I Believe According to the Scriptures: The Authority of Holy Scripture - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

In this episode of Faith Comes By Hearing, Rev. Dr. Cary Larson explores Holy Scripture's divine inspiration, inerrancy, and supreme authority, centered fully on Christ Jesus, which encourages us to feast on Scripture as the perfect nourishment for the soul and the sure foundation for faith and life.

Information about The American Association of Lutheran Churches (TAALC) can be found at www.taalc.org

Transcript

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In the cascading layers of noise in our ever-changing world, discovering a space for reflection and inspiration is increasingly rare. Welcome then to Faith Comes by Hearing, a unique podcast series that cuts through the clamor, carrying the timeless messages of the gospel into our lives with renewed relevance. Join Dr. Carrie Larson, the presiding pastor of the American Association of Lutheran Churches, as he ventures into the challenges of everyday life and the deep need to hear the truth that we are saved by grace, through faith, through Christ Jesus alone. Each episode is an invitation not just to listen, but to truly hear and embrace the good news of Christ Jesus for you and for all.

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Scientists have discovered that milk is the perfect food containing all that we need to build up and maintain our bodies and to strengthen our bodies to be resistant against disease and germs. What milk is to the body, God's word is to the human soul. It is perfect food. But like milk, people do not consume enough of it. They either believe they have outgrown the need of it or prefer some other form of nutrition. As confessional Lutherans, we hold the Holy Bible, the Holy Scripture in the highest regard. In fact, in our confession of faith, a statement of what we believe and will not compromise, you will read this. We accept without exception all the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as a whole, and in all their parts, as the divinely inspired, revealed, and inerrant Word of God, and submits to this as the only infallible authority in all matters of faith and life. That is quite a mouthful. And it is charged with words that have particular meaning. Some of these words need to be reclaimed as they have been hijacked to mean something else in this world today. I think it is important to dwell on these words, which speaks to us with such authority that comforts us with words of encouragement and promise, and yet corrects us when we are in error. We read in the second pastoral letter of Paul's to Timothy: all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Satan and the world would have us believe that the holy scriptures are nothing but a collection of ancient moral stories, mythology, warm and fuzzy thoughts, and a collection of historical, inaccurate folklore, all written down with the bias pens of old men, all having little relevancy to our life. Even those who would openly confess they are Christian place this Bible as merely one authority to be weighted out with others. Thus the evil one comes and snatch away what should be planted in the believer's heart, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew concerning the seed of God's word. God has given us his holy word in which he has revealed to us all that we need to know to have a blessed life now and also in the world to come. But we must resist the temptation to reduce the Bible into God's little instruction book, as that would reduce the scripture to just rules, the law, and push aside the greatest part of Scripture, namely the life-saving gospel, which it is God's power unto salvation through Jesus Christ. The Holy Scripture sanctifies the heart, it guides our feet, and it opens for us the gates of everlasting life. We speak of it as the divine-inspired word of God, because this book was written by holy men as they were moved to write by the Holy Spirit. God made use of human minds and guided those hands to keep them free from error and to compel them to record his message, his good news for all people. These holy men retained their individuality and personality, and yet they recorded God's word as the Holy Spirit moved them. 2 Peter 1.21 indicates that holy men of God were carried along by the Holy Spirit, writing down the very words and thoughts God wanted them to record, even as our Lord Jesus Christ became man, but without sin. So we believe God has used sinful men to communicate his word and kept such communication free from error. So divinely inspired means literally God breathed. There is but one God-breathed book, and that is the Bible. Our confidence that the very breath of God is in the scriptures is when we notice the perfect unity of one book of the Bible with others. As you well know, the Bible is a collection of 66 individual books with about 40 different authors. These books were written down in a period of over 1,600 years, 1500 BC to 100 AD, and yet there is absolute agreement in doctrine and complete harmony in all its content. When we call Holy Scripture inerrant, which is a relatively modern word, we mean to express the utter reliability and truthfulness of Scripture and of all its assertions. Critics of this position of Holy Scripture say, nowhere is it recorded that the Bible is inerrant, but the conviction it expresses when we confess that we believe the Bible is inerrant is as old as Scripture itself. The Scriptures teach and assume everywhere their utter truthfulness, and so do our Lutheran confessions, which are true because are a faithful exposition of God's Word? You will not find one thing in the Lutheran confessions contrary to what is revealed in the Bible. If the Holy Scriptures are in fact what it claims to be, the actual Word of God, does that word, God's word, err, deceive, trick, lie, make mistakes, lead us to erroneous thoughts about what God has done? How you answer any one of these questions sets the course on how you understand the Christian faith. Remember, the only one recorded in Scripture asking, did God really say, was Satan, as he convinced our first parents to distrust God Almighty and his authority. Now, some will say that the Bible is indeed God breathed, and yet they will ask, who is smart enough to interpret it? Who is to say who has the final word on what to believe? Who is to be the final authority? So by default, the assumption goes we each interpret scripture in one way or another, and who is to say who is right or who is wrong? Have you seen those NASCAR-related bumper stickers? You may see the number of the favorite driver. I've also seen one sticker that said, I'm not tailgating, I'm drafting. Another one that caught my attention. I'm not speeding, I'm qualifying. Clearly, the bumper sticker was intended for humor, but imagine this excuse offered to the highway patrol who pulled you over for driving above the posted speed limit. Whose interpretation of the speed limit would have authority? We would be left in quite a fix if it were not for Jesus Himself. Over and over again, he interpreted Scripture with Scripture. The light of one part of Scripture shines on the other. When we interpret Scripture with Scripture, allowing the clearer passage to interpret those that are not so clear, we see one verse in harmony with another, and there really are no contradictions that the critics say. Sometimes for reasons that God knows, we are left to dwell in mystery. Sometimes I wish God would have been clear about things for my simple mind, or because I think I want to know something. One such concern is when we are raised from the dead, what will our resurrected bodies look like? Using the principle of Scripture as the interpreter, we know our resurrected bodies will be a sinless body. 1 Corinthians 15 49, a mortal body transformed to a body of immortality. 1 Corinthians 15 42 to 44, and a body like Christ's, Philippians 3.20 to 21. But what will it look like? Will I look old or in the way I looked in my thirties? I can't say because the scriptures do not tell us. This is mystery not to be subjected to our speculation or reason. We dwell in God's revelation through his holy word and not through our human and limited speculation. If we place our speculation or reason as equal authority with the scriptures, then everything is uncertain. The ultimate consequence of this is that there is no promise of eternal life, let alone the assurance that Christ Jesus really died for our sins. The authority of Scripture really boils down to this as recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Word Jesus. The word of God is really about Jesus. From Genesis to Revelation, it is all about Jesus. He says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. And to those who seek to kill him in the Gospel of John, he says, You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness to me. The Word of God has authority because it is Jesus, the Christ at the center. The tomb is empty. Christ Jesus lives. A living Christ means a living book. The one who is the same yesterday, today, and well into the future is Jesus. A dependable Christ means a dependable book. Jesus says, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word shall not pass away. An eternal Christ means an eternal book. An eternal, changeless Christ means an eternal, changeless book. For me, it comes to this if this book is nothing more than a collection of ancient moral stories, mythology, and warm and fuzzy thoughts, all left for our own interpretations, where am I to go? If I can't trust parts of this book, how can I trust in the things that really matter, like the source of my salvation, the source of your salvation? Can we truly believe that Jesus died for our sins? That we are preserved from the righteous wrath of God, and that the promise of eternal life is ours through the love of the God because of Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection? Yes. Yes, we can. Not by our speculation, but because God speaks to us through his word. Jesus loves me this, I know we were taught in Sunday school because the Bible tells me so.