Why Theology Matters

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 Uh in for a and for a good new year lord willing so tonight we are beginning the survey of bible doctrines, this is uh designated ds100 And if you came in tonight, you should have signed in in the signup 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 Uh, 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 uh aside from that Then uh, 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 I need to share.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

We'll do it that way.

That's fine.

Thank you.

Everybody else good.

All right 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 uh 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 6 30 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 It 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 preach from the esp but I love this translation.

So yeah, you're going to be hearing some from it a little bit later Uh also and you get to choose you can choose whatever translation you like.

I would I would uh 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 Uh, this is the book that I have here Uh, I I was given a copy tonight.

Thank you mariana for anyone who hasn't been able to get one So we have a donated copy.

Uh, you just need to see me if you need one.

We have one donated And uh first it'll be first come first serve kind of thing.

But this is your book.

How many of you have read the required reading? Oh, no, no, well i'm glad you being that this is a bible class probably not a good idea to lie the required reading was Uh 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 uh comprehension based on hearing can be just as good as reading depending on the person So, uh, so definitely If that's your preferred method, this is available that way now, there are some other books that you'll notice Uh the recommended text 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 Uh, wayne grudem if you've 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 a 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 I've gone through them But I love this text.

It's written by paul enns.

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 Uh at the end of this term, you should have a notebook with handwritten notes that you've taken during each class And uh, 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 ds100 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 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 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 of 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 that's 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 ha.

Okay.

Nobody thinks it'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 Uh, she can help if you need help i'm more than willing to help so let me know we we 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're to choose in this class.

You're 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 Honestly, I don't want you to give me 20 pages get it down to five pages Okay, but it should be at least three pages.

All right 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 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'm I apologize for that uh 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 Uh 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.

Um, 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 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 vodie balkan 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 is 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 five go look up state of theology or the state of theology.com 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 percent 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 evangelic 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, uh, 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 uh Well calvinism armenianism 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 uh, 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 Uh as they have come to us down through the ages simply to see how theology has been better Uh enunciated better better, uh 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 nicaea 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 Fully god fully man All right And uh, 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 uh, 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 one and vatican two 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 doctrinal confessions, right 1689 london baptist.

Was that what you're going to 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 All right, and you say well, how does that differ from systematic theology? Well, we're now getting into the area of the different uh 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 that? Well, that would be a way of worship and maybe a practice.

So, uh, and that will probably affect how people believe for sure but i'm thinking more in the line of like Who's 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, uh There's other contemporary theologies out there.

How about how about just uh 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, uh who wrote the book on? Rob bell who wrote the book on uh Saying that hell doesn't exist.

What was his name? What 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 I I do have a question and the question It's just a matter Where's the where's the dividing line actual step by scripture and an op-ed version of of theology The goal of every 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 Uh of the systematician Is to first make sure that our exegesis is right So the systematizer is dependent on the exegete The systematizer must begin with exegesis And uh, 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 does apologetics mean? To defend the faith.

Did you know your 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 Huh So, uh, you can tell what I think of william lane craig I think he's all right, but I think his theology's 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 uh 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 I disagree a little bit with paul there paul.

Ann's the writer of this book I I I disagree somewhat We don't we don't take any source outside of scripture Basically, though what the the what he's trying to say here is that the systemetician is looking at categories That aren't necessarily biblical categories, but there are topical categories And um 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 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 it 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 does 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 your notebook, I'm going to 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 Theology What are the two primary sources of theology Scripture would be first What's our secondary source of theology? Yeah nature scripture and nature.

Very good bethany.

All right, so scripture and nature you say wait a minute.

How is nature a 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 what you say No romans 1 18 to 23 So what that tells us is that no one it says they are unapologetus.

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 All right, people say oh you shouldn't feel shame don't don't think shame's 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 it or not See 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 sproles said he said if What 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 Reminds me that we should be so grateful.

Oh, we should be And we and it should urge us to missions It should urge our heart to want to go to them.

That's the theology to inform.

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 Uh, those would be I would say the two primary sources, of course scripture being the ultimate, uh 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 it a little bit history tradition and doctrinal confession history tradition and doctrinal confession um 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 the single thing Everybody had it wrong before me Yeah That's why I had to be real careful with uh 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 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 eddie comes along When who's that lady with the seventh day adventists? 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 joe witnesses.

Who'd you say? Are now the new apostolic reformation? Absolutely Absolutely All right.

So that's the scope and purpose of theology.

Uh, 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 and authority of scripture Just for the sake if you didn't read the text if you read the text, you know the answers But if you didn't read it, uh, 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 in 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 immediate 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 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 hebrews specifically where it says long ago And in various ways in 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 Uh General revelation and special revelation special revelation comes to us uh 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 it 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 um 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 um I got to thinking or 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 in 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 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 Whose he is taking but as I said when it comes to general and special revelation uh 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 second 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 second 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 And 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 is 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 scripture is 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, excuse me, second peter 1 21 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 uh, 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 backwards of that let me say 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 You say scattered seed That that's that can be plural Yeah, but the spirit's 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 uh, 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 err 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 might give you a test next time and everybody missed one or two answers Because you're not infallible Inerrancy says something does not err Infallibility says something cannot err 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 asterisk or a bracket 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 here? Yeah Yeah, and so the point is simply this is john 753 through 811 scripture or not I am convinced That it is probably not Uh, I think it was d.a.

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 Because 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 four to verse five 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 in 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 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 is a long time is because we live in america I'm, not kidding.

They got houses in england that are a lot older than our whole country I mean the difference between europeans and americans Is europeans think a hundred a hundred miles is a long way And americans think a hundred years is a long time A hundred miles with us ain't nothing.

That's a good afternoon drive But to a european a hundred miles takes 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 uh were in the last? Well, maybe it wasn't the last class one or two classes back.

I mentioned the chicago statement on biblical inerrancy.

Do you 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 uh 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 Uh 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 going to ask something Inspiration it refers to the source as coming from god The word inspired is the translation of the word theopneustos, which is the greek word for god breathed so inspiration is uh is means the source is god comes from god and if you said it in like a real Is not and it cannot err.

You know what I mean? That's right.

Yeah Inerrancy means something does not err Infallibility means something cannot err Inerrancy regards to the the document itself.

It doesn't err 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 popes 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 then 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 Oh, well, thank you.

I appreciate the encouragement last thing I want 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 seven 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 uh thomas the gospel of thomas is not And so if you're interested as to why that is chapter seven, 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 end 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? You got a lot of reading to do Oh, uh, 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 one Is chapters one through eight part two is chapters nine to fifteen What i'm asking you to read each week are the parts meaning all of those chapters so tonight Was chapters one through eight? 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 Uh, 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 Uh, I I wrote a book entitled god in three persons a historic Uh 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 Uh, definitely read part two this week and then each week you'll read each part and be ready for the classroom time and discussion Uh last but not least brian.

Do you have your hand up? No, not okay Last but not least tomorrow night I'm going to be speaking At sunrise community church along with two other pastors on Uh, 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 i'm going to be addressing the topic of evolution and creation I'm also going to be addressing the 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, uh, see me and I will give you the address.

It's seven 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.