culture, not
what your pastor says, not what your denomination says, not what
do you feel is right in the means, not even your personal
experience. Experience is powerful.
There are things you might have explained.
There are things I've experienced.
You know that sometimes I find difficult to articulate.
I believe God meets us in our experiences.
But your experience will never be the standard.
My experience will never be the standard.
The Word of God will be because experiences can be misread,
emotions can be misled, feelings can be deceitful, But the Word
of God stands forever. Your experience must be
interpreted through the lens of Scripture, not the other way
around. You want to start making the
Bible to fit your experience? You're entering dangerous waters
and it's why we can see that the Bible is sufficient and supreme.
It's because the Bible tells us that it contains everything that
we need pertaining to a life of godliness.
Everything that you need for life and for godliness, the
Bible provides it. And then it stands above every
other voice, every authority, every other claim to truth.
So I want to bring this all back to where I first started from.
The consequences of a wrong relationship with the Bible are
in no way small. I don't know how to emphasize
this. I think some of the people who
have left the faith today live because they had the wrong
relationship with the Bible. Someone maybe told them
something that was wrong about about the Bible.
Or maybe someone who themselves had the wrong relationship with
the Bible tried to teach them about the Christian faith and so
they hear some things that when I explain the proper context,
maybe verses were misinterpreted and then they just felt like
this whole Christianity thing is a scam.
Christianity needs truths. When practice properly is not a
scam, right? But when misinterpreted it can
lead to false conversions. It can also lead to people live
in the faith. So the consequences of a wrong
relationship with Bible are not small.
When people don't know what the Bible is, they are the mercy of
whoever is telling them what it says.
So when people don't believe in its inherency, they pick and
choose and in the end up with a watered down version of
Christianity that is shipped by their preference.
When people do not hold onto the final authority of God, they
follow personalities, they follow emotions, they follow
movements, they follow men of God and they can feel very LED,
very in tune with God, but they actually are not.
And that's the thing about wrong knowledge.
It doesn't always feel wrong. It can feel passionate.
It can feel spiritual. Sometimes it can feel like
conviction, fire in your bones. But if it is not rooted in the
truth of God's Word, if it's contradicts what God's Word,
when rightly interpreted, has said, it's not leading you where
you think it's leading you. Remember the journal.
Pure intention is genuine care, but a complete disregard for the
information that I gave and as a result, something I could not
use. So God has not left us without
information, He has given us His Word, He has spoken, and our
job, our responsibility as believers is to know it, trust
it, and let it need. So the Bible is not as a book
you keep on your shelf, it is the written word of God, breed
by Him, carried through human writers you know, through
history, given to us as the primary by which we know Him and
are shaped by Him. Its purpose is to reveal God,
not to confirm your preferences and should not be used for
something was not designed for. It's definitely without error.
It's final authority. And I know that sounds crazy how
you should show that it's final authority.
How can you even trust the Bible?
I implore you to stick around for the next episode.
I'm going to address all of that.
So yeah, in the meantime, picked up and read it a bit.
And that's it for today's episode.
Thank you so much for being here for this one.
And it's a bit different from what you might have seen
recently, but I believe that this series is definitely
something that you need. You might even know these
things. Then it means that you need to
share it with other people as well, right?
It's so, so important. I'm so sure of that.
So if it helps you, please share this with someone, right?
Especially someone who maybe has been with God for a while but
maybe has not thought deeply about these things or maybe has
even had some of these questions.
Sometimes the people who have been in church the longest might
be the ones who need this conversation the most.
Leave everything if you haven't and follow right so you don't
miss Part 2 and maybe three. I'm not sure yet, but until next
time, stay with it. Bye.
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