The Baptist Faith and Message- I. The Scriptures (Part 2)

Ib.“It [the Bible] reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”

Having a Bible that is without error and authoritative is good, but simply having such a book in existence isn’t enough. We need to know the purpose for which God gave us His inspired Word. The Bible doesn’t just give us spiritual information; it unveils a story from eternity past to eternity future, with Jesus Christ at the center. All of Scripture points to Jesus, whether in anticipation in the Old Testament, in fulfillment at His coming for our salvation, or in further anticipation of His return. He makes that point on the road to Emmaus when He teaches His two followers about Himself from the Jewish Scriptures (Luke 24:44-46). God gave us an inerrant an authoritative word so we could know the truth about Christ.

The Bible also reveals God’s standards to us. There are many today, even in the church, who want to minimize or even ignore what the Bible teaches us about God, about salvation, about humanity, and about the way we should live before our Creator. They would prefer to find standards that are acceptable to themselves and to the world around them. There is a desire to make some sort of Christianity acceptable to the masses, even if it isn’t exactly what the Bible teaches.

Yet if the Bible is only relevant and applicable where it agrees with what humanity consents to, it instead becomes irrelevant, since it only tells us what we already think or know. To truly understand an infinite God, we need a Word that comes from Him and that tells us the truth, whether it is what we want to hear or not. Thus the Bible is the standard by which each of our lives is judged, and is the standard by which even the creeds and statements of churches are judged.

We are examining the statement of faith of the Southern Baptist Convention, yet this statement is only valid insofar as it reflects the teaching of Scripture. Creeds and statements of faith are helpful to enable us to organize and recall the basic doctrines of our faith, and to put together the teaching of the Bible in one place. They cannot, however, take the place of Scripture. When we put more trust in the human construction of a creed than in the Bible that provides the content of that creed, we can effectively make that statement an idol that obscures our view of Christ as it takes our eyes off of His inspired Word.

The Bible also is the center of Christian unity. No one can deny that the church is presently divided, and that some of those divisions are serious (not to mention ancient!). Many seek to bring all of the churches and denominations together, and to do so they want to downplay anything that separates them. While this effort is laudable on the surface, it often is more interested in creating a unity of structure rather than one of faith. We cannot lay aside the truths of God’s Word just to make it appear that we are one with others who call themselves “Christian” but who do not value the truth of Scripture.

We have God’s inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word in the Bible. God did not give it to us so we could have some divine declaration to enshrine on a shelf. The Word of God is given to us to show us God’s standards, to regulate our lives and our churches, and most importantly to show us Jesus and teach us about Him.

Explore the Bible: Matthew 13:10-17

Jesus used many parables in His teaching, and Matthew 13 has several of them. After He gave the parable of the sower, His disciples were curious as to why Jesus used parables. His answer was that those who had spiritual insight would understand the point of the parable, while those who refused to listen would hear the story but miss the point. He quoted Isaiah 6:9-10 to explain this principle.

The passage Jesus quotes is from the call of Isaiah in chapter 6. Isaiah has his vision of the Lord in the temple, and answers God’s call for someone to go and speak for Him. Even as He commissions Isaiah, the Lord warns him that people will refuse to listen to what he has to say, and will reject his call to return to the Lord. Jesus recognizes that people in His own time were in the same position as those of Isaiah’s time, and that many simply refused to listen to or understand what He had to say.

This refusal to heed the word of Christ goes beyond a few parables taught in the first century. Today there are many who attend churches and who know what the Bible says, but who refuse to accept that it is God’s Word. While there are certainly parts of the Bible that are hard to understand and require some significant study, much of its message is straightforward. The gospel is clearly spelled out, and the way to heaven through Jesus is stated many times in very plain language.

So how do people miss it? Many really don’t. They understand exactly what the Bible teaches, and their human nature rebels against the thought of it truth. They want to believe that they can make themselves right with God, and that there are other ways to heaven. They see the Bible as infringing on their freedom and hopelessly narrow-minded, not a message that fits the world of our day as they see it. It isn’t a question of intellect, but of will.

As we continue to study God’s Word, we have to constantly search our own hearts to see if we are open to hear what the Holy Spirit has to teach us or if we want to make the Bible fit what we already believe. Jesus’ own disciples took years to begin to figure out just what He meant by His teaching, and the gospels make it clear that when He died they didn’t yet comprehend what happened. It took years (and the Spirit!) to open their eyes fully to the full truth of His teaching.

We should be ready to allow as much time as it takes for the lessons of Scripture to find a home in our hearts. You may find that over time you see parts of the Bible more clearly, and maybe you even have to change your mind to match the truth. Some sections you may never fully grasp, and some truths of Scripture are simply beyond our finite human minds. (Just how does the Trinity work, anyway?) The rest of our lives, and indeed all of eternity, await our continued searching of the Scriptures to more fully understand the mind of God.

The Baptist Faith and Message- I. The Scriptures (Part 1)

Ia. “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.”

In order for humanity to know what we need to be right with God, we need God Himself to reveal the truth to us in a way we can understand it. We believe that the Bible is that special revelation from God, the actual Word of God given to us exactly as God wanted it to be expressed. We call the divine role in the writing of Scripture “inspiration,” which comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 where we are told all Scripture is “God-breathed,” which is translated “inspiration” in older translations.

God did not drop the Bible from heaven already written, or even dictate it to people to be written word-for-word (except in a few instances that are described in the Bible). The Holy Spirit inspired people to write what was needed, using their own personalities and styles (1 Peter 1:20-21). There were about 40 authors of Scripture, and as we read what they wrote we can see the differences between the authors. Yet they wrote exactly what God wanted them to write; theologians use the term “verbal inspiration” to mean that each word of the Bible, not just the general ideas, are from God.

The Bible is the revelation of God’s thoughts, commands, and warnings. While we can learn some truths about God from creation and conscience (as Romans 1 tells us), we cannot know how the universe and humanity began, the extent of our separation from God, or the details of God’s provision of salvation through Jesus Christ without a divine message to give us the details. The message of the Bible centers on salvation (Romans 16:25-26).

Since the Scriptures reveal God’s plan of salvation, they must be completely reliable. We believe that the divine inspiration of the Bible keeps it from all error of fact and make it completely trustworthy in all that it tells us. We can fully rely on what the Bible teaches us about God and about salvation, but also about everything else it touches on. The word for this trustworthiness is “infallibility.” We believe that only the Bible is an infallible source of truth; no person, church, denomination, or creed is reliable except as it conforms to the Bible (Psalm 19:7-10). Through the inspired Word of God we can know the truth that He has given us and find the ultimate truth of Christ.

A look at "The Baptist Faith and Message"

I am beginning a series of short studies on "The Baptist Faith and Message." This is the statement of faith for the Southern Baptist Convention, and has been adopted by my home church as our church's statement of faith. This study will cover the basic doctrines of the Christian faith as well as beliefs that are distinctive to Baptists. I hope you will find this series helpful in understanding what the BIble teaches, even if you don't agree with everything that we Baptists believe. It can be stimulating to our own faith to understand how other Christians look at the truths of Scripture and apply them.

I will post the installments here on my own blog as they are posted to our church's web site.

Explore the Bible: Matthew 12:15-21

Matthew quotes Isaiah 42:1-4 here and applies Isaiah’s prophecy directly to Jesus. Unlike the application Jesus made of Isaiah when He answered John the Baptist’s question in Matthew 11:4-5, here the prophecy isn’t focused on the great works of the Messiah. Rather, Matthew uses the prophecy to point out why Jesus urged people not to spread the Word about Him. His role at this point in His ministry was to do the work He was sent to do, not to draw attention to Himself in such a way as to put the focus on Himself as the divine Deliverer.

In a Jewish study Bible I have, Isaiah 42 is said to refer primarily to the nation of Israel as a whole. It does point out that rabbis have seen it as a description of the Messiah (as well as the prophet Isaiah himself or the Persian king Cyrus), but attempts to make the description of the servant fit the role of Israel in a future ideal kingdom. It requires taking some Hebrew phrases in unusual ways, and writes off “open blind eyes” in verse 7 as another parallel way to say “freeing the prisoners.”

Even from an Old Testament perspective, however, it seems to make more sense of a special servant of the Lord, the Messiah. This Anointed One would not come with violence, and would not cease His work until justice was established over the whole earth. He would Himself be a covenant for the people, and would bring liberation not only from prison, but from the imprisoning conditions imposed by illness or handicap. Yahweh announces that this will, in fact, be something new.

For those of us under the New Covenant, we have Matthew’s divinely inspired interpretation to guide us in our understanding of who the Servant is. Although Matthew stops at verse 4, he would have seen the continuation of Isaiah’s prophecy as also applying to Jesus. Thus Matthew shows that he views this passage as referring to the Messiah, and that he believes that Jesus is that Messiah.

We are certainly to proclaim the truth about Jesus to our whole world today. While Jesus was here on earth, He often told people to keep what He had done quiet, but at the end of His earthly ministry He told His followers to proclaim the good news to all people; Matthew records this at the very end of his gospel (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus is the justice and hope that both Isaiah and Matthew speak about. On the cross, Jesus made both possible and fulfilled the mission He had during His time here on earth. The ultimate fulfillment will come when He returns to establish His kingdom. We can continue to have a future hope as we read the words prophesied about Him all through God’s Word, and that hope should spur us to share the reason for our hope with all we meet.

Explore the Bible

I'm beginning a weekly series of short studies related to a Bible study that I co-teach on Sunday mornings at my church. We are following the "Explore the Bible" curriculum from Lifeway, which is designed to take you through the entire Bible in 8 years. As such, it necessitates focusing on just a short passage each week, while providing a reading guide that a student can follow to read through the entire book (or section of a book). We're finishing a study in Matthew 1-13, and will begin a study of Acts 1-12 beginning in March.

The studies I plan to do will be short (this is a blog, not a theological journal), and will generally ficus on a passage that we either passed over or had to cover very briefly. I may also bring up some topics related to that week's study that might be a little more tangential but interesting. I hope that these small studies will be of interest even to those who aren't involved in our particular curriculum.

30 Days in the Bible, Day 30: Amos 8:9-13

Our 30 day journey comes to an end with today’s devotional. I don’t think there was a better passage to end with than this one from Amos. In some ways, there is a famine for the Word of God even in churches today. Some churches have ceased preaching the gospel and moved on to a more political or societal message. Others only preach the parts of the Bible that fits what they or their members want to hear, ignoring large sections of the Word. Still others preach the Bible from the pulpit, but in such a way that it makes no impact in the lives of those in the church (and, worse, on those outside the church.)

God chose to give us a special revelation in the Bible that goes beyond what we can learn about Him through nature or conscience. The Bible isn’t just a collection of writings of people who came up with the best religious ideas they could manage. It is God’s Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit and having the authority of the Almighty God behind it.

In our part of the world today, we have been blessed with unsurpassed access to the Word. Sadly, many Christians have multiple Bibles on their bookshelves, computers, and cell phones, but they seldom (or never) actually read, study, meditate on, and memorize those Bibles. They treat the Bible as a talisman, or even an idol, whose presence means blessing even if it’s never used to hear God speak.

In some eras of the church, the Bible was only available chained to a table in the church building, or perhaps only available when the authorized priest or minister read from it. Some Christians today act as if that is still the case, only taking in the Word when they hear it on Sunday. God never intended His Word to be limited to just a professional spiritual elite, who could then dole it out to the rest of the people. The Word of God was meant for all to hear and understand.

So as we finish our journey, I want to encourage you to take advantage of the feast you have. The time may come when we, like many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world and throughout history, face a famine, and will have to struggle to access the Word. Until that time, let’s not impose a famine on ourselves by neglect of the Bible, God’s revelation to us. Continue to be in the Word, and the Word will soon be in you.