um supposed to start at seven but this was the first week so i thought i'd cut you some slack each week just feel free to come on in if you want some goodies grab a plate you don't have to sit the table and eat them you can eat at the table or you can just bring them over here and help yourself on a chair or whatever this is a lunch dinner fellowship hall so this room is made for eating you should also everybody should have a handout if you do not have a handout can you raise your hand it's got uh the title the fundamentals of the faith the bible david have we started yet oh we have oh okay yeah go ahead and cut it for a second these are just preliminaries and you got your hand so the way we're going to proceed is you got a hand out there if you look at that hand out there this is the material i'm going to cover i'm going to walk through this on some of my main points i put up the bible verse for you to consolidate and make our time uh just better used so we're not flipping through the bible too much we will flip through the bible some of it will be interactive i might call on somebody to ask a question or just ask a question who raises their hand and then we'll call on you if you have a question as i'm going through just write it down reserve that for the time at the end those last 10 minutes the q a uh if you have a pen or whatever you want to follow along we got a few blanks to fill in not many if you look at the handout there are 19 points that i want to make so i do want to cover all those that is a that's a hefty undertaking for me to conceivably cover 19 main points in 59 minutes or less personally i don't think i can pull it off but we'll have to be disciplined but i do want it to be interactive i have a goal one of my main goals for this class for the next many weeks and specifically for each night is that you walk away that you having learned one just very new thing about what the topic at hand so if we're talking about the bible i'd be thankful excited if you walked away tonight with a new truth about the bible that you had never thought about before never heard before never heard it from a different the perspective i'm giving and it's beneficial to you so that would be cool and beneficial so that's one of my goals i don't know what your goals are so we'll monitor that as we go with that let me go ahead and open us in a word of prayer father we thank you for this evening and the privilege it is to study your word together we do thank you for your word that is written down and now for us is scripture it's your thoughts and with the holy spirit we are allowed as your children to understand it we need your help from the holy spirit to be our teacher help us understand it and then help us apply it faithfully all this for your glory we commit this class to you in christ's name amen so lesson number one like i said i'm calling this class christian theology and lesson number one is the title there the fundamentals of the faith the bible so all the titles will say the fundamentals of the faith and then whatever the title is so maybe next week we're covering the nature of god or the trinity so but tonight the bible that's uh just logical to start there with the bible or with scripture in a study on christian theology over the next several weeks the bible scripture and the title there the fundamentals of the faith that phrase itself can evoke a debate among christians and even bible teachers because what's fundamental what are the priorities of the christian faith which ones should we study and which ones should we not study which ones are most important which ones are lesser important are there more important doctrines in christianity and lesser important doctrines some would say yes i have a hard time saying yes but there are many prominent theologians and bible teachers that say yeah as a matter of fact there's did you know there's three categories of theology when you study topics in the bible three three tiers there's priority ones doctrines and then there's doctrines that are of lesser importance for example uh two well-known evangelical respected theologians bible teachers for the last several decades hold that view they teach it frequently and they'll say there are three categories there's a hierarchy of the importance of bible doctrines three there's three categories category number one which is all important it's the priority it matters most and it should matter for everybody that's the doctrine of salvation and all things related to salvation that'd be one example then there's a second category of doctrines that aren't quite as important as the doctrine of salvation they might say baptism or the ordinances baptism that's not as important as salvation so we can have a little wiggle room a little debate room and we don't necessarily have to agree on the ordinance of baptism as christians because baptism is not as important as salvation then there's a third cat did you know there was a third category uh the tertiary category on the paradigm or the hierarchy of and this is lesser important doctrine it's less important than salvation and it's even less important than baptism one of their examples is creation did you know that the doctrine of creation is not as important as baptism and the doctrine of creation is not as important as salvation therefore as a result as christians we shouldn't debate about the doctrine of creation and it probably shouldn't even be on your list of the fundamentals because the doctrine of creation isn't fundamental it's tertiary it's a third level doctrine so i've heard a couple of them one of them has this in their systematic theology and then another one says this routinely in his teaching and i just shake my head saying absolutely not and give me why are you saying that what's your source of authority when did jesus ever say anything like that one of the the apostles ever say anything like that where does the bible say that so just so you know my approach is going to be maybe a theme verse would be second timothy 3 16 that all scripture is inspired by god all scripture is breathed out by god and profitable second timothy 3 16. so that will be one of my theme verses that all of scripture is equally important genesis chapter 1 is just as important as john chapter 3. matthew 28 is just as important as john chapter 3 or romans chapter 4 or romans chapter 10. so i'm not going to make any kind of false distinctions about which doctrines are important and which ones aren't but we are going to start off with the bible the doctrine of the bible because it's just logical that's where you start that's the starting point it's going to be the foundation and the basis of all of our other doctrines so i don't know what you think about the bible but this is what i propose is true about the bible the following 20 points wait did i say 20 i thought i said 19. no there's 20 because one fell off of the page so at the end when we get to 19 and i'm about to close up and i didn't get to number 20 you have to wave your hand and remind me wait what about number 20. so you might want to write number 20 on there right now so i don't forget here we go fundamentals of the faith we are talking about the teaching of the bible have your bible handy because we will look at a couple verses as we go uh point number one just again i'm just assuming nothing we're starting from scratch in terms of the study and so that's why point number one is the study of the doctrine of the bible is called bibliology and that's just a compound word ology you know the a lot of the words with theology on it comes from lagos which is a greek word and logos means anybody word or what else the study of good so um biology logos the study of life anthropology the study of anthropods i mean man humanity bibliography the study of books and in particular the study of the bible so that's what we're embarking on we're going to attempt to make 20 main points about the doctrine of the bible bibliology in less than 50 minutes now bibliology is the overarching umbrella term bibliology so if you went to a seminary working on a master's degree of divinity they called that's the standard program you would have to take bibliology actually you'd probably have to take a bunch of classes under the umbrella of bibliology and it's it's quite an undertaking because just i'm going to run you don't have to write these down but listen to this these are specialized classes or areas of study under the umbrella of bibliology that you have to be aware of or rely on somebody to know somebody that knows these things when you're delving into bibliology of the study of the bible you have to do textual criticism that means knowing how to deal with all those ancient manuscripts be able to read them sort them figure them out because your new american standard is based on those ancient manuscripts it's a science it's very technical it's complicated it's hard i am not an expert and i'm dependent upon others for that so but textual criticism is under the study of the bible bibliology there's translation that's a whole other field of dealing with the bible somebody translated your bible whether it's in spanish chinese english some specialist hopefully did that for you there's um the languages hebrew greek aramaic and we rely on specialists for that that's under the doctrine of bibliology there's the doctrine of exegesis that's how to interpret all this stuff that's a science that's difficult that's technical it's like being a surgeon you got to go to all these years of school to be a brain surgeon same thing with proper exegesis you got to know what you're doing um archaeology plays into this into bibliology biblical introduction that's important about history got to know about history the culture that helps us what was moses like the culture that which he lived what year what date um hermeneutics that's the science of interpretation and that's also very technical and complicated and you got to know how to you have to have a proper view of interpreting the bible otherwise you're going to end up in left field so that's very technical and then there's biblical theology knowing what each book of the bible says from genesis to revelation in all of its context so this is very complicated very difficult and those all contribute under the umbrella of bibliology and at a seminary you have a professor who's like a specialist in every one of these areas and sometimes they don't even talk to each other the old testament scholar guy that's his area of specialty and if you have a new testament question you don't ask the old testament guy he'll send you to the new testament guy what's this greek word mean in uh romans and the old testament guy says hey this is old testament class go ask that guy you're distracting me but anyway so that's a mouthful but that's bibliology the study of the bible so we're talking this is very complex uh number two as we study the bible is composed of how many different books total 66. so a lot of times the critics will critique christianity in the bible and say oh the bible's full of contradictions and it contradicts itself but they have a wrong premise it's not one book technically it's 66 different books so we have to keep that in mind as well there are 39 in the english old testament and how many in the new testament 27 27 in your english new testament so now then i put in parentheses there in the hebrew old testament there are 39 books in the old testament 27 in the new but in your hebrew bible there are 24 books so there was the hebrew bible before there was an english bible there was a hebrew bible before there was a new testament and how did the jews probably jesus what did his bible look like well it didn't look like this it's probably a bunch of scrolls that were rolled up kept away he didn't have the new testament and there were not 39 books in his old testament there were probably 24. for example why were there 24 well because first and second samuel were considered one book first and second chronicles one book em i esther one book first and second chronicles one book first and second kings one book and the i think the 12 major prophets minus the 12 minor prophets one book then that whittles it down to 24. um number three the breakdown of the old testament books in the english bible um historically this is how we understand you have the law which was the first five books of the old testament written by moses good that'll be genesis exodus leviticus numbers in deuteronomy right so the first five books of the bible written by moses genesis to deuteronomy also called so the first five books of the old testament are also called what the law what else the pentateuch have you ever heard that pente five uh and then another one the torah torah hebrew for law so those are synonyms for the or sometimes jesus would just say moses have you not read moses john chapter five if you read moses you would believe me what was he referring to he was talking about the first five books of the old testament so that's the breakdown so first is the first five books of the old testament written by moses called the law then we would say there's the next 12 books are history beginning with joshua judges next 12 the historical books and then after the historical books we have the books of poetry or wisdom and there's five of those j what are they starting with what job then what good song you guys are good job psalms proverbs ecclesiastes song of solomon how did i remember that because i went to seminary and i had to memorize that otherwise i would fail the class that's how i remembered it how else why else did i remember because i taught awana for years at a at a church ministry and you have to memorize that minutia is it spiritual to memorize that absolutely not but it's helpful and one of the easy ways for me to remember the five wisdom books in order is by the length of the title of the book job only has three letters it goes first what's next psalms psalms next shortest then what proverbs then what ecclesiastes then what song of solomon hey that works is that how the people that put it in the bible thought of it no that's how i thought of it after it was done but it's just a helpful mnemonic to so there's five of those so there's a little pattern here you got first the five books of the law 12 historical books the five wisdom books five twelve five you're gonna see a pattern that might be helpful for you then after that you've got the major prophets there are five of those what are they isaiah jeremiah lamentations ezekiel daniel why are they called major prophets because there's major prophets five major prophets and then there's 12 minor prophets anybody know why they're called major prophets because they are majorly long that's the real reason they're not more important than the minor prophets isaiah 66 chapters in your english bible jeremiah 52 chapters in your english bible 52 chapters in jeremiah but jeremiah is the longest book in the bible even though it has 52 chapters has more words so they're long books that's why they're called major that's an english thing in our english bible the he the jews they didn't think that way but that's what we do we just call them the major prophets but it goes and then you look at lamentations it's just a few chapters well that's not long well lamentations basically is a part of jeremiah because it's the same author they go together same time period so that's why lamentations is with jeremiah so you've got five books of law 12 books of history 12 wiz five wisdom books five ma major prophets and then the old testament concludes with the minor 12 minor prophets and they're called minor because why they're shorter and the first minor prophet book is is hosea joel amos obadiah jonah micah nahim and then so on and so forth and you just do the best you can to memorize those and if not you have your cell phone which is very convenient so it goes 5 12 5 5 and 12. so that's just a breakdown of the old testament number oh and then i put um i put a couple of portions of what jesus said jesus would refer to the old testament different ways of time sometimes he just called it the moses like matthew 5. have you not read moses that's his general category for probably the first five books or sometimes paul would say the law have you not read the law what's he talking about the first five books of the old testament so they referred to these breakdowns in different ways jesus referred to the entire old testament matthew 5 17 with the phrase the law and the prophets do not believe do not think that i came to abolish the law and the prophets i didn't come to overturn the entire old testament and undo it as a matter of fact i came to do the opposite to fulfill every part of it he affirmed every part of the old testament he never contradicted the old testament ever so i did not come to abolish it i came to fulfill it the law and the prophet so when he says the law of the prophets he's referring to the entire old testament but on another occasion after he rose from the dead in luke 24 44 he refers to the old testament as the law the prophets and the psalms and sometimes he says the law and the writings so they just had different categories or different ways to for shorthand refer to the entire old testament jesus said i did not come to abolish the old testament but rather to fulfill it i never i didn't come to contradict the old testament do you remember in matthew on the sermon on the mount where he said you have heard that it was and then he says but i say to you you have heard that it was then he goes an eye for an eye but i say to you don't even hate anybody several times you have heard that it was doesn't that sound like jesus is contradicting the old testament because the phrase an eye for an eye that is actually out of the old testament that was the law of retaliation under the mosaic law so some people say yeah see jesus contradicted the old testament jesus thought the old testament was inferior and there's the proof and he's rising he's taking us to a higher level a higher law which is not true because jesus doesn't say you have heard that it was written he doesn't say it was written he says you have heard that it was said you have heard that the ancients have said who are the ancients he's talking about the rabbis he's talking about like the pharisees and the sadducees who took the word of god and twisted it and distorted it and gave it a wrong meaning that's what he's saying so he's not contradicting the old testament he's saying he is contradicting how the pharisees and the sadducees and the rabbis taught the old testament they distorted it so that's what so be very careful uh when you hear jesus say that it's not you have it was written you've heard that it was written no it was you have heard that it said you have heard that the ancients said they're twisting the scripture here's what the old testament really means including the mosaic law god doesn't change his theology doesn't change truth remains the same doctrine doesn't uh change but he did come to fulfill it okay let's go on now to number four the first book in your bible by way of date that was written was probably anybody somebody said job any other options okay so the first book written in the bible is probably job or genesis around 1400 bc anybody know who wrote job go ahead take a guess we don't know what the book doesn't say it doesn't say job wrote this job probably lived about 2000 bc yet i'm saying that job was probably written around 1400 bc jewish tradition says that moses wrote joke and there are things in the book the 42 chapters of job that coincide with a culture that's very similar to the days of the patriarchs and when abraham lived and abraham lived about 2000 bc so it seems like oh job lived about the same time and probably overlapped with abraham so so joe probably lived about 2000 bc yet it doesn't say that job wrote it he is a candidate but probably not and jewish history for centuries has said that moses probably wrote job and there's a lot of good reasons for that i'm not going to be dogmatic about it but one of them is is that for 40 years moses lived in the land of midian so you've got the sinai peninsula you've got mount sinai and then on the other side of the part of the you've got the dead sea and then there's a right-hand body of water and you cross over that and it's the land of midian moses lived there for 40 years and that's where job was from the land in that land the land of us not the land of oz the land of us that's in midian so it's very possible that moses knew about these things uh but we don't know for sure uh moses wrote genesis through deuteronomy uh the last book of the old testament was nehemiah or malachi some people pronounce malachi's malachi and say he's the only italian prophet i've heard somebody say that before uh and then nehemiah written about 400 bc so nehemiah malachi is pretty close their ministries overlapped so those are probably the last two books now some people say that nehemiah was probably the shortest guy in the bible you've heard that one before right because knee high maya it's about what about yay hi that's knee-high and other people i have a good friend she said no zacchaeus was because he was a wee little man a wee little man was he climbed up in a sycamore tree the lord he wanted to see that's true so zeke zacchaeus was a short guy but nehemiah i mean he was knee-high then somebody came along said no in the book of job it's bill dad the shoe height that guy was this tall shoe height anyway but those are the end of my uh no and then this other person said no jesus had he loved short people more than tall people so be encouraged he said lo i am with you always those were his last words in matthew 28 but he i don't know this is all confusing to me let's get back to the topic at hand here instead of these cornball bible jokes number five the first new testament book written was you said this is highly debated matthew's a good option somebody said matthew it's up there some say galatians i'm going to say james the book of james james was written by who james good james was the not james the apostle it was james the half brother of jesus so mary was a virgin when she gave birth to jesus the first son then after that she came together with joseph and they had a normal marriage and then they had several children together two of their sons after jesus was james who wrote the book of james and jude who wrote the book of jude so james and jude were written by the half brothers of jesus they all shared the same mother mary james and jude their father was joseph jesus didn't have a human father god was his father and jesus was the oldest of the siblings they had at least two two brothers jesus did two younger brothers and two or more sisters we know that from the gospels so jesus had siblings they were not cousins they were siblings so mary was not a perpetual virgin as the catholic church would say mary had a normal relationship with joseph and then went through the normal process of pregnancy gave birth these kids and then those all the younger kids were sinful normal children jesus was perfect he never sinned he was the perfect older brother how infuriating would that be he never sinned you could never blame it on jesus so the first new testament book i'm going to say was james in round ad44 last book of the new testament or bible actually was written was revelation in 80 95 during the reign of domitian the emperor a few people minority opinion says that no revelation was written in about 60 63 a.d that's absolutely impossible that would be during the reign of nero and there's a lot of reasons that couldn't possibly be church tradition clearly says it's the last book in the bible 95 a.d when john was in patmos john and others hadn't even been up there in that area in asia minor in 63-ish so it's 95 it's the last book in the bible paul wrote the apostle paul wrote how many letters do you think take a guess somebody said it 13 13. that does not include hebrews did paul write hebrews i don't know i don't know why i should say i don't know who wrote hebrews because number one it's anonymous it doesn't say um it mentions some names in there and so it's not the guys that their names were mentioned uh it's an either an apostle or an associate of an apostle it doesn't say paul i'm pretty sure it wasn't paul but we don't know who wrote hebrews but a lot of i think in your king james bible it says the hebrews an epistle of paul or something like that and there are actually people who believe that but i think the majority opinion is nobody knows who wrote hebrews other than the fact that the holy spirit inspired somebody to write it and it was an associate of an apostle for sure so paul wrote 13 epistles and then matthew wrote the first gospel this is highly debated as well in the evangelical academic scholarly world the dominant opinion today probably in your typical american bible college or american seminary is that mark wrote the first gospel that's the typical opinion and then they'll say matthew wrote much later and their evidence and this is a very recent opinion all throughout church history all the church fathers and all throughout church history the opinion was matthew wrote first matthew was an apostle was mark an apostle no matthew was one of the twelve apostles john was one of the twelve apostles mark was not one of the twelve apostles mark was a kind of a peripheral associate of the twelve apostles he was a young guy but he's not he was an apostle and tradition says that matthew wrote first probably as early as the forties which would be seven to ten years after jesus died and ascended into heaven about ten years later matthew probably penned uh the first gospel maybe even the first book of the new testament along with galatians and james but matthew wrote the first gospel and the reason that these other scholars say no mark wrote uh first speak and then they say that because mark's shorter it's only what 16 chapters in matthew's 28 chapters and they say a lot of the same stuff and it's obvious that matthew copied from mark that's their argument matthew copied from now mark was not one of the 12 apostles matthew was matthew was there all the time first hand witness and they argue that matthew had to copy from mark to remember what went on including his own conversion matthew's conversion he copied from mark of how he got saved that's one of the i'm not kidding that's what they say so there's a recent opinion they're dogmatic about it that's kind of a litmus test to find out where this scholar is coming from is he a liberal scholar not liberal or liberal politically but liberal in terms of his religious education at some prestigious school or is he a conservative holding to what church tradition has taught almost unanimously for 1800 years so that's why i put in there because i think it's important matthew wrote the first gospel who so if matthew wrote the first gospel who do you think wrote the second one take a guess mark so tradition says matthew wrote the first one mark wrote second guess who wrote third luke you're on a roll matthew mark luke then take you guys who wrote the last gospel john there is a reason that those four books are in that order in your bible because that's what church tradition believed matthew mark luke john that is the order uh number six each new testament book was canon now canon canonized canon that's a big word canonized means to formally adopt into a cadre or catalog of books as an accepted authority that is the standard for that category of literature that's what a canon is you can have a a canon the western canon of literature for the last two to three hundred years there's a canon it's growing it's changing shakespeare is in that canon of scripture so literary scholars debate about who should be in the canon should mark twain be in the canon the western literary canon absolutely you got mark twain you got shakespeare and then you got more recent authors uh should they be there should the harry potter lady be in there now she sold more books than everybody but should it be in there and so there's a big debate about that that's cheesy fiction it's not it'll it will pass the test of time shakespeare anyway so they're they talk about this canon this standard this group that's considered authoritative in terms of literature well that's what so canon means standard or read or standard of measurement and so when we talk about the canon for scripture it's what books belong in the bible which which books belong in there in the canon they meet the standard they are of god they're inspired they should be there so there's a big debate about that especially between the protestants and the catholic the catholics say we should have those 66 books in there in addition to other books called the apocrypha like uh first maccabees second maccabees which is you know historical it's not inspired not necessarily completely reliable but they put that in there so they say that belongs they can the mormon church says different things belong in their religious canon the mormon church has a canon of authoritative literature which would include the bible no the king james bible not your new american standard bible your esv the king james bible and the book of mormon and the doctrines and covenants and the pearl of great price so there's your four authorized canonized books for the mormon church and then islam they have their own canon and that would be the quran the authorized quran not in english not a translation it has to be in arabic so that's what we mean by canon uh and then so critics of christianity will typically say ah your bible is unreliable we don't even know what books belong in there and some of the early church fathers they rejected uh hebrews they rejected revelation uh they questioned the book of esther because they didn't have her name in there i mean god's name in there and so you christians can't even agree what is belonging in the bible and what the canon is and then there's other books that should be in there like the gospel of judas and the gospel of thomas and others that should be in there and so they criticize us saying you can't trust your bible because and by the way didn't you know that it wasn't until the fourth century where the church finally figured it out anyway so it took 400 years for the church to agree upon what actually belonged in the bible so that's one of their main arguments against christianity and the reliability of the bible and they say that so the bible the books in the bible were not canonized until the fourth century a.d there's your proof and i so that's why i'm putting this point here of when canonization of the books of the new testament happen number six each new testament book was canonized was considered authoritative and accepted on the same part as old testament scripture not in the 4th century a.d 400 years later but two words upon reception each new testament book was canonized or accepted as authoritative upon reception what i mean by that the apostle paul goes into corinth it's like a pagan city like san francisco he evangelizes people gets saved he starts a church he builds a church he pastors this church in corinth for 18 months a year and a half then he leaves to go plant more churches a couple years ago by he hears that his church didn't love so much in corinth they're having problems they're fighting they're being immoral they're compromising they're confused so paul originally has to write them a letter so he writes first corinthians to solve all their problems he sends it with the courier it takes months to get it all the way from where he's at whether he's in rome or wherever he's writing it from all the way to corinth and then the corinthian church gets this letter and he starts out by saying to the church in corinth from the apostle paul apostle by jesus christ to the saints in corinth grace and peace to you now when the corinthians see that and hear that when do they accept this letter from paul as authoritative as apostolic the moment they received it it was carried by messengers that were reliable friends of the church of corinth associates of the apostle paul as soon as they heard it they knew this is paul this is the word of god this is authoritative it belongs with scripture so that's when each individual book was canonized the moment it was received by that local church so this idea of critics in the bible saying that ah the new testament the bible wasn't canonized till 480 that's not true it's actually a lie that's very misleading paul's 13 epistles were canonized the moment his intended audience received it he wrote a letter to first timothy as soon as first timothy got that in his hands this is from the apostle paul as a matter of fact every one of paul's letters that's how it starts to whoever paul an apostle of jesus christ he's establishing his credentials this is the authoritative word of god that's a big and very important point number seven the old testament was written in hebrew and new testament sorry number seven the old testament was written in hebrew and the new testament was written in greek greek but a different a specific kind of greek i'm going to spell it because it's you may not be familiar with it k koi koine greek koine greek coin a means common common greek so that's the new testament greek this is different than classical greek or there was high-end greek cultured greek there are different kinds of greek languages for example when i was a teacher down in southern california i was a seventh grade english teacher for a while and i had a seventh grader named dimitri and he was sitting in the front row new student he was greek his parents were born in greece he had a greek last name it was really long i forgot how to pronounce it but he knew modern greek he'd been to greece he could speak greek so i started talking to him in new testament greek coin angry he didn't know what i'm talking about carrice cayerino adolphos mu dimitri he's like what and then i realized and then we talked about it that modern day greek had virtually little to do with the greek of the new testament 2000 years ago but that's typical with languages because if you were if you were to sit down and read jeffrey chaucer from the 1400s or whatever canterbury tales you wouldn't know what it's talking about you would have to learn that kind of english language even though you know english so koine greek was common greek it was um they called the language of the people of the common man it's it's newspaper language it's easy to understand as opposed to classical greek that was reign supreme from the time of homer to plato which would be 800 bc to 400 bc and that was that high-end classical fancy schnancy kind of greek and then alexander the great came along and he studied under aristotle who was a student of plato and then alexander the great started learning greek really well and he thought it was really cool and he loved the greek culture and everything about it and so he decided you know what i think as a young man of 22 i'm gonna i'm gonna conquer the world i'm gonna take over and while i do i'm going to spread greek culture wherever he go that's exactly what he did he hellenized the world hellenization comes from the word greek and so he conquered the world and he took greek culture with him including the greek language that's about 300 bc so he learned classical greek but then as he took it to different lands all these other people they're speaking different languages but then he forced them no you must be speak greek and so they forced it upon the people so people had to learn they knew their native language then they had to adopt to the language of the land which was greek and then it got morphed and changed and watered down and diluted and it wasn't classical greek anymore so that by the time we get to the new testament we have a well-known common man's greek that pretty much everybody knows around the world and it's called koine greek and it's a very simple greek it's beautiful it was perfect for jesus christ to come into the world and to spread his gospel message to the whole world in one language that everybody knew and could understand that's why the apostle paul who was a jew or his native language was probably hebrew or aramaic and but he was in a formally hellenized culture where everybody knew greek they knew this kind of greek and so when paul went to be a minister and an apostle to the gentiles from town to town where they spoke all kinds of different languages he didn't have to learn the language of that people he could speak in greek and he had the old testament already translated into greek called the septuagint that was translated from hebrew into greek 250 bc so that's why paul's favorite old testament that he quoted from in his epistles because he's the apostle of the gentiles was the septuagint and not the hebrew masoretic text it was the greek version and so just god in his providence worked this all out creating this language that was accessible to all strata of people the political leaders the rulers the kings the poets and the common man and the post the postman everybody and that's the new testament language so which kind of affirms what god is trying to do he wants us to understand his word he doesn't want it complicated he doesn't want to be esoteric you don't have to have a secret key to understand his word it's in pretty simple language so that also very important point number eight the bible was written over by over 40 human authors they were mostly jewish were there none are there non-jewish authors of the bible that you know of luke probably some argue he is was hebrew but i think he was not luke there's one but most of them are jewish authors of all kinds of different occupations one guy was a shepherd there was a cup bearer there was a shepherd there was a king they just so that ran the gamut in terms of their profession and as a result the common denominator was they were all moved by the spirit of god so they are writing the word of god the very word of god through the spirit of god but they have their personality intact their style their education level so you've got this beautiful literary diversity all throughout the bible from genesis to revelation which by the way is a distinctive because if you read the quran there is zero literary diversity when you read it i've read it i've taught on it it's very boring there's zero literary diversity you read the bible it just stands out the depth you've got poetry you've got narrative you've got epistles you've got law you've got just so many different kinds of genre and literary devices and versions that are that constitute our scripture there's it just it's unparalleled in terms of literature in the world and history so we've got these 40 different human authors living in different times most of them not even communicating with each other and when you compare it all together and take all 66 books it's a perfect harmony which is a testimony of the fact that god wrote this book through the spirit of god it's one message we're going to talk about what that main one message is it's constant consistent from beginning to end yet that realistic diversity um so they were led by the spirit of god the new testament the qualifications of being a new testament author where you either had to be an apostle or an associate of an apostle and look at second peter 1 20. i just want to read this ii peter 1 20 21 peter is talking about old testament scripture but he's also i think referring to new testament scripture because he wrote scripture jesus said to the apostles you're going to write scripture for me and they believed it was equal with old testament scripture and peter said this in second peter chapter 1 verse 20 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 or carried along by the holy spirit spoke from god peter is describing how scripture was written down what was the process well it wasn't done independently by any human being they didn't do it of their own volition or their own will that it wasn't their opinion paul didn't insist paul didn't just sit down and write oh here's what i want to say i don't care if peter disagrees or it's inconsistent with what's come before that isn't how it worked that's what peter's saying ultimately was the spirit of god carried along moved along like the wind carries a sail of a boat in certain directions that's the same word here the spirit of god is directing he's not bypassing the human agent but he is definitely directing and superintending the human agent and god is guaranteeing that what he once said will be the final byproduct on that paper when it's finally pinned so and notice what he calls scripture he says no prophecy of scripture he says that twice what's the genre of scripture it's prophecy there's prophecy proper and then there's a subcategory of bro there's futuristic prophecy but there's everything else scripture is prophecy all of it it's not all about the future but it's prophetic it's prophecy from god it came from god that's what that means it's of a divine nature so all of scripture technically is prophecy and then ii timothy 3 16 i quoted this earlier paul says all scripture and paul knew he was writing scripture so he includes himself in this peter the apostle knew that paul was writing scripture and he mentioned it in second peter chapter three and paul was a a a rabbi he was a hebrew old testament scholar and he believed the entire old testament was breathed out by god all scripture is inspired by god that old king james word for inspired it means breathed out by god breathed out his thoughts and had the apostles or prophets write it down so what we read in scripture these are god thought god's thoughts so all scripture every book from first john to obadiah to genesis to revelation to hebrews to leviticus it is all breathed out by god so it has an equal nature to it from god himself so no one book is more important in the bible than the other all scriptures god breathe are inspired by god and pro and it's all profitable it's all useful it's all helpful if you want to grow in your faith you need to take in the whole bible that's what this verse is saying all scripture the whole bible and there's a lot of it is inspired by god breathed out by him and profitable or helpful for teaching for reproof for correction and for training in right those four things so that the man or the woman of god so that the christian in order that the christian may be adequate maybe sufficient in their life equipped for every good work do you want to be adequate do you want to be completely matured in the faith do you want to have sufficiency in this life from god's point of view there's only one way to do it and that's through the scripture so this is a lifelong pursuit a lifelong pursuit that's what we need to have a hunger and desire for truth thirsting for righteousness well here it is do you thirst for the word of god uh number nine we have over 5800 greek manuscripts today of portions of the new testament 5800 greek manuscripts the earliest new testament greek manuscript is dated around some would say um well here it is i got an example of it it's called p 52 p stands for papyrus a papyrus is a kind of a plant that grew in egypt still does so this is this is papyrus right here and this is p52 this is actually the exact this is an exact replica this is the size of it it's a portion it's a piece of imagine a page about uh eight and a half by 11. this is p-52 p-52 is john 8 john 18. uh i think we're 31 all the way up to 37. and it actually uh came like this it's got writing on one side and then you flip the page and there's writing on the other side and there's john 18 here and john 18 here and it's a portion of it it's called p52 and you can actually see the greek writing on it so you you can actually go to i think this is in the uk today in the museum and it's just like this and it's in a little glass thing right there and you go in the museum you can actually look at it what's amazing is that in 18 44 well here's three dates 1844 1920 and then 1934. well this papyrus fragment this was discovered in a a a trash heap in egypt in 1920. they didn't even know what it was i said oh this looks important interesting then it got into the hands of somebody who knew manuscripts or whatever they didn't know what it was they just thought oh this looks important then it ended up then the museum in uh the uk and england ended up buying this and it was stored away for about 10 years nobody looked at it and then some papyrus scholar in 1934 he was rummaging through the thousands and thousands of papyrus scraps most of which are worthless in 1934 and he came across this thing and he whoa wait whoa wait a minute that looks like john 18 because he was an expert examine it lo and behold it was it was a portion of john 18. he gave it to three of the world-renowned papyrologists of his day and independently they they gave back they came back and gave him a date and they said we believe this is no later than 150 a.d and as early as 100 a.d then there was a fourth one that looked at and said i disagree with all of them this was probably written in the 90s which is amazing because it's of the gospel of john the gospel of john was written in 90 a.d so what is this this is the oldest new testament manuscript that we have and i'm going to go with about between 100 and 125 a.d john's gospel was written in about 90 a.d 10 to 20 years from the original it's amazing that's just one example we have many more but this would be the oldest p52 and so but we have over 5800 greek manuscripts the average length i think of these each manuscript is about 400 pages it's just mind-boggling that's the greek manuscripts that doesn't count the thousands of latin manuscripts from the second century or the manuscripts of the bible from syriac and coptic and all these other languages if you total all those that were all 500 a.d and less or older than that then we're coming close to 20 to 25 000 manuscripts of the new testament and then when you compare them all together that's a lot of manuscripts and then you try to get the best rendition in your english bible if you look at those 20 000 manuscripts or however many there are of the gospel of john chapter 1 verse 1 never do you have a discrepancy of what it says it always says in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god there are spelling variants and other kinds of things in word order and goofy mistakes that a scribe made but no major doctrine is ever distorted so that's pretty amazing uh number 10 we have thousands of old testament manuscripts same thing in 1945 the oldest manuscript we had of isaiah was about 900 a.d now isaiah wrote in about 700 bc and the oldest manuscript we had of isaiah at the time was 900 a.d so it's more than a thousand years removed from the original that's a big gap then in 1947 over by the dead sea where i've been went to the qumran community there where they did that archaeological excavation that's still going on today in 1947 a bedouin that lived there this shepherd boy chasing his goat up a hill and then he saw a cave and he threw a rock in the cave and heard a smash and it was pottery in there and so he climbed up in there and he found all these pots and all these clay pots gazillions of them this is a miniature clay pot and inside there's the isaiah scroll oops so him and he went and got his buddy they went and they started collecting all this stuff and it was very smelly it was a bunch of old animal skin and there was stuff written on it and i thought oh we could cash this in for to the cobbler and he can make leather shoes so they did the market and the leather shoe guy he was smart he said whoa wait a minute that looks pretty important and then he sold it and then it ended up with the specialist and they realized this is these are fragments of scripture among other things so they went in there these archaeologists and bible scholars and they found all kinds of manuscripts in there one thing they found was that it's called the scroll of isaiah 24 feet long it is the entire book of isaiah i have seen it i was invited to go to actually see a display of the dead sea scrolls it was traveling around the world by the host brigham young university and i was invited because i lived in utah and the chairman of the bible department invited me so i got to see the the dead sea scroll exhibit and i stood right there over the 24 foot school of isaiah the great isaiah scroll 24 feet long made of lambskin and the date on that is one to two hundred b c keep in mind before that was discovered the oldest manuscript of isaiah was probably 900 a.d the isaiah scroll all scholars agree secular religious probably 200 bc and the whole thing is there intact absolutely incredible and comparing the isaiah scroll 200 bc with the 900 a.d isaiah scroll guess how many discrepancies there were virtually none in terms of doctrine almost identical that's how diligent the jews were in copying scripture so that's very encouraging now do i need to have manuscripts in order to believe the bible and prove the bible to be true no is it really cool yeah is it edifying yeah is it encouraging yes could it discredit the bible if they found something otherwise yeah that hasn't happened yet so the bible just keeps proving itself 5 800 greek manuscripts of the new testament that was written 2000 years ago the new testament take any other ancient literature and they don't have you know one of the big criticisms of christianity i know if you've heard this from criticism well you can't trust the bible you don't even have the original manuscripts now do we have the original manuscripts of the bible no do we have the original manuscripts of the new testament no zero nada well does that worry you a little bit how could we have the original manuscripts of the whole bible when god gave moses two tablets he went down and smashed them and yet jesus believed in the ten commandments so jesus didn't even have the original manuscripts but we don't have the origin so that's a legitimate argument you don't even have the original manuscripts well that's true we don't you know what i would say to that guy or critic i'd say do you believe shakespeare was a real guy that's yeah do you believe shakespeare wrote 39 shakespearean plays oh yeah do we have the original manuscripts of shakespeare's plays uh we've got to go no we don't we have do you know we have zero manuscripts of anything that shakespeare wrote no sonnets no poems no love letters no plays zippo nada but who questions the veracity of shakespeare no one or that same critic you can ask him uh so do you believe george washington was a real person well of course how do you prove that he can't there's no way to prove that um so you got to turn that argument back on them but there's plenty of so they can't argue about the manuscript evidence and and by the way for ancient writings like homer or jose oh here's i'll give an example josephus who wrote in the late uh first century jewish author coat had allegiance to the romans turned on his own people and supposedly wrote these very important historical books about the jews and the jewish wars and everybody considers joseph as a real guy and reliable and true history and helpful even mentions jesus and john the baptist a couple of times do we do we have the original manuscripts of josephus no now he wrote in the first century 60 a.d and you know the oldest manuscript we have of josephus is about 800 a.d and the the number of manuscripts is minimal a pittance as a matter of fact if you took all of the well-known ancient greco-roman writers including josephus and you stacked up all the historical manuscripts you have them it would be about four feet high then if you just took manuscripts of the new testament and stacked them up it would be over one mile high over one mile um you want to go on youtube and check out daniel also tell you more number 12. let's keep moving the scriptures were given progressively progressively meaning a little at a time a little at a time page you had a question did i skip one up number 11. the bible is special revelation the bible is special revelation from god special revelation as opposed to general revelation what is general revelation revelation is truths about god that are universal they are inherent in creation itself and also in the human being because every human being was made in the image of god they have a conscience they have the divine sense living within them they have the law written on their hearts every human being is inescapably moral because god made them that way every human being according to romans 1 is a theist if they say they're an atheist they are lying you look in the create god said look at the creation that testifies of me look at the sky that testifies of me that's general revelation generic universal binding unchaining unchanging truths about god that's undeniable to any human being regardless of your theist or an atheist general revelation there are seven passages in the bible that teach that general revelation is true you can't deny it so you can't call yourself an atheist general revelation but it's not specific it does it doesn't have the gospel when you go on a mountain you say oh this is there's testimony there's a creator that's true that's general but you don't know anything about him you don't know he's a trinity you don't know his name is jesus you don't know the gospel from looking at a mountain so general revelation cannot save you it can condemn you you're accountable to the creator that's general revelation then there's special revelation that's when god intervenes he comes down as an alien and he gives us information that we don't have by way of general revelation it's new information it's fresh it's from him it's personal it's called special revelation it's gospel truth it's the specifics of god special revelation also synonyms for special revelation divine revelation heavenly revelation supernatural revelation miraculous revelation alien revelation perfect revelation special revelation so a miracle when somebody did a miracle that was special revelation when somebody saw a vision that was special revelation when a prophet when a prophet spoke that special revelation when an apostle wrote something down that was special revelation came from god we can't we couldn't come up with it on our own the bible is special revelation came from god this is didn't come from ourselves no human being made this up god invaded our world and gave us this special revelation we cannot be the gospel is special revelation that's not human intuition it is not common sense it had to be god initiating it and invading our world and giving it to us and no one can be saved apart from special revelation the bible is special revelation in other words it's god's thoughts to us it's how he communicates truth to us that he wants us to know and because it's his special revelation it's authoritative it is binding it's from god it's the standard everybody's obligated to obey it everybody is held accountable for it when they hear it special revelation divine revelation when god speaks that special revelation he speaks in many different ways he speaks through visions dreams angels miracles scripture when god speaks that's called special revelation number 12 the scriptures were given progressively progressive revelation we call it in other words god didn't just tell us everything all at the same time he didn't give the whole bible to moses he only gave some stuff to moses and he gave some stuff to moses over the course of 80 years a little at a time it's called progressive revelation very important uh because and i put some verses down there for you let me give you some verses hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 and 2 says so in times past in the old testament god spoke in many different ways he spoke through angels he spoke through prophets he spoke through miracles he spoke through the writing of the scriptures but today he speaks through his son he speaks in a different way and he speaks with the fullness of revelation so there the author of hebrews saying god gives revelation and he gives it in different ways and he gives it in different times that's progressive revelation um ephesians chapter 3 verses 3 and through 9. progressive revelation the apostle paul says in ephesians 3 he says you know what ephesians i'm going to give you some new information what i'm about to tell you has never been shared before the old testament did not talk about this truth and paul called it a mystery and he says it literally it was hidden in times past but god in his grace has revealed it to me to give to you it was called the mystery of the church the mystery of the body of christ that jew and gentile would become one new man called the body of christ the idea of the body of christ is not taught in the old testament can't find it the church is not in the old testament you can't find it the mystery the new information isn't the gentiles could be saved that is in the old testament it's the body of christ jew and gentile is one new man and paul says very clearly in ephesians 3 this is new information and god gave it only to me which means jesus didn't talk to his 12 apostles about this the body of christ the way that paul gave all that detail and information peter never refers to the church in his epistles paul because god gave him that new information so paul had paul had these mysteries he had several of them the musterion the mystery so it's in first corinthians it's in timothy it's in ephesians it's in colossians all these mysteries that paul was given that none of the other apostles had so it was special information that's why some people were jealous of him who does he think he is those other apostles they got to spend three years with jesus paul never spent any time with jesus yet he's getting he said he's got this new information so people were jealous of him and he also paul wrote and said and taught things that was foreign to the 12 apostles so there were times where paul would say something they're like what wait what jesus never told us that in the three and a half years we were with him paul where'd you get that and then in galatians 2 he says from jesus thank you very much i didn't learn it from you guys and so paul said things that peter had no idea peter was confused that's why in second at the end of peter's life in second peter chapter three peter admits this and he fesses up he says okay guys you know that paul guy the johnny come lately apostle um he's okay he's a good guy he is from god and i know his epistles man that especially the romans one they are really confusing and those mysteries he keeps talking about that i never heard of those are hard to understand and the unstable and untaught distort those truths but you know what he speaks for god that's what peter said but my point is progressive revelation god didn't give all information to everybody at the same time so then peter and paul died in the 60s and 30 years later god gives way more information in the book of revelation 22 chapters of how the world is going to end and you know what peter and paul didn't have that information they didn't know the details of how the world was going to end they probably would have loved to paul talked about this man of lawlessness the antichrist in the 50s in first thessalon second thessalonians but he didn't know all the details that god would give john later in the 90s so that's progressive revelation 13 the bible is the final complete revelation of god today jude verse 3. jude verse 3. jude was written at the very end of the the probably in the 80s jude the half-brother of jesus one of the last books written in the bible so almost all scripture has been written and penned and god makes a declaration through jude this is it the final deposit of the faith after revelation no other information is coming and then revelation 22 the last chapter of the bible god is clear i am closing up prophecy this is the last book the last chapter do not take away from this book do not add to it because there's nothing to add because what does revelation talk about how the world ends and how eternity goes on forever there's nothing to add so don't and all these false religions come along and try to add oh we need more information we need the quran we need the book of mormon no we don't don't add to it number 14. jesus was a master of the old testament of scripture he had the same old testament that we do he quoted it times from the septuagint which we have and he said it was god's word true history authoritative and infallible so jesus had the highest view of old testament scripture john chapter 3 verse 2 this man jesus or this man nicodemus nicodemus by the way was the most prestigious scholar hebrew rabbi of his day nicodemus he was top dog he knew the old testament better than anybody and he came to jesus at night time because he was afraid that his friends would see him talking to jesus because they all hated jesus so he's kind of you know being a coward or he's afraid he comes to jesus at night and he schmoozes jesus he says rabbi teacher calls him teacher sign of respect oh that you have come from god that's kind of a lie we know that you have come from god as a teacher how does he know that well for no one can do these signs or miracles that you do unless god is with him now nicodemus probably believed that but most of the pharisees didn't they thought he did miracles through the power of satan so i'm going to give nicodemus the benefit of the doubt he recognized that jesus was a master of the old testament and it was undeniable that's my point in jesus view of scripture john 10 35 he said the scripture cannot be broken it is infallible it is without error it is absolutely binding you must submit to it jesus favorite expressions when he's teaching he said it is written it is written it is written it stands written this is the authority of scripture have you not read have you not read have you not read if you listen to moses you would believe in me he's always that's his standard of authority is scripture there is no higher authority it's god himself so we need to have jesus view of scripture uh 15 jesus told his apostles that they would write his words down and that he would guide them in the process okay guys i'm about to leave jesus didn't write a thing but he told his apostles when i leave i'm sending the comfort of the holy spirit and he will guide you into all the truth he told that to his apostles and that meant that the apostles would write down everything god wanted us to know in the new testament all the truth so we have all the truth the spirit will lead you into all truth that's what it that meant it's not a promise to every individual christian i'm going to lead you into all truth no it's to the apostles we will he will lead you apostles into all the truth for the church which is your new testament uh john 16 13. but when he jesus is about to die he's going to leave he's going to send the spirit of truth the holy spirit but when he the spirit of truth comes after i die after i rise again and ascend into heaven he the spirit of god will guide you the apostles into all truth for he the spirit will not speak on his own initiative but whatever he hears from the father he will speak and he the holy spirit will disclose to you what is to come that's the highest view of inspiration of scripture anywhere number 16 jesus said he was the fulfillment of the old testament i already quoted that verse i did not come to abolish the old testament but to fulfill every detail and he did number 17 jesus said the old testament the new testament would remain for ever and ever and ever this is the permanence of scripture or the durability of scripture or the eternality of scripture or the immortality of the scripture it will never fail god's truth and scripture will go on forever and ever and ever and ever scripture will be in existence in the eternal state it's god's word it doesn't change and i gave you two verses there matthew 5 18. for truly i say to you until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke that's like the smallest letter in hebrew and then like a dot on an eye in hebrew shall pass or fall away from the law in the old testament until everything is accomplished and then he said about scripture in the new testament that would be written by the apostles heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away my words that the apostles will write down in the future we have in the new testament they will never pass away we haven't lost any of the new testament words of jesus they're not lost that was the promise of jesus number 18 the bible claims to be the only source of knowing god the bible claims to be the only source of knowing jesus and the bible claims to be the only source of knowing spiritual truth of the way to gain eternal life or salvation the bible is the only reliable source of knowing anything about god the bible is the only source of knowing anything about jesus i throw that statement out and occasionally i'll ask people give me an example because there are people who don't believe there are christians who take issue with that statement the bible is the only source of reliable information about jesus no it's not and i say yes it is and they say no it's not and i say yes it is they'll say okay then give me an example of a reliable source of truth about jesus that is not in the bible and then they'll say uh i can't think of one or they'll actually come up with some well josephus there you go didn't josephus refer to jesus well theoretically i mean we don't have any original manuscripts of josephus but anyway we do know josephus was a traitor he was a liar he distorted the truth we know that for a fact based on history okay i'll give you the benefit of the doubt two times he makes reference to jesus in two little passages and whenever he wrote 70 a.d joseph you know where he got those he stole him from the new testament so josephus doesn't give any original information about jesus so that's just one example so i'm going to hold to my guns here try to think of an ancient source or any source that gives us truth or information about jesus that's not already in the bible now if you're a mormon you'll say oh well the book of mormon that has information about jesus that is not in the bible for example it says that after jesus died rose again whatever he then went over to the americas south and appeared to the people there and he raised up 12 apostles there so that's new information that's true that's true new information but it's wrong because jesus didn't do that how do you know because the bible says so so the bible claims to be the only source of knowing god jesus and eternal life how are you saved christian if you're a christian how are you saved anybody shout it out you're saved by grace good answer but there's other words you can use too you're saved by grace you're saved you're safe through faith jesus at times said that to sinners your faith has saved you he literally said that how are you saved i was saved by grace how are you saved i was saved by faith how are you saved i was saved by repentance how else were you saved by hearing the word of god you cannot be saved apart from the word of god you cannot be saved apart from divine revelation special revelation you cannot be saved apart from the gospel the good news right here listen to first peter chapter 1 verse 23 peter writing to christians of his day for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable that is through the living and abiding word of god james says the same thing in his epistle you are saved through scripture that's not just the new testament truth psalm 19 says the same thing you were saved through the scripture it restored your soul you were saved through special divine revelation you were saved through a word from god genesis chapter 15 verse 6 god talking to abraham abraham believed god he believed the word of god he believed special revelation god counted it to him as righteousness that is the day abraham got saved age 86 believing in the word of god you can't be saved apart from the word of god number 19. the grand theme of the bible here it is simply stated the perfect holy creator's plan to redeem his sinful creation and punish evil for his glory you can't have one without the other it's about his love and redemption and not just human soul he redeems human soul he's redeeming his creation too so he'll redeem sinners he'll redeem the creation but that's not the whole story he also is punishing he's punishing sinners he's punishing rebels and he will consign them to a conscious eternal hell forever well they will exist eternally forever and absorb his wrath forever which all of that gives him glory that is the theme of the bible number 20 scripture is we'll close with this auto what does auto mean yeah self self operating autopistic pistic comes from faith autopistic scripture is autopistic what does that mean scripture is self authenticating meaning it proves itself in other words somebody doesn't have to convince me with 32 reasons of why i should consider believing the bible that isn't how jesus offered jesus came and just declared the word of god as authoritative and you were you heard the word of god now you're responsible for obeying it otherwise the wrath of god abides on you that's it that was jesus approach and the prophets and paul and all the apostles so a verse for that you could put john 17 17 uh and many other verses that scripture is autop it is self-authenticating we don't need human arguments to prove that the bible is true so that unbelievers can accept it we don't need to go outside of the bible to try to prop up the bible it's true in and of itself because it is the very words of god and god doesn't meet he doesn't need human beings to have arguments to convince what he says is true god is the creator what he says is true as a matter of fact another verse you can write on there is romans 9 20 romans 9 20 where paul says who are you o man to question god the creator who do you think you are or you could write job 38 39 where god 86 times asked job a question who do you think you are where were you when i created the world god's word is autopistic so hopefully maybe you learned a new cool theological word today and you're walking away with that okay last couple minutes here for q and a i went a little long thanks for your attentiveness questions any questions on stuff we just talked about is it jason uh yeah you mentioned about the uh canonization of the books um upon reception uh i was wondering what about the books that uh like you made a specific example to like paul's letters and how upon reception to their uh you know the person that he's delivering it to but what about the letters that didn't make it into the canon what about letters that were written that did not make it into the canon of the bible for example maybe third corinthians we know that paul probably wrote four letters to the corinthians only two of them ended up in the new testament today if somebody happened to be digging out here in the courtyard and they found third corinthians by the apostle paul do you think we should add it to the bible after all it's from paul it really it's from paul an apostle paul to the corinthians third corinthians do we should we add it it's really from him and why are you saying no yeah i say no because scripture is already sufficient there's no more to be said so in third corinthians it's either going to be superfluous he already said this he's not adding anything or maybe it's uh of a different nature and it's a love letter to his girlfriend that turned him down that's why he was single and that has nothing to contribute to scripture but we believe the sufficiency of scripture and there's nothing that can be so god made sure that the first and the third epistle got in there and not the second and the fourth one and they became known as first and second corinthians or it was the first one didn't make it the second one the third didn't and then the fourth one anyway so it's god's word good question so i don't think we should be adding new stuff uh chi you said in matthew 5 that jesus was trying to clarify the rabbi's teaching in the old testament yes so what is it obvious what he was trying to clarify when he just quoted you know you shall not commit adultery right what was jesus trying to clarify in the sermon on the mount when he said you have heard that it was set and he's making a black and white contrast and it was the distorted teaching of the rabbis the ancients and the pharisees who had distorted scripture he says that in mark chapter seven same thing uh rebuking the pharisees you distort the word of god you quote you quote the word of god but you distort the word of god you put ambiguity around it you uh you make it legalistic matthew 23 and you primarily you misrepresent the original tent of the mosaic law it was not given to be saved god didn't give the mosaic law that anybody could be saved because you can't be saved from the law so that's the main thing he's attacking is the legalism of the pharisees and if you look at every single verse he is emphasizing the abiding spiritual and moral truth that moses was trying to communicate in his day that had been distorted by the pharisees as they turned it into a legalistic teaching primarily paige recently of how can someone be saved if they've never heard the bible and i've always referenced general revelation but you're talking how we can only be saved through scripture right how can you be saved without the bible how can you can a person be saved apart from special revelation the gospel of the bible and i would say no you cannot and that's as a matter of fact in romans chapter 10 paul says how can they be saved without a preacher they can't therefore how blessed are the feet of those who bring good news and then he says with the gospel is confess with your mouth jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead then you shall be saved general revelation will not suffice if general revelation did suffice and even one person could be saved from general revelation you don't need your bible well what about those people who've never heard well name one you know somebody that's a lame excuse that's a straw man it's theoretical it doesn't exist it's not real god's in charge he knows he knows who needs to hear and when they need to hear as a matter of fact that's acts chapter 17 that god has determined before the foundation of the world where every single soul should be born where and when they should be born for the purpose of they might seek god for he is not far from any one of us there are no excuses you cannot be saved apart from the gospel and that's complicated and there's a lot of questions but god is infinite he knows everything shall not god the judge of the earth do what is right said abraham in genesis 18 when he was fearful that righteous people would be slaughtered and sodom and gomorrah and in the end he trusted you know what god knows best he is the sovereign one i will rest in that that's comforting because we can do the same thing with that thank you very much for your good great questions and your participation let me close this in prayer before we part father we thank you for this fast and furious through incredibly important truths and i pray that again the holy spirit would help us remember these truths to retain these truths and even meditate on them going into the future it is so rich and so deep and as your children we thank you for feeding our soul through the word of god and we just commit all this to you in christ's name amen amen goodnight everybody you