10 Essentials Series: 1. Bibliology, The Doctrine of Scripture

I'm going to go through a series that I'm calling the 10

Essential Doctrines. Now, when Pastor Chris and I were preparing for our ordination, we had to go through 10 doctrines, write a paper on what our view was on all 10 doctrines.

So today, what I'm going to go through is my view of the Scriptures. Now, there are volumes and volumes upon volumes of books on each one of these topics, on each one of these doctrines.

So this is going to be a small, short synopsis, a real quick snapshot of my understanding of the

Scriptures that I had to submit to all the men who were on the ordination council. And they had to read it, and then they questioned me as to what my understanding of this was.

So just real quick, the first five essential doctrines would be bibliology, study of the

Scriptures, theology proper. Anybody want to give a guess as to what that means? Great.

Yes, Julie. The study of God, right? Theos is

God in Greek. Ology, that comes from the word logos, study of. So theology proper would be the study of the

Godhead, God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Next would be Christology, that's pretty simple to understand, study of Christ.

Pneumatology, anybody want to guess? Study of the Holy Spirit. Angelology, that's the study of my wife.

I'm sorry, go ahead. Study of angels, that's right. All right, anthropology. Say it again?

Yes, study of man. Homartiology, we're all experts in this one, go ahead. Study of sin, right?

Soteriology. Yes. Study of salvation. Ecclesiology.

Ecclesiology going once. Yes. Study of church government. Eschatology. Study of last things, the eschaton.

Now that just doesn't mean end times, that also includes what happens when we die now, is that intermediate state before the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment of all things.

So that's also included in eschatology. So let's begin our study.

We're going to start with bibliology, which is the doctrine of Scripture or the study of the

Bible. Biblios is the Greek term for book. So that's where we get the word

Bible. We're going to answer some questions as we go through this.

Study of bibliology should include the answer to the question, is the Bible God's word?

What is the canon of Scripture? Thank you for that. Does it contain errors? What does it mean that the

Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible? And here I just want to quote

John MacArthur real quick. The doctrine of Scripture is absolutely fundamental and essential because it identifies the only true source for all

Christian truth. Scripture repeatedly claims to be the word of God. The prophets appealed to it as the foundation for God's promises and judgments.

Christ and his apostles based the whole of Christian doctrine on the Scriptures. Over 2 ,500 times in the

Old Testament alone, the Bible asserts that God spoke what is written within its pages. So that's his quick synopsis of why the

Scriptures are important. So quick question, why do we start with bibliology and not theology proper? Not a trick question.

It's real easy. Yes. Right. The only way we can know

God and the specifics about God is through the Scriptures. So we have to start with the Scriptures. They're going to reveal

God to us because many people have many conceptions of God that don't start with the Scriptures and end up in the wrong place.

So if we don't start with the Scripture, first, we're not going to know the God of the Scriptures. OK. This was part of my statement that I wrote.

The Scriptures are the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God to his people. They are divine in nature, 2

Timothy 3 .16. Of the highest authority, Hebrews 6 .13, they cannot be broken, John 10 .35.

They're necessary for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3 .16. Again, necessary for spiritual life,

Deuteronomy 8 .3, 1 Peter 1 .23, and sufficient for life and godliness. So this is a

Scripture that you're going to hear over and over and over again when somebody talks about all the

Scriptures, God's Word. 2 Timothy 3 .16, all Scripture is breathed out by God.

OK. It's called inspired. God breathed, basically exhaled.

Now, in English, we would say it expired, but that wouldn't do well for the Scriptures.

Somebody telling you the Scriptures expired, that means they're out of date. They're no longer in play. So the word is exhaled.

These are God's words exhaled out through chosen instruments, men carried along by the

Holy Spirit. We're going to go through that in a second. So 2 Timothy 3 .16 is crucial to our understanding of what is

God's Word. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. This is much different than other religious traditions. Islam says that Allah basically dictated the words to Muhammad, and he wrote them out.

That's not what happened here. God, through the power of His Holy Spirit, worked through men to bring about His Word to us.

They are divine by nature because of its origin. Because they're breathed out by God, their source is

God. The Word of God is sourced in God. Therefore, it's inspired.

The Church does not give us the Scriptures. Rather, the Scriptures give us the Church. 1

Timothy 3 .15 and Matthew 16 .18, the Church is a pillar and buttress, upholds the truth.

And Jesus says, I will build my church. Now why is it important that we make that statement?

Is there a tradition that says, oh, we gave you the Bible? Is there a religious tradition? Who's that? Rome, right?

Romanists say, no, no, you wouldn't have the Scriptures apart from us. So we gave you the

Bible. And that's not true. The Old Testament existed well before the Roman Church existed.

God spoke, used the apostles, spoke through men to give us the Word. The Church recognizes

God's Word, but doesn't make it God's Word. Do you understand the difference?

It's like a thermostat, right? There's two settings on a thermostat. One tells you what the temperature actually is, and the other button tells you what you want it to be.

You set it. So the temperature in here is like 68 degrees. As a human being, we look at that, we say, oh, the thermostat tells us it's 68 degrees, but I can make it 70 or I can make it 65, depending on if you're a man or a woman, right?

I'm only kidding. So the Church doesn't choose which books are the

Bible. The Church recognizes which are the books of the Bible. Okay?

That's a big distinction. We'll continue on. They're infallible, which means they're incapable of containing error due to its nature.

Because they're divine, they are incapable of error. That would mean

God could possibly be in error. They're inerrant, which means they're without error in the original graphe, or the original manuscripts.

The original manuscripts were penned by the apostles and compatriots of the apostles, companions of the apostles,

I should say. And those were the originals, and there is no error in those. If there is a paradox, a tension, or seeming error in the text, the fault lies with man's interpretation and not

God's authorship, as God cannot lie. Right? Titus 1 .2 and Hebrews 6 .6

.18, It is impossible for God to lie. And Proverbs 30 and 5, Every word of God proves true.

We are called to read, study, and rightly handle the scriptures as they are food and life for our soul.

Deuteronomy 8 .3, Do your best to present yourself as a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

The scriptures are of the highest authority. Hebrews 6 .13, They cannot be broken.

They are necessary for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, necessary for spiritual life, and sufficient for life and godliness.

We're going to go through each one. Hebrews 6 .13, For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.

Right? What does that tell you? That tells you that God is the highest authority. He can't go higher.

If he could go higher, whatever he went to, that would be God. That would be what we appeal to.

But since God's word is breathed out by him, it is equal to him. It's his word.

So he could swear by none higher. In other words, God is the ultimate authority. And because his scripture is

God breathed, that is our ultimate authority for how to know him. All right.

John 10 .35, Jesus says scripture cannot be broken, which means all of the prophecies that were made in the

Old Testament will come to pass. Some have. Some will be future.

But the scriptures cannot be broken in the sense that what God says will happen will happen. They're necessary for teaching, reproof, correction, and training.

And this is real important because, again, this is 2 Timothy 3 .16.

The word for teaching is didasco in Greek, and that's our word for doctrine. Sometimes you'll hear somebody say, well, is that didactic teaching?

The word didactic means doctrine. The epistles are didactic teaching. They're teaching us directly something from the apostles.

Elencho is to convict. That's where the word reproof comes from. So if you're talking to a brother or a sister is talking to a sister and they see them doing something that's not lining up with the scriptures, you tell them what the scripture says, right?

You basically convict them of their crime. Now, you do that gently.

I don't want to make it sound like, oh, you're running around convicting people of all these things. But when you're talking with somebody, you want to line up their behavior with the scriptures and say, brother, sister, look, this is what the scripture says.

That's where that word reproof, it means to convict. Then we have orthos, which means for correction. Ortho, orthodontist, he straightens out your feet.

Orthopedic, he straightens out your feet. Right. This is orthodox teaching, straight teaching for correction.

And training, which is the word paeas, which translates also into paedia, which is training up children.

So the scripture is good for teaching reproof or convicting somebody of when their behavior doesn't line up with the scriptures.

Correction, showing what the scripture says about how to correct that behavior and then training people up in righteousness.

Deuteronomy 3, man does not live by bread alone. He wasn't Italian who wrote this, this guy.

But man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. All right. We are to continually ingest

God's word as much as we possibly can. Morning, noon and night. I don't think anybody here, unless you're fasting, is going to miss a bunch of meals for a bunch of weeks.

It's the same thing with the scriptures. You need you need to be consuming the scriptures on a regular basis.

Second, Peter 1 3, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us.

OK. Again, God's word is going to give us everything we need to live out the life that God expects us to.

There's nothing outside of the scriptures that we need to know that he didn't reveal to us. Right.

So everything we need to know is within the scriptures. That's why we need to be reading them and correctly understanding them.

Everybody following. We're good so far. Good. The scriptures are God's special revelation to us in contrast to general revelation.

General revelation will leave man without excuse as to God's existence and his moral responsibility.

So who wants to give me a definition of what general revelation is? We'll take a guess. Yes, Maria.

Right. Right. Truths we know about God from nature, the world around us. And that's exactly what

Romans 1 9 1 19 through 20 says. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

That means humanity for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived or seen ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse.

No one can say, I don't know God exists. I need evidence.

God has provided you with the evidence such that there's so much evidence. Apart from the scriptures, just in nature, general revelation that you're without excuse.

And that word without excuse is unapologetic. You guys know apologia means to make a defense without excuse.

You are without a defense for saying that God doesn't exist. Every human being knows God exists. They're just suppressing that truth and unrighteousness.

OK. All right. So no human being can look out and say, oh, there can't be any

God. I mean, people do say that, but in their heart, they're just suppressing the truth of something that they know already.

Psalm 119, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day after day, it pours out speech.

Night after night, it reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes throughout all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

Natural revelation is speaking to us of God's existence. OK. Again, no one can look at this world and say we have a creation without a creator.

Very simple. OK. However, special revelation is necessary for salvation.

In other words, for man to know God and trust him in the personal way he desires.

What is the definition of eternal life scripturally? Yes.

Yes. Thank you. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Right. That's the way Jesus describes it. Knowing God. Now, I just said everyone knows

God. Right. This is to know God specifically in a revelatory way, in a covenant relationship, a reconciled covenant relationship.

You are still in covenant with God, even though you reject him. You are an Adam. You need to be in Christ so that you know him.

Right. And the scriptures give us the necessary information, revelation that we need of the

God behind these scriptures. John 20, 31. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the son of God, and that by by believing you may have life in his name. I often talk to Romanists and say, if all we had was the book of John, we have enough for salvation.

To believe that Jesus is who he says he is and has done what he said he's done.

And that is sufficient for my salvation. I do not need to add my good works, which aren't good, to Jesus's perfect finished work.

Any work that I add to Jesus's perfect finished work tarnishes it. It doesn't make it better.

Right. When God purchased me, he didn't get anything good. Right. He purchased me to make me better, to make me like his son.

Romans 10, 14. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him who they've never heard?

How are they to hear without someone preaching? So faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

The scriptures tell us how to get how to have salvation through Jesus.

All right. So that we can be reconciled to God. This is the message that everyone who in this room who is a

Christian is to be proclaiming on a regular basis to the people around you. It's called witnessing, evangelizing, sharing your faith, sharing the gospel with other people around you.

The gospel is Jesus's Lord. You're going to stand before him one day and have to give an account of your life.

How are you going to stand in the judgment? By trusting, by repenting of my sins and trusting in the perfect finished work of Jesus on my behalf.

James 1, 18. Of his own will, he brought us forth. By what? The word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

That's a really important verse because it's God's own will. Of his own will, he brought us forth.

This wasn't something that I came up with in my head on my own. Yeah, I really need to.

I really need to be born again. God's like, no, I'm going to birth you. Thank God that he did.

The scriptures are self -verifying. John 16, first Corinthians two, true according to Jesus and are the ultimate authority in all matters.

They address John 16, 13, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Now, many people rip that verse out of context. That is to the apostles, the apostles who would later pen the scriptures and give us what we need to know.

OK, this is not a blanket statement so that every individual believer is going to hear from God and be able to pen new revelation of who he is.

OK, this was to the apostles. They are the ones who give us the scriptures. First Corinthians two, 12 and 13.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us by God.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual to choose to those who are spiritual.

The natural man does not accept the things of the of the spirit. They are spiritually discerned.

The man in the flesh cannot understand. So when we read the word of God as a believer with the

Holy Spirit inside of you, you're going to understand it. Someone who does not have the spirit of God is going to read these words and be like, this is just another nice book.

Yeah, it's got deep truths in it, but it's not transformative. Think about when Jesus asked

Peter, who do you say I am? Thou art the Christ, the son of living God. What does Jesus say?

Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven.

OK, the spirit has to open your eyes, your ears and your heart, change you so that you can believe this and receive it and grow in it.

All right. That's why this is so important. Understanding the scriptures. People without the spirit are going to reject the scriptures because they don't understand that these are spiritual truths.

John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Proverbs 2, 6, for the

Lord gives wisdom from his mouth. Come knowledge and understanding. Right. We say this all the time because we hold to a presuppositional apologetic.

You cannot know anything apart from from the God of the scriptures. Right. Apart from the God of the scriptures, defining everything and revealing things to us through the scriptures, you would not be able to have certainty about anything, you know, because it could change.

Out of all the knowledge in all the world, how much would you say you have? Not much.

How much knowledge does God have? All knowledge. He's got all he holds all knowledge.

He is knowledge. Right. So when he reveals something to us, we can have certainty because he can't be wrong.

He has all knowledge. Right. We do these scientific discoveries. Right. And they'll come to a conclusion in 10 years, 20 years later.

Oh, wow. We have new information that changes this. And now we've got to go in a different direction is always something new that can be added to your understanding that can change your whole conclusion.

Not with God. He knows the end from the beginning because he created it. OK. First, John 5, 9, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater for this is the testimony of God that he's born concerning his son.

All right. Again, God testifies to something. This is my son whom I love with him. I'm well pleased. OK. The scriptures.

They illuminate our mind, keep us from sinning, keep us from perishing, find their origin in heaven and will never fade.

Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. Right. We read that in Psalm 119.

That's a that's a common, commonly memorized verse for young children. It should be for us, too.

Right. The scriptures are going to be a lamp unto my feet and tell us how to live our life. I stored up your word in my heart that I may not sin against you.

Right. As a believer, you keep taking the scriptures in. And then when you're in a situation, all of a sudden, because you're spiritual and the spirit lives inside you,

God will quicken your mind to a scripture and be like, oh, wait a second. I was going to go in that direction.

I'm not going in that direction anymore. Right. God brings to mind certain scriptures. Oops. If your law had not been my delight,

I would have perished in my affliction. Right. What is the word law mean there?

It doesn't mean the Ten Commandments. It includes the

Ten Commandments. That word law means instruction. This is this is the Torah, the first five books of the

Bible. That's all instruction to us. So when we when we cherish

God's law and immerse ourselves in it and we see the things that are that happen throughout the Torah, we again, it becomes a light lamp into our feet and a light into our path.

So we don't fall in the way and perish the way they did forever. Oh, Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.

This is why the church didn't give us the word of God. The word of God is sourced in heaven by God.

He gives it to us and gives it to us through his church. But the church didn't say, well, that's

God's word and made it God's word. They recognized that it was God's word and it circulated to us.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. God's word is going to remain true forever.

Nothing in this world will necessarily be true forever, but God's word will. OK, the scriptures are preeminent and authoritative over tradition.

Why am I going to go through this? Why is it necessary to go through the scriptures authority over traditions authority?

Because there are certain religious traditions that hold tradition up to being on par with Scripture.

But they're not OK. The scriptures endure forever. Tradition does not.

First Peter one twenty four all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord remains forever. Tradition does not remain forever.

Scripture will be fulfilled day after day. I was with you in a temple teaching and you did not seize me.

But let the scriptures be fulfilled. Scriptures will be fulfilled. Tradition will not. How?

How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your words? Scripture purifies your life.

Tradition does not. Scripture is divinely inspired. All scriptures God breathe and useful for teaching, correction, reproof and training and righteousness.

We know that one. Scripture is trustworthy. Tradition is not. You appointed your testimonies in righteousness and in all faithfulness.

We're going to continue one more. Scripture blesses those who keep it. Tradition does not. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law.

When you see that word, think instruction, walk in the instruction of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who keep him with their whole heart.

That's never promised to us of tradition. Never. Scripture gives assurance of salvation.

Tradition does not. I write these things to you who believe in the name of Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

There are religious traditions that teach you, you don't know. And if you say, you know, they call you arrogant.

I said, and usually I said, I just quoted the scripture. All I am quoting the scripture.

The problem, the reason why you don't have assurance or you think it's arrogant to say that, you know, you have eternal life is because it's based on something you do.

That's what you're basing it on. I'm not basing my salvation on something I do. I'm basing it on something someone else did.

It's all of Christ. It's all of grace. So I can say confidently, I have eternal life because of him, not because of me.

My assurance doesn't come from me. It comes from him. He's perfect. Scripture is profitable for salvation.

Tradition is not. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

Scripture is God's testimony. Tradition is man's testimony. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

For this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning his son. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

The Pharisees set up a tradition. It's called the Corban rule.

Instead of giving money and taking care of their parents, they say, well, we donated it to the church. And that's a tradition that they came up with, which violates the commandment to honor your mother and father, take care of your family.

So you negate the law of God for the tradition of man. You want to guard yourself against that.

And it's not just Rome. There's other religious traditions that slip into these things.

They start teaching a tradition as if it was true gospel. We have to guard ourselves against that.

Interpretation. The scripture should be read literally, meaning different genres of language are used and must be read as such.

Narrative as narrative, poetry as poetry, parable as parable. This is really important because a lot of errors in the church come from people misunderstanding the genre of the literature, specifically the

Book of Acts. Well, tongues of fire resided on their heads and they spoke in tongues.

See, that's what happened. The Book of Tongues is narrative, not normative.

So when somebody says, well, that's what the Book of Acts says, they all spoke in tongues. Just ask them, say, how do you guys pick your elders?

Do you do by casting lots? Well, no, I would never do that. Well, that's what they did in the Book of Acts, right?

Have you sold all your property and given up all your possessions and donated them to the church so it would be dispersed to everyone who had need?

No, that's what they did in the Book of Acts. So you pick out one little thing that you think you're doing to the negation of the rest, not recognizing that's narrative, not meant to be normative.

OK, that's important. The words of scripture were penned by man, but sourced in and authored by God in such a way as to preserve the personality and style of the writer and yet also convey the very words that God wanted to say.

Second Peter, we went through this one already. Interpretation. Oh, OK, this is what

I pulled up, what our confession says about it. It says, the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself, and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, which is not manifold but one, it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

In other words, the rule of faith is scripture interprets scripture. When you have a misunderstanding of scripture, you go to other scriptures to try to clarify it.

And you don't take the obscure passages and use them to clarify what the clear passages mean.

You take the clear passages first and then interpret the obscure ones, or the more difficult ones,

I should say, in light of the clear ones. Follow? So the scripture is never going to contradict itself.

It has to be harmonized. Somebody will say, well, we're not saved by good works. But James says, faith without works is dead.

Well, what do we do? Is that a contradiction? No, when you harmonize them, it makes perfect sense. Good works flow from a changed heart, right?

So that's what we need to do with the scriptures. When you look at a scripture that you don't understand, find other scriptures that speak about the same topic clearly and measure that one in light of this one.

Any questions? The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be none other but the holy scripture delivered by the spirit into which scripture so delivered.

Our faith is finally resolved. The confession is saying that the scripture is our ultimate authority.

No matter what man says, no matter what a council says, no matter what somebody else thinks, ultimately we're going to be measured based on what the scriptures say.

There are several Christian traditions, Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, all claim to have authority to tell you what you must and must not believe.

And their authority ultimately is their leadership, not the scriptures. We say no, we are subservient to the scriptures as best we can understand them and no one, no human being is infallible.

The only infallible instrument we have is the scripture. That's why that's our ultimate authority.

Everything goes back to that. No man stands over the scriptures. All right, so what did

Jesus think? Luke 11, 49, therefore also the wisdom of God said,

I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute. Jesus says the wisdom of God.

He's talking about the Old Testament. He says that that was from God, Jesus.

When he's led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil,

Mark 4, 1 through 3, after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry and the tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

What does Jesus say? How does he answer? It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.

Oh, yeah, well, what about this? Jesus said to him again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

The devil brings him another temptation. And Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the

Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus continually went back to the scriptures in his battle against Satan.

Right. What do we need to do when we're in an argument, not an argument, a discussion or fighting something, some temptation?

We need to go back to the scriptures. It is written. You have issues with your assurance of salvation.

These things are written so that you may know that you have eternal life. Why? Because it doesn't depend on me and it depends on what he's done for me.

Thank you, Lord. The canon of scripture. The scriptures consist of the 66 books of the

Bible, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. The Apocrypha, although good for knowledge and history, is not inspired and therefore not

God's infallible word. Again, there's tradition, religious traditions that hold to the Apocrypha, which is 13 or 14 books in addition to the books that we have.

This was the Orthodox position. In other words, that the Apocrypha was not God breathed. This was the

Orthodox position of the Jews at that time, including Josephus and Christians like Melito of Sardis, Athanasius, Jerome.

Jerome included the Apocrypha in his Latin Vulgate, but advised that they are not books of the canon, but books of the church and not on par with the older writings.

So they were good for history. They were good for knowing things, but they were not on par with scripture.

Scripture is God breathed. The Apocrypha was not. So when it comes to this, I would concur with Wayne Grudem.

He's a theologian who wrote a good systematic theology. He says the churches throughout the ancient world reached agreement on the extent of the canon.

In A .D. 367, the 39th Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an exact list of the 27

New Testament books we have today. This was the list of books accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the

Mediterranean world. 30 years later, A .D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the churches in the western part of the

Mediterranean world, agreed with the eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of our present day canon.

So the early church even recognized the difference between the Apocrypha and the 27 New Testament books that we have.

It's important because there are people saying the Apocrypha is part of God -breathed revelation to us and they pull doctrines out of there and try to apply them to us when they don't line up with the other scriptures.

Okay, so you guys know a little bit about me. I have to give you an acronym.

I'm sorry. All right, B. Scriptures are breathed out by God. Theopneustos.

I. They're inerrant, inspired, and infallible. They build up, they edify the saints.

Man cannot live by bread alone, so that B could also be bread. Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word out of the mouth of God.

L. They give us everything we need for life and godliness. It's all found in the scriptures.

E. It's essential for salvation. The scriptures are special revelation as opposed to general revelation.

This gives us how we can know the God of the scriptures. Special revelation and it's self -verifying.

In other words, the scriptures verify themselves. They say that they are the ultimate authority and they bear witness to that as people live out their lives.

And again, people who are filled with the Holy Spirit recognize and say, yeah, the scripture is true. The scriptures are the self -proclaimed, self -attesting,

God -preserved and special revelation of God himself by God himself, which is internally consistent and internally witnessed by the believer and externally consistent historically.

They are the ultimate authority over all things and they are the starting point for all knowledge and wisdom.

That's where we start. Questions? Now, understand that was a real quick synopsis.

There are volumes upon volumes upon volumes of books written about bibliology, the study of the scriptures.

Is there any questions, anything that popped into your mind? Yes. It's called that because it's a collection of books that are

God -breathed. The church recognized that and said that this is the book, the book.

Yes. If Jesus is using, this is for people who are listening to the audio.

If Jesus is fighting temptation and the enemy with scripture, how much more should we use the scriptures?

The Bible is called the sword of the spirit. The sword is an offensive weapon.

It's designed to cut. So when somebody is discussing things with you and they're rejecting the knowledge of God, you cut them with the scripture.

We just continually go back to the scripture. That's our ultimate authority. That's where we start.

That's where we need to be. Here's the last one. Psalm 119, 160.

The sum, in other words, all of it, the sum of your word is truth and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

All right. We have the God -breathed, infallible, inerrant word of God in our hands.

It should be our most valuable physical possession. And we should hide it in our heart that we may not sin against him.

The good and gracious God reveals himself to us when he didn't have to. Okay.