The Inspiration of Scripture

Synoptic study, a study of the synoptic Gospels for... I motioned toward George, he's not here. As I was reminded last week for over eight years now, and you go, anyone who's been doing a study for over eight years just is going too slowly.

Well, I'm not always here, and I don't always do this, so it really hasn't been eight full years. I think if you took out Mr. Callahan's period of time and my period of time, probably about six years, I would say.

We've been going through the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We've been throwing John in, which has also slowed things down, too. So, it's been a Gospel study, and we have come to the Passion Week, the week of the betrayal of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ, and I have mentioned a number of times, as we have been preparing to enter into that material, and for those of you who are visiting with us, we use a parallel Gospel.

There's a few of them over there on the stand underneath the television, and that way we have to deal with the differences that exist between the Gospels themselves, and there are differences in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Notice I'm not saying contradictions, because contradictions is a different word than differences, and we look at them and try to understand where the differences lie, and what they mean, and so on and so forth.

Well, the most difficult ones to deal with are in the crucifixion and resurrection narratives, which we are now approaching that material, and so I've mentioned for a few weeks that it would be necessary to sort of go back to what we stated a number of years ago in the introduction to all of this, and go back over some important things.

But as I was thinking about that, I likewise asked myself the question, when was the last time we went back over and reviewed the issue of what we believe about Scripture to begin with? And I honestly could not remember the last time we had done so specifically.

That is not to say that that is not a rather normal thing that we do in the preaching and teaching, but it's sort of assumed rather than necessarily stated, and so given the constant attack that the faith is under in our culture, given the fact that especially if you are in education, if you are a student of any kind really, if you're a person who interacts with the world in the sense of encountering its criticisms of the faith, there is an erosive quality of life in Western culture today in regards to the Christian faith.

It is not something that builds up the faith. Even the casual encounter you have with, say, talk shows. I know that when I drive around during the week, I'll have normally talk radio on. Sometimes I get sick and tired of that, and we'll head back to the classical music station or something like that, but I want to have some idea of what's going on.

I'm not a news junkie, but I also don't want to be the last one to have found out. It's a little embarrassing when you go, well, President Bush will take care of that. Huh? You're a little behind the times, aren't you?

What? Something happened? I don't know. That looks a little foolish. So I keep on top of things, but if you do that, it's amazing if you're really sensitive to attempting to cultivate and build and maintain a Christian worldview.

Notice those words that I use there. To build up, develop purposely a Christian worldview, which is something I think every believer must be actively involved in doing. It must be one of your goals. This is always the week where everybody starts setting goals for the new year.

Does it seem that long ago that we were doing that last year? It seems like just a matter of days ago sometimes that we were doing that, and once you get to be my age, you've done it so many times, it starts getting, you know, routine.

But certainly one of the goals that we as Christians should have is building up, creating a self-conscious Christian worldview. Hopefully none of us are willing to accept, in essence, having a secular worldview with religious frosting on it.

A secular worldview where, in reality, we presuppose the same things as those who hate God and who live as if God did not exist, but then we just lather some frosting of religion on top of it. I'm afraid that's the plague of a lot of evangelicalism today, is that, in essence, what we have is a religious frosting on top of a secular worldview.

And I think that explains a lot of what we see in what's called the quote-unquote church today. But if we are trying to build that worldview up, and if we are trying to maintain it, why would we have to maintain it?

Well, because we live in this world and the world is constantly seeking to conform us to its image. There is this constant pressure being placed upon us to conform us to the image of the world. And so, if that is the case, and I'm speaking to believers, obviously, I'm assuming if you're here this morning you have a belief in the Bible's Word of God and Jesus Christ as Lord of all.

To a believer, there is a constant friction, there is a constant resistance from the world that seeks to avoid and refrain from saying, Jesus is Lord. I'm Lord. Science is Lord. Mother Nature is Lord.

Anything is Lord but Jesus, because I don't want to bow the knee to Him. So there's a constant pressure coming back at you. That's why you need to have regular exposure to the Word of God. That's why you need to have the church.

That's why you need to have fellowship with other saints. Because, just as you must maintain a vehicle, because there are forces coming against that vehicle that cause it to break down over time. We've all heard the stories of folks who buy a car and, you know, 30 ,000 miles later, it's coming in on a tow truck and the person says to the mechanic, I don't know what's wrong, it just stopped running.

Well, when was the last time you changed the oil? What's that? Change what? And there are people that, honestly, talk to a mechanic at a car shop, they'll tell you there are people. They don't know. And so it has not been maintained.

Well, there are forces of friction working inside that engine and eventually, sayonara, it's all over with. Well, there are forces that come against you every single day. And so, not only do you have to build up a Christian worldview, you have to maintain it.

Because there are going to be forces that are going to come against that and break that down. It has to be repaired. It has to be effort put out. This kick back and relax Christianity that is so common in the world today, it just doesn't work because it's not realistic.

Since there are constantly these forces coming against you, one of the primary areas of attack is upon your belief that God has spoken. What the world, in all of its various manifestations, wants you to believe is that God has not spoken.

Because once you begin to question whether God has spoken with any type of clarity at all, they've got you. You're not going to... they don't even care if you remain religious, as long as that is a religion that has no message that affects them.

Because once you no longer have a belief that God has spoken with clarity, you cannot say anything with authority. You're limited to your own personal opinions. They don't care about your personal opinions.

They will demand you care about their personal opinions, but they don't really care about yours. And so, that is the focus of so much of the world's approach to us as believers is to break down a belief that God has spoken.

Frequently, it's just done through mockery. How can you really believe such silliness? All the PhDs don't believe that, etc., etc., etc. But other times, especially over the Internet, and I didn't watch it, but I saw links to, I guess, even Fox News.

You'd think there might be at least a little conservatism there, but not really. Even Fox News had a thing on the birth of Christ, and they had Elaine Pagels on, and John Dominic Crossan on, and all the regular suspects of unbelievers who debunk the mythology of Bethlehem, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's just how the world is. And it happens every year at this time, and give it just a few more weeks here, and you get around the Resurrection Sunday time, and it's going to happen again, and it's just the way that it is.

And so we have to repeat once in a while, and shore up, shall we say, against that constant erosion. What it is we believe about the Word of God, lest we fall into the trap of so many of the liberal denominations, where they've abandoned that foundation, and you're left the big old church standing in mid-air.

Because there's no reason to believe in things like the Doctrine of the Trinity, or the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, or Substitutionary Atonement, or Heaven and Hell, or Judgment, or any of those things, if God has not spoken with clarity.

There's no way to believe in the Doctrine of the Trinity, unless you have a divine revelation that's consistent with itself. When those denominations abandon those things, those old creeds just become things that you say to make you feel good.

They no longer embody truth. They just become tradition. And so we have to be reminded every once in a while, I think, about what we believe about the nature of Scripture. And sometimes this is necessary, because we do look so carefully and closely at the text, which is an appropriate thing to do, that sometimes we start losing the big picture.

You know, you think of the botanist who focuses so closely upon the system of photosynthesis in the leaves of a tree, and how the products of photosynthesis are brought from the leaves into the branch, into the trunk, and this is vital to the life of the tree.

But there are people who have PhDs in leaves. All right? I mean, they're just focused, like a laser beam, on the leaf. And they know everything there is to know about the leaf. But sometimes you can be so focused upon the leaf that you don't see the forest.

And sometimes there are people that are so focused upon the big picture that they are worthless when it comes to the details. We know how that works. And the same thing is true when we're studying Scripture.

Sometimes we can become so focused upon a particular doctrine, or upon a particular verse, or series of verses, or whatever else it might be, that we either become satisfied that, well, I know enough, I know more than almost anybody else I know about that, and so I don't need to worry about, you know, these big picture issues, or these themes that run through the Bible, or the stuff that's over in a book over here doesn't have any relevant verses.

We become so focused upon the leaf, we lose the forest. Because that leads to an imbalance in our knowledge of Scripture. And it certainly leads to an imbalance in our knowledge of why we believe the Bible is the Word of God, and why we believe it to be inspired.

One of the most beautiful things that I know comes from years of study of the Scriptures is seeing the themes that are woven from beginning to end of the Bible. Most of you know, but not everybody, most of you know that I do a lot of work with unbelievers.

I'll be teaching a class starting January 3rd for the various Reformed Baptist schools across the United States. All three of the major ones are cooperating together and sponsoring this class I'll be teaching in Owensboro on polemics, dealing with the new atheists, and Islam, and Roman Catholicism, and so on and so forth.

And in dealing with those who oppose the faith, it is a constant battle to be trying to defend the Word, but so often the attacks are just upon a focused little area. And my opponent almost never sees the big picture, or will never admit the existence of a big picture, and almost never have enough knowledge of the Scriptures to even see the big picture in the first place.

And so they will read the text in a very surface-level manner, and they will say, well this clearly contradicts this over here. There's just no way you can put these two together. And on a surface-level reading, if you don't know anything about the backgrounds, you don't know anything about the authors, you don't know anything about the issues they're addressing, and certainly if you do not see the flow of redemptive history, and how God has dealt with people from different lands, and different epochs of time, and 40 different authors over 1 ,500 years, and multiple languages, and all the rest of these things, it's real easy to create surface-level contradictions that do not see the essence of Scripture itself.

But at the same time, before you can become overly critical of the critic himself, the vast majority of Christians that this critic has been dealing with his entire life, have been Christians who've read the Bible the same way.

They've read it in the surface-level way. They've been the people who have ever seen this suggested to people? Here's the Bible. Ever seen people suggest that you discover the will of God like this? Oh, great.

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. Okay, I'm in trouble. We might chuckle at that here, but I've been places where there are people who have said, you know, God just led me to open my Bible, and I opened my eyes, and I bought the Corvette, because it said right there, the desires of thy heart shall be fulfilled.

And now I can't give money to nobody, and I'm going to lose my house, and everything else, but I've got my Corvette, because God told me to. You know, they treat the Bible like it's a magic talisman, or, you know, magic book of potions, or something like that.

And so, you know, we might look at the critic and say, you know, you're getting close here. But the reality is, a lot of the people that they deal with, that's how they view the Scriptures. And so, it's important to have that overall broad view.

And you can follow, it is frequently, they're frequently described as these golden or silver threads. These themes, we've mentioned some of them in the Hebrews study, which we're getting back to today, believe it or not, in the services.

I've been preaching through Hebrews, and I've mentioned these themes that you can trace from Genesis, or at least Moses. You know, through the historical works, through the prophets, the major prophets, the minor prophets, through the Gospels, and in the proclamation of the church, and in the Eschaton, into the end times.

You can trace these threads, and they're spoken in different words by different people with different emphases. And that means we have to listen carefully. That means we have to have a balanced knowledge of all of the Word, not just simply some parts of the Word, to really see them with clarity.

But they're there. And they're amazing when you consider that if this collection of 66 books is not what we believe it to be, how did those things get there? I mean, it's one thing to come up with conspiracy theories about people who are alive the same time, the same place.

But it's a whole lot harder to come up with conspiracy theories about people who live in different places and speak different languages over the course of 1 ,500 years. And normally when you have that kind of, you know, there's the Illuminati, or what was the Dan Brown stuff?

You know, these groups that have existed for all this time, and they stay consistent with all our system. In those situations, what they produce is going to look the same over all the years, and it's going to be expressed in the same type of language.

That's not what you have in Scripture. And so what can explain this consistency that exists, despite the differing situations in which people wrote? Another area that's important is to recognize what we mean when we talk about inspiration.

Let's look at a couple of the classical passages on this subject of what we're saying when we say the Bible is the Word of God. It is God's very speaking. If we look at, let's just look at the two main, what are called the locus classicus, the classical texts on the subject of inspiration.

One of them you probably know is 2 Peter 1, verses 20 and 21. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Now, that's the NASB rendering of that particular text. The ESB rendering is, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. And the NIV goes so far as to say from the prophet's own interpretation, which I think is a fair reading.

What is being said here? Well, Peter is emphasizing the fact that no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. The prophet wasn't sitting around one day under a tree in Israel, and he was feeling particularly spiritual that day, and there were beautiful puffy clouds floating by overhead, and he thought he saw images in the clouds that were just downright divine.

And the birds were singing, and the wind was blowing, and the grass was waving, and he just felt close to God. And so he began to interpret what he saw, and what you have there is Scripture. Peter's whole point is, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

The prophet's not sitting there pondering things. Let's be a little more serious, and the prophet's pondering the problem of evil. And so it's inspired in the sense that here was a particularly religious man with a particularly good religious insight.

That is how the vast majority of our fellow citizens would understand the concept of inspiration, that it's elevated writing. Well, let's face it, there are portions of Scripture that are not elevated in that sense at all.

I mean, there are some portions of the Old Testament historical books that, they're history. This king did this, and then people came and killed this king, and then they buried him, and this guy became king.

And, you know, Charles Dickens could have written that with a little bit more flowery language. Would that be more inspired? That's not what inspiration is. According to Peter, no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

Really? Well, what would that mean? Because there's been all sorts of people who claim to be prophets. I mean, Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet. He writes the Book of Mormon, well, allegedly translated the Book of Mormon, but you know what I mean.

And he's got revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, and he translates the Book of Abraham by the gift and power of God from the ancient papyrus written by Abraham, which is actually an Egyptian funerary document.

But, hey, anyway, those are revelations, right? Prophecies? No, they came from the will of man, and they are not prophecies of Scripture. They are uninspired, fakes, frauds. But the people of Israel, and the people of the early church to whom Peter's writing, certainly would have known about all these prophecies of Scripture.

And when we say prophecy here, we're not just talking about, well, in years such and such, such and such is going to happen. Very frequently we limit the term prophecy in that way. That's actually not a meaningful biblical category to limit prophecy to at all.

This is God speaking. No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. That's not where it came from. He didn't say some came from the will of man, and then God elevated it and sort of breathed something into it and made it special.

No. Here's Peter's understanding of Scripture. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now, if you have a King James or New King James, it's going to say, holy men. There is a textual variant there in the Greek text, and I think it is important to recognize that because it wasn't the holiness of men that had anything to do with the coming of Scripture.

Solomon wrote Scripture, but we know he did not exactly end up as the most holy of men. And David wrote Scripture, but David was an adulterer and a murderer. So, I've become more sensitive to this because of my work in Islam.

Did you know that in the Koran, the story of David and Nathan is found in the Koran? But you see, Muslims don't believe that prophets can be sinful. They can be sinners, but in a minor way. But Allah will not allow a prophet to commit major sin.

This won't happen. So, any of the stories of the Old Testament prophets who did commit major sin, Solomon, 700 wives, 300 concubines, David and Bathsheba, gone. They're not in the Koran. But, interestingly enough, the story of David and Nathan is in the Koran.

Nathan comes to David, it's just the Koran doesn't tell you why he ever came to David. Because David would never do that sin. And so, it's an odd, sort of desperate attempt to clean things up. And it doesn't really leave anything explained, but that's how it works.

So, I've become more sensitive to the fact that this idea of the holiness of the prophets, the holiness of the person through whom this revelation comes, no. That's not the point. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Now, listen to that description. It is, let me translate it literally for you. But, by the Holy Spirit being carried along, they spoke from God, men. The last word is men. Now, we have to put that up front because in English, in English syntax, we identify subjects by order and sentence.

But, Greek doesn't do that. That can all be identified by the form of the word. And so, the emphasis is placed upon the bearing along by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the first emphasis is, but by Holy Spirit bearing along, they spoke from God, men.

The element of this is extremely important. The first emphasis is by Holy Spirit. So, scripture is a divine thing. It is not merely a human production that God elevates. Be very, very careful that the theological language we use does not mislead you here.

What is the normal theological word that we're talking about here? The word is inspiration. Inspiration. Now, to inspire. Well, there's a secular use of the term. We talk about, that was an inspired performance.

That was an inspired speech. Or, it was an inspiring speech or something like that. It's a Latin term, inspiratu, which means to breathe into. And so, the idea would be that there's something that has been breathed into a performance, breathed into a speech, that elevates it above the mundane and the normal of the daily routine.

And we use that term very loosely. We all do. I do, too. I try not to. But, I make this mistake myself. We will say things like, so Peter was inspired to say. Now, I know what I mean by that. But, I'm actually, that's misleading.

That's not a biblical phrase. In fact, about the only place that we really find that term inspired is in the other key text, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. All scripture is inspired by God. The problem is, that's a bad translation.

That's just all there is to it. The underlying Greek term that Paul uses is very rich. It's theanoustos, from theos, God. And, nousteo, from pneuma, to breathe. So, it's God breathed. Breathed out by God.

That's not breathed into by God. It's breathed out by God. There's a vast difference between my taking a balloon and breathing into it. And, the breath that comes from my mouth as I speak. One is very intimate to me.

But, that balloon could have been made by anybody. And, I'm just breathing something into it. Inspiration is breathing into something. That's why it's not really a good translation of theanoustos, where the emphasis is upon the production of God.

And, it's the same thing right here, interestingly enough, by Holy Spirit. Poupon, noumetos, nouma. The noumetos, how do you, the Holy Spirit. So, Peter's emphasis is upon the spiritual nature and the role of the Spirit.

Notice, the first part of the verse has a negative. It starts off with ou, negative in the Greek. For, by the will of man has never come a prophecy. So, when you have a negative at the beginning of a sentence, and then you use the connective, a law, it becomes an adversative.

But, on the other hand, not this way, but this way. So, not by the will of man, but by the Holy Spirit. A strong contrast drawn between the two. But, by Holy Spirit bearing along. It's the, the Greek word is pharaoh, which means to carry.

You know, I had a huge list of honey-do's yesterday at our house, because all the family came over in the afternoon. And so, after Kelly and I did a bike ride in the morning, we got back and we had work to do.

And, I had to do a lot of pharaoh. I had to carry tables around, and chairs around, and clean stuff up, and take garbage out, and put this here, and take that there, and sweep this, and it was, it was a tough day.

I'm going to need a day off after that. And, but that's the same word you use. It's a standard word, just to carry along, to bear something up. And so, you have an activity by the Holy Spirit that's described as bearing, or carrying along men.

They are men who speak, apotheu, from God. So, it's men speaking, but they are speaking as they are being carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now, I think this is something that, as believers, we must think through, and keep in the forefront of our minds, for so many reasons.

There are a lot of stylistic differences, as you read through the Bible. You can see real stylistic differences between Psalms, between various of the Psalms. You know, some are very up-tempo, and some are acrostic poems, and some are just, man, Debbie Downer, all the way, this poor guy, man, he was having a tough day, you know.

And, there's just, you have this wide, wide range of expression, just within the Psalter, and that's just in one language. And, when you really study the text in depth, you discover, for example, there's a wide range of levels of expression in the New Testament.

When I teach Greek, first-year Greek, at the end of first year, what's the book you read? You read 1 John. Because, 1 John is baby Greek. It's the simplest Greek in the New Testament. Most people can read 1 John without ever opening up a lexicon, or looking up a form, or anything else.

It's simple grammar, simple vocabulary, you know, level 1 or 2 out of 10. You turn back to Hebrews, you turn to Acts, or to Luke, and you're in a completely different world. Levels 9 and 10. Complex grammar, complex vocabulary.

They're not identical to one another. And, that is why we don't believe in a mechanical dictation theory of Revelation, either. What's a mechanical dictation theory? Well, it's pretty straightforward.

I mean, we all know how it works. Did any of you get Dragon Natural Speaking for Christmas, for your computer? We've got to get that from Mr. Callahan. I think Mr. Callahan would like that. Mr. Callahan can just sit there and talk to his computer, and his computer will type out whatever he's doing.

And, that's what we need to get from Mr. Callahan, for Dragon Naturally Speaking. But, that would be a mechanical dictation, would be to sit there and say, Hello, computer. And, up comes, Hello, computer.

And, you just sit there and talk. And, it repeats exactly what you said. And so, in a historical context, that would be something like taking over the Apostle Paul, or taking, and the person just becomes a dictation machine.

Sort of like goes into a trance, you know, trance writing. It's well known in occultic circles, to where someone goes into a trance, and they start writing things out. And, you know, the spirit within them is doing this, etc., etc.

And, we would expect, if that's how inspiration took place, that we could read 1 John, and 2 Peter, and Jude, and Romans, and Matthew. And, it's all going to be the same. It's all going to sound the same.

Because, you just got one author, and there's no human element involved anymore. But, that's not what this text says. This says, men spoke from God. What they spoke came from God, but it was men who were speaking.

And, it was men who were crying out in the psalter, How long, O Lord? It was men who were crying out in the psalter, I rejoice in the deliverance of my Lord. And, it was men who were using their language.

And, they used different languages. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek. Some people's Greek was more influenced by certain colloquialisms than others. I mean, even when you read the Synoptic Gospels, some of the differences between them have to do with the way in which the writers understood the language, and their choice of words, and synonyms, and so on.

Men spoke. But, what they spoke was from God. And, they spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And, that's why we need to recognize what Paul said. Paul never said in 2 Timothy that any writer was ever inspired.

He never said that. He said, all Scripture is inspired. Not the writers of Scripture. What's the difference? If the writer is inspired, how do you know that what he writes is going to be itself God breathed?

He may have awesome thoughts of God, given to him by God, spiritually born. But, our concern is, did those thoughts get on to what he was writing? And, were they adequately conveyed so we can understand that?

That's what we'd be concerned about. And so, when we say, well, Peter was inspired to say this. What we're saying is that the Holy Spirit was involved in the production of what Peter wrote. Because, what is inspired, what is theanoustos, what is God breathed, is the result of the writing.

It's what ends up being transmitted down to us over time. The Scripture itself. That's what the locus of inspiration of that divine act of revelation is. And, according to Paul in 2 Timothy, that's why Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

The man of God may be thoroughly equipped, perfected unto all good works. And, that's why Peter can say, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. It does not find its origination in man.

Men spoke from God, but not as dictation machines. Their personalities weren't wiped out. Their language wasn't destroyed. They even spoke from their own life situations. You know, when Paul says, Timothy, bring me the cloak and the parchments, he wants the parchments so he can write.

He wants the cloak because he's cold. It's cold in that Roman prison. They didn't have a nice oil heater over there, you know, to keep you warm. They didn't have global warming like we have now to keep you warm.

Just like everyone back east is really enjoying their global warming right now as they're freezing to death. They didn't have all that stuff. And so, Paul speaks from the life situation he is in, which, of course, comes about by God's providence, but the point is, we have a very high view of inspiration.

I don't think a mechanical dictation view of inspiration is a high view of inspiration at all. I really don't. I mean, if God basically has to wipe the mind of the person he's using clean so that he can just, you know, like, what's the difference between that and a printer?

You know, the old teletype machines. What's the difference? There's no difference. But to use, providentially use a man, to have created him in such a way, to have given him certain sets of language skills in such a way, to have given him certain experiences in such a way, that what he writes in his language is what God wants written and communicated to us, that takes divine power.

And yet, so often, the arguments presented against this are not against what we believe. They're against the straw man. They're against surface level readings of the text that do not take these things into consideration at all.

And so we have to keep this in mind as we consider what we'll be talking about when we start, the next time I'm with you, looking at the backgrounds of the Synoptic Gospels and the purposes of the authors.

We start talking about what Matthew's purpose is versus Mark's purpose versus Luke's purpose in recording the crucifixion narratives and what they want to communicate to their differing audiences. Sometimes we can become so focused upon that human element that we fail to step back and see what holds all of this together.

Peter knew. He knew the Old Testament prophecies. He knew the differences in Isaiah and Jeremiah, for example. And yet, he can put them together as prophecy of Scripture, origination in God. Men spoke, but they spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And it is that high view of Scripture that I think is absolutely necessary to maintain to even make sense of the whole of Scripture, let alone to have anything called systematic theology or an understanding of how it all hangs together.

All right. We've exhausted our time. Hopefully, that's useful to you. We will pick up again. I will be here next week, so we'll pick up with the background issues before we launch into the rest of Synoptic Gospels.

Let's close our time with a word of prayer. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the prophecies of Scripture. We thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit in bearing these men of old along and then preserving for us what you would have us to know to this day.

We thank you for the Scriptures. We ask that you would open them to our understandings even now as we go into study and to worship you in the service that comes hereafter. We pray in Christ's name.