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Well good evening everyone. We have arrived at the first of our Sovereign Grace Academy classes for the new year 2021. We have begun and we are starting tonight on the subject of a survey of Bible doctrines.
Now if you are new to the Academy I just want to remind you that this is an eight week I'm sorry excuse me this is a two-year overall program with four terms or semesters per year. We call them terms because not a full semester but you come in and wherever you are in the process you can start.
But to complete the whole two-year program you start now and you go for two years and you will complete. It's a rotating program and so last year we did a survey of the Old Testament a survey of the New Testament.
Now we are in a survey of Bible doctrines. Now according to our list the next one after this one would be a survey of church history. But because we've already done church history we the ordering has gotten a little out of whack that we were probably going to go ahead to apologetics in our next course.
So that's the goal is we're going to move history down one because some of you've already taken it and I know some of you want to finish the two years and get your get completed. So we got a little out of order and kovat messed us up some other things have messed us up some but we're back and we're in in for a and for a good New Year Lord willing.
So tonight we are beginning the survey of Bible doctrines. This is designated DS 100 and if you came in tonight you should have signed in in the sign-up sheet. And if you are watching via live stream you need to make sure if you have not already given your application to the program you still have to fill out an application if you want to take this course for the certificate and earn the credit.
So if you have not done the application yet please by the end of tonight see me so that I can give it to you. You can give it to me. The application includes not only your information but also a your testimony and those things which this class is for believers.
And so we ask that you share your testimony in the application when you join. Aside from that then we're all we should all be good to go. If you have a copy of the syllabus please take it out. And if you don't I have some copies because I want to walk through the syllabus as our first thing.
By the way I feel like church everybody sitting way over there. Nobody sits up close. You know the front row of the church is useless. Nobody ever sits in the front. Yes sir. Well that's true too. By the way we do have coffee back there if anybody like a cup.
This class goes for one and a half hours every Thursday night for eight weeks about an hour in. We will take a five minute break just to give you a chance to stretch your legs and hit the restroom if you need to.
And the last part of the class usually we reserve for a conversation discussion time things like that. So the first hour is usually pretty intense. The last 20 minutes or so is interactive at least that's the plan.
Doesn't always work out that way. So in your syllabus you will notice that we are in the winter term. You have my information the instructor information. You have the email if you need to email me any questions about the class and you see the class time there is 630 to 8 p .m.
Our course overview is this course will survey the foundational doctrines of Christianity including the nature of God as triune the full deity and humanity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit will also cover the grand meta narrative of scripture which moves from creation to fall to redemption to restoration.
Our goals and objectives are simple. We want to recognize the importance of defining theological categories. We want to learn to define and defend theological truth with the Bible and we want to explore the historical development of theological confessions.
Your required texts for this class are the Holy Bible which you should of course have a copy. I was given a new copy tonight and I thank you for this gift miss Daisy. This was a sweet gift. She gave me a new English translation which she knew I guess was one of my favorite translations I preached from the ESV but I love this translation.
So yeah you're going to be hearing some from it a little bit later also. And you get to choose. You can choose whatever translation you like. I would I would point you away from the New World translation though.
That's the Jehovah Witnesses translation. You also need a copy of everyone's a theologian. This is the book that I have here. I was given a copy tonight. Thank You Marianna. For anyone who hasn't been able to get one so we have a donated copy.
You just need to see me if you need one. We have one donated and first to be first come first serve kind of thing. But this is your book. How many of you have read the required reading. Oh no. Well I'm glad you being that.
This is a Bible class. Probably not a good idea to lie. They required reading was part one of the book which is eight chapters. I know that's a lot. If you did not get a chance to read it please add that to your reading for next week.
And here's the here's the skinny on that. If you don't read everything every week don't give up because I'm asking you to read a lot. And for some of you with your work schedules and whatever you may not have the time but just commit to reading the whole book at you know at least try to get it all read by the end of the course.
But if you can't at least commit to reading it over the next. You know however long it takes you read maybe you're a slower reader. I'm an audio guy. I get everything on audio and I listen to it as I drive.
I listen to it as I do things I I listen to a lot and you can get this book on audio. So if you want to do that that's an option too. Bobby was teasing me earlier. He says well the syllabus says read.
Well I will accept an audio if that is your method. I'm as long as you can comprehend it and you can answer questions and engage in class. I'm fine with that. Studies have shown that that comprehension based on hearing can be just as good as reading depending on the person.
So so definitely if that's your preferred method this is available that way. Now there are some other books that you'll notice the recommended texts concise theology by J .I. Packer. I have a copy but I couldn't find it.
It's on my shelf. It's it's a small print book and it basically has one page for just about every doctrine of the Bible election predestination reprobation all these and it's one page explanation. It's really handy.
If you just need to look up something what does reprobation mean. You got a good definition from a solid theologian. So concise theology. Really good. Wayne Grudem. If you never heard of Wayne Grudem he just put out his second edition of his massive systematic theology that is available now.
I definitely recommend Wayne Grudem. He's an easy read but this is his smaller version called 20 or excuse me Christian beliefs. It's 20 20 basics every Christian should know. This is a good solid handy tool to have certainly a good keep by the bedside.
Read one a night for 20 days. It's good stuff. Now I want to add one thing to the list that's not on your syllabus. One thing that is not on your syllabus. This has been on my shelf for 15 years or better.
I've used this book since I started preaching. This is the moody handbook of theology and the only reason why we didn't use this as our textbook is because I there's no way it's just so much. But this is a good it's like it's like an encyclopedia.
The moody handbook of theology. It actually breaks your theology categories down biblical theology systematic theology dogmatic theology historical theology and contemporary theology. So breaks it into five categories of how to understand schools of thought.
We're going to look at those in a little while. But this book has again it's it's all torn up messed up and this is the second one because I had the idea I've gone through them. But I love this text. It's written by Paul ends.
It's a good solid encyclopedia of theological truth. So you can add that if you're interested in and adding to your personal library definitely recommend the moody handbook of theology. Now look at the second page under course requirements.
The first of course is class attendance. You are required to be here for at least six of the eight classes. If you're doing in class if you miss a class and it is an emergency situation you can do it.
And I know this is kind of people are doing it at home but the live stream people are doing it at home. They we know that. But if you're here I want you to be here. But if you miss more than two classes make sure you're doing the video.
Don't just give up. That's the point you need to attend. And here's how I know you attend is your notebook at the end of this semester at the end of this term you should have a notebook with handwritten notes that you've taken during each class.
And if you didn't bring a notebook tonight that's okay. I won't I won't charge you for the first class. I won't charge it against your grade. But starting next week even if all you bring is a yellow pad right at the top DS 100 you know.
And have notes that shows me that you're paying attention and you're not just sitting there with your eyes glazed over during the course. So class attendance. And how do I know that that you'll see the third thing it says notebook assignment.
Basically you should keep a notebook also just about every class I have handouts those go in your notebook as well. So try to have a hand. Try to have a notebook that has a pocket because when I give you the handouts I want you to have to keep those as well.
Here's the thing I was Bobby helped me recently we moved our house and remember we were pulling stuff out of boxes. I was pulling out papers that I did in seminary almost 20 years ago you know back in the early 2000s and I had papers that I had written still.
So it's it's going through these classes if you keep your notes that good reminder of things that you've learned. But also it's a it's almost like a keepsake of the class. These are the things we did.
So it's got value to remember that your reading assignments of course are very important. This class has more reading I think than we've done in any of the other classes. We read quite a bit out of the out in Old and New Testament surveys.
But this class is this class is more I think so a lot of reading. Academic character. What is that academic character. Regards when you write your paper. If you are going to go for a grade you need to be certain that you are not plagiarizing your work.
And sometimes that's hard to know but it's usually pretty obvious if you're not citing your sources. What's the difference between plagiarizing and research. Citing your sources I mean really this because people just put people just put stuff in their paper.
But if I don't know where it came from then you're I assume it came from you. But if you cite your sources I know where it came from then that's how. And the difference again between plagiarism and research is plagiarism is stealing from one person and plagiarism research is stealing from everybody.
Yeah. Ha ha. Nobody. Everything's funny. But okay. So the point is when you do your paper. If you've not written a paper since high school and you need help let me know. My wife teaches English she can help if you need help I'm more than willing to help.
So let me know we can we can provide you that help. Also the internet is filled with those things. So if you're doing a paper please try to do it as best you can and that's the last thing. The research project is 40 of your grade.
It ultimately is your final grade. The research project is due four weeks after the end of this class. So this class ends up being a total of 12 weeks total eight weeks in the class and four weeks for research.
At the end of that four weeks you are to present a paper. You were to choose in this class. You were to choose one doctrine to research explain and defend. You should include relevant biblical citations reference to important historical disputes and a comparison of denominational positions.
The analysis will be submitted in this format. You'll have a title page. The body of the project should be well organized and be no less than three pages and no more than five pages. Why no more than five pages.
Because I got a great amount. I don't want to. I don't want to give me 20 pages. Get it down to five pages. Okay but it should be at least three pages. And you should have a properly cited bibliography page.
If you put about 500 pages per page 500 words per page it's about average. Means it's about a 1500 word research paper. So it's not that long. All right. And if you do the work and do it satisfactorily you'll get a good grade and you'll receive a certificate.
Last thing is the course schedule. You'll notice on the course schedule there are eight lectures now. There was a little bit of confusion and I want to apologize. Richard pointed this out to me earlier that it says read textbook part one.
But if you notice under content to be covered I only picked out three of the eight chapters and so Richard assumed that what that meant was that you only read those three chapters. That's not what I want.
It's just that's all I can cover in one one time. So I still want you to read that the the eight chapters or however many per part but the but the parts we're going to focus on are the parts that I believe people end up having the most difficulty with.
If you read what's in the book then what we get in the class will be more functional because you'll have more questions. You will be able to dig in more to the things the areas where people have problems.
Last but not least just before we get to the lesson outline for tonight. How many of you did the theology survey that I sent out. Okay only a few of you all right. I want to encourage you this week you should have received it by email and some of you were having trouble with it because it took you to the results page rather than the survey page.
And I apologize for that. If you can even if you have to print it out and maybe go through and write your answers that would be fine. I'm just curious where you all stand on all of those theological questions and if you haven't looked at it it's 35 I think theological questions and it's put out by Ligonier ministries every two years they do a state of theology survey where they survey thousands of people.
And what we're going to do in probably week four or five is we're going to compare our answers to the national answers. We're going to pull out the national answers of their survey and we're going to see what was the what what what did what did the world say and what did the Evangelical Church say and what do we say that makes sense.
So so I definitely want you to try to do it. If you didn't do it already try to do it over the next couple weeks so that by week four or five depending on where I decide to put it it's going to be at least 30 minutes to go through all that.
Probably week four or five sound good. All right. Well now we're going to move on to our lesson outline for tonight. This is in your syllabus our lesson outline is the scope and purpose of theology and then the general and special revelation and finally the inspiration and authority of Scripture under scope and purpose of theology.
I want to I want to open this up for a little bit of discussion and please if you would when you speak speak loudly so that everyone can hear. If you want to interject why why does theology matter. Brian it does affect our worship.
Right. Proper doxology requires proper theology so I would agree with that affects our worship. Michael do you have. That's right. That's what theology is. Yep that's right. That's right. That's right.
One of the things that I early on in my ministry I began to start realizing is people tend to behave based on what they believe. People tend to behave based on what they believe. Not always some people believe good stuff and behave bad ways.
But in general what I find is most people who believe wrong. It works out in how they behave. It works out in practical living. So there is a certain sense in which theology is highly practical. How many of you have seen our sign.
It says theology matters. That is our motto here at Sovereign Grace Family Church. Theology matters because we believe that part of the problem with the Evangelical Church today is that the other Evangelical Church that is the supposedly gospel believing church that's what evangelical means or gospel proclaiming church has essentially abandoned theology for a very shallow view of the Bible and a very shallow view of Christ.
As Bodhi Balcombe has said many people are worshiping a Jesus that they don't know very well. Many people are worshiping in Jesus. They don't know very well. Like if you go into the average church today and I say this based on having talked to many many many people you go into average church today and you say something like hypostatic Union people look at you like you have two heads.
I mean seriously if you say something like the immaculate conception people have a wrong idea of what that means and the history of that phrase. If you say Jesus is God some people will accept that. Some people will say that's not clear enough.
Some people will say I would say I don't think that that statement by itself is clear enough. I think we should say Jesus is God incarnate. I always say there should be more clarification even though I can say Jesus is God.
I think that there needs to be more understanding because people get confused about the nature of the divine when we say that phrase. So all of these things are important. Theology matters. Some people will say well I don't need theology just give me Jesus.
The problem is which Jesus the Jesus of the Mormons who is a spirit child of Elohim who is a brother of Satan or the Jesus of the Jehovah Witnesses who is a created divinity a made God if you will. Or how about the Jesus of Islam who was the Messiah.
Did you know that Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah but they don't believe that he is divine. They believe he was a prophet but they don't believe he was the Son of God. In fact the Quran says very clearly cursed are those who say Allah has a son.
Well that's us. If Allah then be God. So this is why theology matters. This is why this class is important and this is why we should continue to move forward. If you when we get to the Ligonier state of theology survey you will see just how quickly our world has devolved even on the most basic and you can look it up.
I mean you don't have to wait till class 5 go look up state of theology or the state of theology calm and you will see the questions and then it will give you the answers how they were answered by non-christians and how they were answered by Christians.
And on the most basic things is Jesus Christ divine. Something that simple. There is a you know maybe 60 of Christians say yes but then almost 30 no. And these are people who identify themselves as evangelical Christians.
As one person I listen to sometimes Doug Wilson says we've we've moved from evangelical to evangelical fish. Everything's just soft and squishy and there's no more solid theology. So why does theology matter.
Well it matters because it's as Michael said it's how we understand God and it's going to affect everything. What we believe will affect how we behave. It will affect how we worship. As you said Brian it's going to affect everything.
So yes theology certainly matters. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this. And if you're not familiar with Martin Lloyd Jones he was a great preacher and writer. He said this. He says whether we know it or not our main trouble as Christians today is still a lack of understanding and knowledge.
Not a superficial knowledge of the Scriptures but a lack of knowledge of the doctrine of Scripture. A lack of knowledge of the doctrine of Scripture. Everybody knows about Adam and Eve. Very few people know what original sin is.
Everybody knows about Noah and the ark. But very few people understand the doctrine of God's wrath. We know the stories but we don't know the doctrine and therein lies our failure. So what I'd like to do now is I'd like to give you all a handout should be enough for everyone.
Marianne I'm going to hand this to you. You'll pass one pass it around for me. What I'm providing to you is theological methodologies. I took portions of the Moody handbook of theology the one I mentioned to you earlier to create this handout.
So this is actually a portion of that book. For those of you who are interested in it this will at least give you a little taste of what it looks like. Monergism. Yep you may know what monergism means.
What does monergism mean. Mike you look like you might know. That's right. That's right. The word ergos means work and we typically think of synergism as synergy. Sin is the prefix which means together.
So synergistic means to work together. A lot of businesses say we need synergy. We need to work together. Well mono is the prefix which means one. So monergism means one worker. Therefore when we talk about salvation that's what makes Calvinism distinct.
Calvinism is monergistic. We believe there is only one who works in salvation and that is God. Synergism believes that God and man co-operate in salvation to bring about your salvation. That is the difference between Calvinism and well Calvinism Arminianism.
We could we could say maybe Pelagianism and semi Pelagianism versus Calvinism. All right. So that's getting a little further down the list. Let's look at the theological methodologies. There are five different ways to do theology.
At least you can do biblical theology. Biblical theology considers exegesis of the parts of Scripture. This is typically what you see a pastor doing on Sunday morning. If he is worth his salt he opens the Bible and he exegetes the Scripture and he brings out of that text the teaching that is within it.
He is giving the biblical theology of that particular text. Therefore like right now I'm preaching in Genesis. I'm looking at the text. I'm exegeting it meaning I'm drawing out of it the meaning and I'm presenting that to the congregation in such a way that they can understand.
That is biblical theology. The next method of theology is systematic theology. Systematic theology considers synthesis of the whole of Scripture. So where biblical theology considers exegesis of the parts systematic theology looks at all of the parts and synthesizes them into categories.
That's really what we're going to be doing in this class. This will be more systematic theology than it will be biblical theology. But here's the thing one is dependent upon the other. You cannot do systematic theology without proper biblical theology because you can't synthesize without exegesis.
So one is dependent upon the other. The third is historical theology. This considers doctrinal development growth and change through history. It would it would be too much in this class to look at how theology has gone down through the ages.
But we will be examining at certain points certain doctrinal confessions and creeds as they have come to us down through the ages simply to see how theology has been better enunciated better better articulated.
For instance we have the Nicene Creed which came out of the Nicene Council 325. Well later the Athanasian Creed is a much more robust explanation of the nature of Jesus and an explanation of what Nicea meant when they said begotten not made.
That's a very important section in the Nicene Creed that Christ is begotten of the Father from eternity but not made. And later the Athanasian Creed expresses the more fullness of that in explaining Jesus being both fully God and fully man.
Vera homos vera deus fully God fully man. All right. And so that's historical theology. The next one is dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theology considers officially sanctioned and endorsed doctrines. So for instance the Nicene Creed would be a dogmatic statement of the church which I believe most churches affirm.
The Apostles Creed would be something that most churches would affirm. But most churches do not affirm the councils of the canons of Trent. That would be the Roman Catholic teachings or Vatican 1 and Vatican 2.
Those would be dogmatic theological studies though. If you wanted to study what the Roman Catholic Church taught you would learn it from their dogmatic assertions. Now what are some. What are some ways that we would as I say we I as a reformed theologian and you all I think are all in reformed churches but I don't know that for sure.
What would we look to for dogmatic assertions catechisms. That's that's a tool if doctrinal confessions. Right. 1689 London Baptist was that you're gonna say Brian took the words out of your mouth. Sorry about that the 1689 London Baptist confession that's an example of dogmatic theology because it's stated this is what is believed.
And if you don't believe it can't be a part of this church. This is the dogma this is the this is the standard. This is the rule. Right. And you say well how does that differ from systematic theology.
Well we're now getting into the area of the different denominations. What is the dogma of Lutheranism brother versus Calvinism. Right. How would we know. Well we would go to the Lutheran the Heidelberg confession the catechism.
Right. And we would compare those dogmas against one another. Right. So that would be a totally different way to study even though same subject matter but we would be studying in a different way. And finally contemporary theology.
This considers current trends and theological thought and movements. What's an example of a contemporary theology that's starting to have its way in the world. What's it. Well that would be a way of worship and maybe a practice.
So and that will probably affect how people believe. For sure. But I'm thinking more in the line of like woke church. Thank you. Yeah the woke church or liberation theology which a lot of the woke stuff is coming out of liberation theology.
Right. And that is an entirely different view of how we understand the gospel how we understand scripture. You want to say something brother Frank. Yeah woke church is what he's talking about. Yeah. But there's others there's other contemporary theologies out there.
How about. How about just the emergent church which ain't really a thing anymore. But about 20 years ago that was the big hot-button topic it was known as the emergent church and the idea was that the theology of the church is in flux and can be reconsidered and so everything was on the table everything was up for grabs.
How about the teachings of guys like who wrote the book on Rob Bell who wrote the book on saying that hell doesn't exist. What was his name was that love wins. Love wins is an entirely contemporary theology of hell unbiblical but still that would be an example of contemporary theology.
So you would be studying trends in contemporary theology. Yes sir Frank. And the goal of every state of every theologian should be to compare what he believes with the Bible and so ultimately it all goes back to biblical theology is what we believe in line with what the Bible teaches.
And here's what I see happen for instance in Pentecostalism as an example they will look more at individual texts to prove their points about things like speaking in tongues and things like that but not look at the whole of Scripture and they won't synthesize the whole.
They focus too much on specific parts that agree with them and everybody has tendency to do that. You know take the sort of the cafeteria style Bible study. Right. Take the parts I like throw away the parts I don't and that's the dangerous thing.
So the goal of the system attrition is to first make sure that our exegesis is right. So the system attizer is dependent on the exegee. The system attizer must begin with exegesis and and so that would be my answer as to how do we know it's right.
It's either in the Bible or it ain't it's either coming from the Bible or it's not. And I will say this every system at some point begins to rely more on the system than the Bible. And that's when you're in a dangerous situation when you're making your arguments from the system not from the scripture.
So even though we are systematic in our approach we should be biblical in our final analysis. Make sense. Okay. So looking at your just for the handout sake this contrasts biblical theology and systematic theology.
And you'll see the first there to the top right. The sequence it starts with exegesis moves to biblical theology then moves to systematic theology. The relationship of the disciplines is that everything starts with the scripture.
You have the exegesis your understanding or introduction and the hermeneutics. That's the science of understanding and interpreting. That leads to biblical theology which then leads to systematic theology which in turn gives way to dogmatic theology.
And out of that you get historical theology and contemporary theology practical theology. And even your apologetics. Did you do you know what. What is apologetics. Me to defend the faith. Did you know your apologetics depends on your theology.
Because if your theology of hell is wrong then you're going to defend it poorly. If your theology of Christ is wrong then you're going to defend him improperly. When you're defending your faith your theology is what creates your apologetic.
In fact I'll give you a good example how many of you ever heard the name William Lane Craig. William Lane Craig is one of the premier Christian apologists in our world. But he is a philosopher more than he is a theologian he is a philosopher.
And he is really not an exegete. When you hear him explain the scriptures it's often not you can tell that's not his real area. He's more of a philosopher and therefore a lot of his arguments fall into the area of philosophy more so than theology.
And he was by the way the one who was asked what did he consider one of the most dangerous points in the church today. And he said Calvinism. So you can tell what I think of William Lane Craig. I think he's alright but I think his theology is bad.
I think in general William Lane Craig is a better philosopher than he is a theologian. So when I look for a apologist I look for a theologian. Dr. R .C. Sproul was one of the great apologists. He was a theologian first.
Dr. James White great apologist. Because he's a theologian first he's an exegete first. So our apologetics comes out of our exegesis. It comes out of a right understanding of the Bible and a right theology make sense.
All right. And if you see the contrast there at the bottom between biblical and systematic theology it says biblical theology restricts its study to Scripture. Systematic theology seeks truth from Scripture and from any source outside the Bible.
I think that's. I disagree a little bit with Paul there Paul ends the writer of this book. I disagree somewhat. We don't we don't take any source outside of Scripture. Basically though what the what he's trying to say here is that the systematician is looking at categories that aren't necessarily biblical categories but there are topical categories.
And and so the idea that we're pulling from any source I think that's a little exaggerated. But I think the next one is the best one he says examines the biblical theology examines the parts. Systematic theology examines the whole.
That's the best way to understand it. And if you look at biblical theology compiles information on a doctrine of a specific writer. So biblical theologians will say well what's the theology of Paul on this.
Or what's the theology of John on this. Or what's the theology of Genesis on this particular thing. But a systematic theologian would not do that he would say what is the whole Bible teach about this thing.
And under biblical theology it says it seeks to understand the process as well as the result the product. But systematic theology is most concerned with the result the product. And again biblical theology looks at the different eras like we'll say what was the Edenic Noahic and all these different periods.
But a systematic theology would look at the culmination of God's revelation as a whole. All right. If you have a notebook I'm gonna get you to take two things down. If you don't have notebooks you can do it on your phone or simply remember it and write down later.
What are the two sources. I don't have an eraser there it is. We have sources of theology. What are the two primary sources of theology. Scripture would be first. What's our secondary source of theology.
Scripture in nature. Very good. All right. So scripture and nature. You say wait a minute. How is nature a source of theology. Well the Bible tells us it is. The Bible tells us every man knows God exists because of what he sees.
So by nature every man can see the world around him. That's by the way that's. Romans 1 18 to 23 tells us it begins with the phrase that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Right. For what can be known about God is clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Would you say no. Romans 1 18 to 23. So what that tells us is that no one it says they are unapologetic.
They are without an excuse. No one will be able to face God on Judgment Day and say I didn't know you were there. Everyone has enough information simply by nature to know that God exists that he is powerful enough to create and that they are responsible to him.
In fact I would go on to say that Romans 2 tells us that every man has the law of God written in his heart. So not only does he know by the external that God exists but he knows by the internal sense of ought that he possesses.
That not only does God exist but God has expectations that we have not met. That we have an internal mechanism called shame. Why do we hide when we do wrong. My little babies. All of them when they do wrong they all of them would run and hide.
They'd get behind the corner of the couch or something because they knew they had done wrong. People say oh you shouldn't feel shame. Don't don't think shame is a bad thing. Shame is an is a mechanism within us to remind us of our guilt.
So you don't feel guilt feel shame. Guilt is a legal term. You either have guilt or you don't. People say I feel guilty. No you feel shame. Shame is the result of the guilt that you have whether you feel or not.
Because some people have guilt and don't feel shame but they still have the guilt. Shame is the feeling. Guilt is the proclamation. It's legal. It's forensic guilt is you are either guilty or you ain't.
And if you are a sinner you is. It's bad grammar good theology. So we have the internal mechanism which tells us God exists. And so yes that would we would say there are two sources of theology. But the primary source certainly is Scripture.
Because while nature tells us enough to be condemned only Scripture tells us enough to be saved. The Bible says faith comes by what hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ we must hear the word to be saved by the way that answers the question of what happens to the person who never hears the word.
They're condemned. And it's difficult to hear. But show me anywhere in Scripture where there's salvation apart from hearing the Word of God and believing it. So well I want to believe there's another way.
Okay. That's not based on your theology though. That's based on your emotion. As dr. RC Sproul said he said if what how do I answer the question of the innocent native that never hears the gospel. He says well the innocent native gets saved.
The problem is there is no innocent native. Every one of them is a sinner. Yes sir absolutely. Oh we should be. And we and it should urge us to missions it should urge our heart to want to go to them.
Absolutely absolutely. Unfortunately some of the most prolific missionaries right now have really bad theology. What's being spread in Africa and even in some of the Far East countries is prosperity theology.
So we need to be raising up and sending out missionaries that have good biblical theology to combat false prosperity theology because it's out there all right. So those would be I would say the two primary sources.
Of course Scripture being the ultimate source. What are the secondary sources of theology. Do you may know of any anything that we might say is a secondary source outside of Scripture in nature kind of already talked about a little bit history tradition and doctrinal confession.
History tradition and doctrinal confession and reason. You can add that as well. History tradition doctrinal confession and reason all of those things help us to arrive at good theology. Every generation is not required to reinvent the wheel.
You understand what that means. Right. We build on the backs of those who came before us. So that is why I can open up the 1689 confession and glean from what that what has been written. Because men have come before me and they have thought these thoughts before me.
And they have written good things that I can use to bolster and build up my theology so that I have a more robust theology. Yes Bob everybody had it wrong before me. Yeah I thought I had to be real careful with novelty.
In fact I've said this before there is no place for novelty in theology. See people think that Martin Luther provided a novel theology. He didn't. Do you know what gave rise to Luther's theology was the ability of the Renaissance to be able to go back and read the older writings the writings that had already been to read Augustine.
The Reformation was really spawned and spurred along by Augustine who lived a thousand years before Calvin and Luther. In fact you could argue that Calvinism and Lutheranism is really nothing more than Augustinianism in its view of salvation.
Now Augustine did have some wrong views. I think of the church which gave rise to the Roman Catholic Church and things like that. But ultimately yes it's there's just there's no room for novelty. When Mary Baker Eddy comes along when who's that lady with the Seventh-day Adventist.
Ellen White. Thank you Ellen G White when she comes along and proclaims herself a prophetess it's a dangerous situation and often a very bad theology arises. Judge Rutherford with the Jehovah Witnesses.
Who'd you say New Apostolic Reformation. Absolutely absolutely all right. So that's the scope and purpose of theology. We're going to take just a moment and break down the second part of your outline which is general and special revelation.
Then we're going to take our break and we'll come back and talk about the inspiration Authority of Scripture. Just for the sake if you didn't read the test if you read the text you know the answers. But if you didn't read it let me just see if everybody understands do you understand the difference between general revelation and special revelation.
Okay we've already I've already sort of discussed it and it's kind of what's already here. General revelation is what is available to all people through nature and through the conscience. It is general in its audience and it is general and its content is general in its audience in that it is for all people.
It is general in its content and it only tells a person enough to be condemned. Special revelation is where God has either through immediate or immediate method provided revelation. You say. Well what's the difference between and immediate.
Well immediate is through a some form of intermediary such as a prophet or through other some other source. And God has done that. But God has also done immediate revelation where he has spoken directly to people.
Right. So a immediate revelation would be the Bible. This is the medium through which God gives us his revelation. Therefore this would be a immediate form of special revelation. In fact I would say today this is the revelation as I do not believe God speaks from heaven to men anymore.
I believe that God speaks through his word. I think we can see that in Hebrew specifically where it says long ago and in various ways and various times God spoke to our fathers through the prophets but now speaks to us through his son.
And I think that is at least one implicit reference to God's Word being finalized in the teachings of Christ in the New Testament. So we have the special revelation from God. Or rather general revelation and special revelation.
Special revelation comes to us through the Bible. What are some other ways that special revelation has come. God spoke directly. Right. I mentioned that already. What are some other ways. Angels. Okay that's good.
I didn't hear brother. Okay. Well going back to the earliest passages of Scripture we see God speaking in various ways through clouds. We see God speaking through the burning bush. We see God speaking through the mouth of a donkey in the book of Numbers.
So we see all of these ways that God spoke. But there's also something in the Old Testament called the Urim and the Thummim which were methods by which the people could discern the will of God. That was a way for God to speak to his people.
The Urim and the Thummim is I believe it's in Leviticus explains the use of that was done by the priests. And I got to thinking I was preaching on Cain and Abel two weeks ago and I talked about the fact that Cain and Abel both brought a sacrifice.
One was accepted one wasn't. And we talked about why we believed Cain's offering was not and Abel's was. But one of the things I mentioned the sermon was how did they know one was accepted and one wasn't.
How did they know God accepted Abel's and that he rejected Cain's. It doesn't tell us. So we have to. Yeah the the the way that I think is possible is in Leviticus. It tells us that there were times when God would send fire from heaven and consume an offering.
Leviticus I think 19 is a tells us there was a that when an offering was made that God accepted it would be consumed. Can you imagine Cain brings his pumpkins or whatever. And God Abel brings his lamb and the fat of the lamb and he lays it down and God fire from heaven takes Abel's offering and Cain sits there just laying there.
So again yeah but the point is that would be an example of God that would be revelation from God. He's revealing to them who's he is taking. But as I said when it comes to general and special revelation most importantly right now we have to understand it's the Bible.
The Bible is special revelation from God. And there are two passages that you need to consider. One is 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 which tells us that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. We're going to look at that when we come back from our break.
And 2nd Peter 1 and 21 which tells us that holy men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Spirit. I love that phrase carried along by the Spirit because it reminds us that even though God used men to write his word they were not independent of his spirit but they wrote being carried along by the Spirit of God.
So when we take our break we'll come back in five minutes. Please keep it to five to seven minutes and we'll come back and we'll have our final discussion on inspiration and inerrancy. We're going to spend the last portion of tonight talking about inspiration and authority of scripture.
I want to make mention right out of the gate that what little bit of time we have to devote to this subject is not in any way shape or form going to be sufficient. We could spend weeks and months looking at the inspiration and authority of scripture.
But for the sake of this class and for the weeks ahead I want to go ahead and express some assumptions that are going to be made in this class. First it is going to be assumed that if you are in this class that you accept the doctrines of inspiration inerrancy and infallibility.
So because it's going to be assumed that you accept that I want to explain at least the basic definitions of those things. Inspiration comes from the Greek word theopneustos which is found in 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 where it says all scripture is given by or as God breathed some texts say given by inspiration.
In fact it was the King James Bible that says that the all scripture is inspired. And so I think the word inspire is actually a poor choice of words especially in our modern context because you'll hear people say well that song inspired me or that book inspired me or this person is my inspiration.
But that's not what the Bible means when we say all scriptures inspired all scripture is inspired means that we believe that all scripture comes from the mouth of God he said. But wait a minute it came from the came from the Apostle Paul.
Or it came from Peter. Or it came from Luke or Moses. Yes but as we said in first 10 first Peter or assuming second Peter 121 says that these men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit of God is the ultimate author of scripture. This is why if you took hermeneutics with us which only a few of you did but when you when we took the class on how to interpret the Bible we said one of the things that we rely on in biblical interpretation is when we read we ask God that through the Holy Spirit he would help us to understand what it means.
Because if he wrote it then he knows what it means. If the Holy Spirit is the author then he understands his meaning. Oftentimes in hermeneutics the goal or actually all the time in hermeneutics the goal is to determine what the author intended.
And so ultimately the goal of hermeneutics or the science of interpreting the Bible is to know what did the Holy Spirit mean when he had these words written down. And this is why sometimes you might read and I don't know if you do I know I have read the Apostle Paul give an interpretation of the Old Testament and say that seems odd to me that that's the way he's interpreting that.
But that's the Holy Spirit's interpreting. For instance in the book of Galatians Paul makes a really big deal about the grammar of seed versus seeds the plural seed and the singular seeds. Or the the plural seeds and the singular seeds remember what the argument he makes.
He says the promise given to Abraham is not to the seeds plural but to the seed singular who is Christ. And you might say wait a minute seed can be plural say scattered seed. That that's that can be plural.
Yeah. But the spirits interpreting it through the Apostle Paul. And therefore we know that it's meant to be taken to look toward one seed who is Christ. And so when we talk about inspiration we first are dealing with where the Bible came from.
Yes it came from the pen of Paul. Yes it came from the pen of Moses. Yes it came from these men. But ultimately it comes from God. Its source is God. I like this is from the Moody handbook of theology.
I like this definition. Inspiration may be defined as the Holy Spirit superintending over the writers of Scripture so that while writing according to their own styles and personalities the result was God's Word written authoritative trustworthy and free from error.
In the original autographs I would say that's probably one of the best definitions of inspiration. I've read simple and direct. And I do want to make a note of something that it said though it says inspired and inerrant in the original autographs.
When we use that term autographs what are we referring to the original documents. When we talk about the scripture as inerrant and infallible what we are saying is that when we say it's inerrant that means it does not contain any error.
When we say it's infallible that's saying it cannot air. There's a difference between being inerrant and infallible. For instance if I gave you all a test and you all scored a hundred that would be an inerrant test.
You all got it right. But it doesn't mean that the next time I give you a test you might not get it wrong. I may give you a test next time and everybody miss one or two answers because you're not infallible.
Inerrancy says something does not air. Infallibility says something cannot air. So inerrancy speaks to the quality of the document. Inerrancy or excuse me infallibility speaks to the quality of the author.
It is infallible because it comes from an infallible God. Now the reason why we point out the autographs as the inerrant scripture is because what we possess today is copies of the inerrant scripture.
And our copies unfortunately are subject to error. And so for instance we have thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament and they are handwritten some of them going back to papyri fragments that reach all the way back to the earliest part of the second century that would be the 120s 130s we have papyri fragments that go all the way back to then within one to two generations of the original we have full codices full manuscripts of the Bible dating to the third and fourth centuries.
Codex Sinaiticus Codex Vaticanus Codex Alexandrinus are just a few that we would cite. But there are differences in those manuscripts. And so there is something called textual criticism which seeks to determine the original reading of the manuscript.
Take out your Bibles with me and turn to John chapter 7 and look at verse 53. What do you see when you get to John 7 and verse 53 what doesn't say anything. Yes if you see you'll probably see an asterix or a of some sort which brackets off John 753 through 811.
And if you look at the notes of your Bible even if you don't have a study Bible the notes of the Bible will say something to this effect. John 753 through 811 is not contained in the earliest and best manuscripts and was almost certainly not an original part of the Gospel of John.
One group of manuscripts places it in Luke 21 38. So this is what we refer to as a movable text. Not only is it not in John but sometimes it's other places which means that it is liable to be a very early extra biblical narrative which was included among the manuscripts as a textual or a scribal note which would later find its way into the tradition of the manuscripts.
And that's why it moves. And that's why it's different huh. Well my it's in mine. But it's bracketed. Is it bracketed in your. Yeah. And so the point is simply this is John 753 through 811 scripture or not.
I am convinced that it is probably not. I think it was da Carson who said it is the greatest story that's not in the Bible. It's the greatest story that's not in the Bible. What he meant was it is a wonderful story.
It's the story of the woman caught in adultery. But it's probably not part of John's original writing. And so how do we treat it. Well we treat it with a question mark. We don't know if it was part of the original manuscript.
And so when I preach through the New Testament when I preach through any of these texts and I come to a variant what's known as a textual variant especially a major textual variant I take the time in my preaching to stop to explain why we have textual variation and to say that this does not in any way in my heart and mind make me question the validity or the truthfulness of the text but to understand that when we say the Bible is inerrant and infallible we are referring primarily to the original manuscripts.
And therefore we must consider our what we have in our hand. Is it the Word of God. Yes. But there are parts of it that we have to consider whether or not it was part of the original. So some people get very uncomfortable with that.
Some people get really uncomfortable with the NIV as the NIV just takes parts out doesn't even leave them in there at certain points. But then again so does your ESV. There are certain verses where it goes right from verse 4 to verse 5 and there's nothing there.
Why do they keep the verse numbers. Why not just replace it. Well because they want to agree with other Bibles that do have that verse. There's a I forget which gospel it's and I think it's in mark where the angel would come down and stir the waters at the pool of Bethesda.
That whole section of the narrative is not likely original to mark. And so it's just not in the modern translations it's just the whole verse is gone. And so this causes a lot of people to say well we we have to take the King James.
Then because the King James is the standard can't be the standard. King James cannot be the standard. Why. Why. Yeah. And it's only for 400 years old. It can't be the standard. It's only been around for 400 years.
I mean he said well 400 years is a long time. Not really the only reason why we think 400 years a long time is because we live in America. I'm not kidding. They got houses in England that are a lot older in our whole country.
The difference between Europeans and Americans is Europeans think a hundred hundred miles is a long way and Americans think a hundred years is a long time. A hundred miles of us ain't nothing. That's a good afternoon drive.
But to a European hundred miles take from one country to another. Yeah. So we think a hundred years is a long time. But it really ain't 400 years ain't really that long and especially in God's as a day as a thousand years.
So the King James Bible is not the standard. The King James Bible is certainly a wonderful translation. But it does create a big issue because you have people who are King James only and therefore they hold to a particular view of inspiration that is unique.
They believe that God not only has inspired the Bible but that he has. He has preserved a line which was codified in the 1611 King James Bible and therefore the 1611 King James Bible becomes almost a new work of inspiration.
And if you've ever want to study that further I would recommend a couple of texts to you but primarily the King James only controversy by James White is very helpful on that. So I kind of got off a little bit on that.
But the point is we should not allow textual variation to cause us to say we don't believe the Bible is infallible or inerrant. We simply must remember that when we talk about those words we are referring to the autographs primarily.
How many of you were in the last. Well maybe it wasn't last class. One or two classes back I mentioned the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. Remember that. Okay. The Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy was a statement that was made by a group of scholars back in the 70s.
R .C. Sproul was one of them. By the way he just happens to be the writer of our textbook so I keep mentioning his name. R .C. Sproul was with James Montgomery Boyce and several other noted theologians gathered together in the 70s to define what was meant by inspiration inerrancy and infallibility.
And they came up with what is known as the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. My recommendation to you is if you wanted if you want a very clear definition of what we mean by inerrant and infallible to look that up and read it.
It's free. It's available online. And so as we have only a few minutes left let me ask you a question. Do you have do you have questions of your own regarding biblical inerrancy and infallibility or even inspiration.
Come on. I can't be that good a teacher somebody's gonna ask something. Inspiration. It refers to the source as coming from God. The word inspired it's the translation of the word theopneustos which is the Greek word for God breathed.
So inspiration is is means the source is God comes from God. That's right. Yeah. Inerrancy means something does not air infallibility means something cannot air. Inerrancy regards to the the document itself.
It doesn't air infallibility says it can't because of the author. So one speaks to what you what you possess is an inerrant Bible because it comes from an infallible source. See the Roman Catholic Church argues that it is infallible that it makes infallible proclamations through the magisterium which is the teaching arm of the Roman Catholic Church the Pope being the vicar of Christ or the one who sits in the place of Christ who makes those infallible proclamations.
The problem is the Pope's have often contradicted one another. And so what do you do with that. Well you say well in that moment he wasn't speaking infallibly and that's I'm not being ugly. That really is the answer because what they argue is that the Pope is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra meaning from the seat or from the chair and the chair being the seat of Peter they believe he sits in the seat of Peter.
Therefore when he speaks on behalf of the apostolic succession the line of apostolic succession that he's speaking on behalf of God. But that very rarely happens. MSS manuscripts other manuscripts. All right.
Any other questions about inspiration inerrancy and infallibility. Thank you. I appreciate the encouragement. Last thing I wanted to do do mention since I don't see any hands going up. The other thing that's in your book that you'll find interesting when you're reading your textbook is chapter 7 where dr. Sproul talks about canonicity.
I don't have time in the few minutes I have left to explain it but just so you have a definition in your book the canon of scripture is the books themselves or the list of books that we have. For instance we would say that the book of first Peter is part of the canon but the book of Maccabees is not.
We would say the book of Romans is part of the canon but the book of Thomas the gospel of Thomas is not. And so if you're interested as to why that is chapter 7 he goes through canonicity and gives a very basic explanation of why certain books were not included and why the ones that were and why we believe that the ones that are are the ones that should be.
So if that's a question that you've had the answer is in your textbook. But I will and I'll end with this. There's another writer by the name of dr. Michael Kruger who has done some of the best work on the subject of the canon in the last 20 years or more.
And dr. Kruger's work the canon revisited really gives a much more intense and explanatory understanding of why the books that we have in the Bible are the proper books that we should have. Okay so if that's a question that you have read your textbook first but seek out dr. Michael Kruger if you want to go deeper do we have any questions about what's expected of you over the next few weeks.
Got a lot of reading to do. Oh if you look at your textbook if you have it open it up to open it up to the contents page and you'll notice under the contents page part 1 is chapters 1 through 8. Part 2 is chapters 9 to 15.
What I'm asking you to read each week are the parts meaning all of those chapters. So tonight was chapters 1 through 8. Next week will be chapters and next week we won't have to go over the syllabus so we'll jump right into theology proper.
We're going to be looking particularly and specifically at the attributes of God next week that's going to be the pretty much the whole class is examining the attributes of God but we're also going to look at the Trinity.
But here's the thing about the Trinity. Guys I could I could spend weeks on the Trinity. Please read the book and come with your questions. I wrote a book entitled God in three persons a historic and a biblical and historic view of the Trinity.
If you want to know more about my particular teaching on the Trinity it is available out there if you want to get a copy of it. So my hope is that you will read the text so that we can come with questions and be able to dig into where you're having trouble.
I want to help you with the areas you're having trouble. I don't want to just repeat the textbook to you make sense. Yeah if you haven't read part one definitely read part two this week and then each week you'll read each part and be ready for the classroom time and discussion.
Last but not least but Brian do you ever handle. Okay last but not least tomorrow night I'm going to be speaking at Sunrise Community Church along with two other pastors on it's called tough questions real answers.
It's an apologetics event where we are going to be dealing with specific questions like I'm going to be addressing the topic of evolution and creation. I'm also going to be addressing the cop the topic of Christians and self-defense because that's one of the ones that was asked of me and so if you are interested in joining us see me and I will give you the address at 7 o 'clock tomorrow night at Sunrise Community Church.
All right. Let's pray father thank you for tonight. Thank you for this time of study pray that it will be ultimately used to further your kingdom and to glorify the name of your son Jesus Christ in whom we pray.
Amen.