Is church membership taught in Scripture? In our study of the New Testament the Lord reveals His purpose in belonging to a local church. Membership matters.
(Isaiah 34:16) The Bible is the very Word of God. It is God’s special revelation of Himself! The more we seek God in the Scriptures the more we come to know Him personally. (0974250325) —-more—-
What is the Bible?
What is the Bible? Where did it come from? How can we be sure that it is accurate? Can it be trusted? And we’re gonna deal with some of those questions over the next few episodes, and
The Bible’s Divine Foundation
I’m very excited about this final section in our study on what the Bible says because we’ve come to know what the Bible says about the word of God, literally what the Bible says about itself. Now, there are lots of external evidences that the Bible is the word of God. We’re gonna talk about some of those, but internally, just read the Bible and the power of scripture will bring great conviction and assurance to your heart that indeed this is God’s divine revelation. That it is the perfect revelation of our great God.
I’m excited about this section, and I’ve saved it last, not because it’s the least, but because, in fact, it lays a foundation for everything that we believe. All of the great truths we’ve been talking about for the last several weeks are built on the foundation of the word of God. If you don’t have an authority to draw from, then it’s just my opinion and your opinion.
And this lays a foundation for any other question that might come up. Certainly, this study has not been exhaustive on even the subjects we’ve discussed, and then there are so many questions that arise in the world we live in today. Where do you find the answers? We believe that the Bible is the very word of the living God and that you can trust the word of God because you can trust the God of the word.
Where Did the Word “Bible” Come From?
Now the term Bible is an interesting term. Where does it come from? It actually comes from a word that means role or book. Now book. We understand role is a reference to the way an ancient civilization that they would write. I remember many years ago being in Cairo, Egypt, and they gave us a demonstration of how they created papyrus paper.
These roles that would oftentimes become scrolls. They took reeds that grew along the Nile River and they would cut them into strips, lay them line up upon line at right angles, and then beat them and press them and polish them. And after they have dried and strengthened and bound together, it created a wonderful paper that could be written on.
I remember bringing a sample of that back with me. It was just an idea about what an ancient civilization was done. We take so much for granted in our modern era with all the technology we have to convey writing, I. But in the early days, it was a very expensive and laborious process. Much work went into both writing it and then preserving it.
The word Bible literally means a role or a book. It is a library of 66 books that all come together to be divine In fact, this is revelation. It’s referred to throughout the word of God as scripture or the word of God. The Bible says in Isaiah 34:16, “16 Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read:”
That’s powerful, isn’t it? This book that we’re studying, this book we’re talking about is not just any book. This is not man’s book. This is literally the book of the Lord. And did you notice that he gave two action verbs? Two things we should do. He says, first, seek and then read. There is here a process.
That’s what reading is, but there’s also heart in it. That’s what seeking is. This is more than just something to read like you’d skim the headlines of the newspaper. No, my friend. This is something to read on a heart level. It’s something to read with a great passion to know the God of the Bible.
The Bible as God’s Revelation
The Bible is the finished revelation of God. It is the place where God reveals his person, his work, and his will. For mankind, it is God’s record of who he is. And he said to man, write it down. Now, the first mention of such writing is all the way back atf the Old Testament. In fact, in Exodus 24:4, the Bible says, ” 4 And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,” We believe that though men were used as instruments of writing the scriptures. That all scripture is given by inspiration of God. That means it has a divine source. It may come to us through many tributaries. It may come through many human penman, but it has one source, and that is, it comes from God.
Peter wrote and said that Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, literally as they were born along by the Holy Ghost. In other words, this is a spiritual book because this is a book the Holy Spirit wrote. It is the foundation for everything that we believe. And now I wanna talk to you for just a moment today about the most basic truth about the word of God.
And it is this the Bible is God’s revelation of himself. The God of the Bible is a God who wants to be known. Is there mystery related to our God? Certainly because there are things we can’t fully understand. Comprehend, fathom, we’re finite beings. He’s an infinite God. And yet how loving and wonderful to know that the God who created the world wanted man to know him. He wanted us to be brought into the knowledge of Him.
General and Special Revelation
He began by giving us what we might call general revelation. That’s the revelation that everybody on Earth has. It just reveals there is a God. For example, Psalm 19, “1The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” What does that mean? It means that even the creation. Cries out. There is a God, the sun, the moon, the stars, the birds that fly through the air all are a testament to the fact that there is an all powerful, all wise, all good God that ma not only made the world, but sustains the world.
So the creation testifies. Romans chapter one, alludes to this same principle. As a matter of fact, the Bible says in Romans 1:18, “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;” In other words, they’ve been given some truth, but they’ve not responded the right way to it.
He goes on to say in verse 19, “19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
In other words, God’s made it so that all men have some light, and if they follow the light they have, God will give them more light. So many people reject the light that they’ve been given. As a matter of fact, Romans chapter one says, A great number of these people begin worshiping and serving the creature instead of the creator.
They stop shy of the actual source, which is God himself. So there’s general revelation that begins with creation. It also includes man’s conscience. Every man has a conscience built into him. The very next chapter in Romans, Romans chapter two, verse 15, says, “15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)”
So God gives us creation and conscience to reveal the reality of God. But he goes beyond that in scripture and the word of God. He not only gives general revelation, he gives what we might call special revelation because in scripture we have not only the reality of God. We have the message of redemption from God.
Only through the word of God can we come to know how we can have a personal relationship with the creator God of the universe. We’re born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abid it forever. General Revelation prepares man for special revelation, but the special revelation of scripture is necessary for any man to have a personal relationship with the creator God. And this revelation, of course, is given in the Bible.
Read Your Bible
I wanna encourage you today to spend some time just reading your Bible. Seek ye in the book of the Lord and read. Spend some time today reading the Word of God and say to the God of the word, Lord, I want to know you better, because the Bible is the foundation of our faith.
Repeating what other people have said about the Bible is not enough. We must know the biblical reason behind what we believe.
Outro and Resources
We hope you will visit us at etj.bible to access our Library of Bible teaching resources, including book-by-book studies of scripture. You’ll also find studies to watch, listen to, or read. We are so grateful for those who pray for us, who share the biblical content and for those who invest to help us advance this ministry worldwide. Again, thank you for listening, and we hope you’ll join us next time on Enjoying the Journey.
