Jo Vitale [00:00:35] So welcome to the podcast where we invite you to Ask Away.

Hi everyone. Welcome to Ask Away. I'm Jo Vitale and I'm here with Vince. 

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Vince Vitale [00:00:48] Great to be with you all. 

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Jo Vitale [00:00:49] And we hope that you're having a really good summer so far. We're actually going to be heading off in a few days to go visit my family in England, so I'm really excited for that. But, first off, before we get there, we are looking forward to speaking to this question today that somebody called John has sent in. John, thank you so much. It really is a fantastic question and it's really thoughtfully expressed. And so, I'm going to read it for you guys now. "I have a respect for the Bible and its authors, but no one has ever presented me with a reasonable rationale for it being divine in and of itself. I don't see any reason to make the equation that I have put all of my faith in Christ; therefore, I must believe that every word of the Bible is perfect and divine. So, my question for you is what am I missing? Is that a logical rationale, or set up steps that inexorably bring you from devotion to Christ to a perfect, uncritical Bible, or is that view of the Bible simply a choice that some people make?". 

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[00:01:48] You have framed this so excellently, John. And when I hear your question, what immediately comes to mind for me is so what if the Bible tells me so, right? That's the song that we sing to our kids nearly every night. Jesus loves me; this I know for the Bible tells me so. But I guess the question you're asking is, well, so what if the Bible tells me so? Who gave the Bible authority to tell me so? And why put any more weight to what the Bible says to me than what my horoscope app says to me is one example. Why do we put so much weight on this? Why are Christians hanging so much on the Bible as the Word of God? 

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Vince Vitale [00:02:25] Yeah. Thank you, John. I couldn't agree more. Wonderfully expressed, question. And I'm just so glad you asked it. We've been thinking about it a lot because we think this is a really big deal. If you look at most church websites and go to their values page, the number one value is probably something about the Bible; something about the Bible being foundational, the biblical authority being critical. And then every sermon and every teaching and practice of that church is very likely guided by the assumption that if the Bible says it, it's true. 

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Jo Vitale [00:03:01] You're right. 

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Vince Vitale [00:03:02] But then if you ask most Christians why they believe the Bible, not just why they think it's a useful book in general, but why they believe it to be the Word of God, divinely inspired without error, many people have very little to say. And there's a huge disconnect there between what the church is founded on. And then maybe many of your believers who are going week after week, people might talk about their personal experience of the power of God through reading the Bible. And I want to say, that's great. That is legitimate. I think that can be completely rational and justified. And in fact, the Bible talks about it being through choosing to do the will of God and through holding to its teaching that we actually come to know the truth of the teaching and that it comes from God. I'm thinking of John seven and eight here. 

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[00:03:55] So there is this sort of inverted epistemology where we don't come to know something and then live it out in the Christian life, but it's precisely by living it out that we come to confidence in our knowledge. So that knowledge resulting from personal experience, I want to say yes, amen, that's great, that's good, that's justified, that should not be underestimated. But-- a significant but here. But personal experience can also be very subjective. Many people of other faiths may make very similar claims about their personal experience when reading the sacred books of their religion. And we're also not always going to be able to translate our personal experience as authentic as it might be to a skeptic or a seeker who hasn't had the same experience, and who we long to be able to share the faith with. And even for believers, when attacks against the Bible come in a secular culture, when you find yourself confused or even concerned about certain passages of Scripture, do you have a strong, fortified reason to believe in the inspiration of Scripture that you can be confident in, even amidst fluctuations in your own emotions and understanding? 

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[00:05:16] As a believer, you're expected to believe the Bible to the degree that you would give your life for what it claims. So, our reasons for being confident in this book are absolutely critical. And yet we almost-- in my experience at least, we almost never hear this topic addressed. I'm not sure I've ever heard a sermon on why we treat the Bible as an ultimate authority. I mean, that belief is assumed in every sermon (I have heard) but I'm not sure I've ever heard a single one on why I should have confidence in that bedrock foundational assumption. And I think that's actually a big problem. We do tend to hear lots of teaching on maybe specific challenges against the Bible, increasingly so now, maybe teaching on gender, sexuality or warfare in the Old Testament. 

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[00:06:03] The sorts of objections that come up regularly trying to respond to each specific challenge. But we tend to miss this more fundamental and, I would argue, more important challenge at stake here, is Scripture perfect? Is it without error? What do we mean by that? Because what we think of those questions will massively impact how we treat all of the other questions about Scripture and therefore about life. And so, the question for today, I think, is such a good one, such a critical one, John. And so well worded, too. No one has ever presented me with a reasonable rationale. That's what we're asking for. For the inspiration and ultimate authority of Scripture. 

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Jo Vitale [00:06:45] Yeah. What I find interesting, actually, is I think what happens sometimes is even when someone poses this question to us, at the last minute it often gets switched out. So, I think the way people sometimes respond to the question you're asking is to start talking more generally about the general reliability of the Bible as an ancient text. I think that's where people tend to go when you put this kind of question to them. And don't get me wrong, there are lots of encouraging things to say about this. We can do a whole other episode on that- just a brief run through. Even just based on the normal standards of historical validity for ancient documents, the New Testament clearly does better than literally any other document. And so, there's so much to be said whether we want to talk about number of manuscripts or early dating of manuscripts, eyewitness testimony, the corroboration of details, names, authors willing to critique themselves, the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There's just there's a lot to talk about in this area. 

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[00:07:39] But that isn't the issue that I think you're asking about, and it's not the one we want to deal with today because we don't want to do that subtle switch of topic. I think when people are asking you a question, it's not really a question about general reliability of the Bible, but is the Bible an ultimate authority? And that matters because a lot of things are generally reliable. But that's missing the point, isn't it? I mean, the best general reliability is going to get you to is a fallible authority, but that doesn't make the Bible special. I mean, we have lots of fallible authorities in our lives. Parents, your great mom and dad. Don't take that personally. Speaking of myself as well as a parent. But the government, our bosses, there are lots of fallible authorities in our lives. But there's still this big gap between something being reliable or someone being reliable and then being a divinely inspired authority. And I think the difference here is if you just think something is generally reliable, that means you can still disagree with it whenever you want, right? 

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[00:08:39] Yes, I'm going to treat you with respect because I think you're a generally reliable person. But sometimes I'm going to disagree with you and that's okay. That's where general reliability gets us too. But I think this really matters, doesn't it, when it comes to the Bible. Because if we just think, well, it's generally reliable, then how do we sort that through. How do we decide, okay, on the whole I agree here, but I'm just going to disagree with this bit over here or that over there. Or that doesn't make sense to me, so I'm just going to ignore it. It puts us in this kind of precarious place epistemologically. Because then why do we have any confidence in what we think rather than what other people think? Like, why my interpretation of the Bible instead of yours? Why that the interpretations of my culture in time compared to that of other people. Who gets to choose what is wrong and what should be ignored? Is it you? Is it me? Who is God in this situation? 

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[00:09:32] And when I take a step back and think for a moment, I wonder if-- setting aside the question for a second of, well, is it the word of the Lord? I think logically there's a place to say here, well, if there was a God who speaks and a God who wanted to be known and who actually cares about truth and actually cares about the way that we live our lives, that we might not only know what is true, but we would ultimately come to know him, then I can see some reasons for why God might think, hey, maybe I should give them a book or a whole library of books as we happen to have 66 books . And maybe a God who might say, hey, general revelation is great, but I don't want people to be wandering around trying to sort through who's got some things right and who's got them wrong. I want to give people my words. I want them to know me. I want to speak for myself so they're not just speculating about me, but they actually have a specific revelation from me. 

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[00:10:27] Now, of course, as Christians, we would say that ultimate revelation is Jesus Christ. And that is great for the people who knew him, who saw his life, who walked around and lived life alongside him. But it still presents a challenge, doesn't it? Well, what about the rest of us? Don't we too, who haven't seen Jesus with our own eyes in this particular moment, still need something to hold on to that is an unchanging truth, regardless of our time or place or our position in history. A truth that can be passed down from generation to generation into different cultural context with a confidence it's actually unchanging, and that it's not just being steered and reformed by culture to culture to culture, but that we believe the very same things that the very first Christians believed. 

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[00:11:10] Is there some value in giving us a sort of letter like that to say, hey, irrespective of when you're born or where you're born, this is who I am; this is what I'm like; and I want you to know me. This revelation from beyond where we're not the arbiter of what is true, but God is. And he's the authority over us, giving us his word. So, I can see value in it. I can see reason for it. I can see a logic behind why God might want to do it that way. But, of course, that doesn't mean that it's true. And that's the question on the table, isn't it? Is the Bible that kind of authoritative word from God to us or not? Is it that or is it, as Christopher Hitchens once put it, just something that was put together by crude human mammals? Like, what are we dealing with here? 

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Vince Vitale [00:11:55] Yeah. And this is where we start to hone in on the heart of John's question. And again, he put it so well, is there a logical rationale or set up steps that inexorably bring you from devotion to Christ to a perfect Bible? I think this is exactly how to ask the primary question, and it's actually exactly how things worked out in my own journey to Christ. I first came to a place of devotion to Christ. This is just my story, but I first came to a place of devotion to Christ because I became persuaded that he claimed to be divine, and that he had backed up that claim by rising from the dead. I was reading through the New Testament for the first time after being challenged by my teammates. I was just treating it as a generally historically reliable document, based on the research I had done, and I had come to the conclusion that Jesus made some very big claims about himself as I read through the New Testament. 

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[00:12:52] And I kept coming across these different claims that he claimed to have existed before Abraham, who existed thousands of years ago. He claimed to be able to forgive people's sins, not just the sins against him, but sins in general. He said he was a Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of one of the Ten Commandments. He said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die." That's a pretty big claim. He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God the Father except through me." He said that to have seen him was to have seen God. He said that He and God were one and the same. And, ultimately, it is blasphemy for which Jesus was killed. I mean, that's why he was killed because he was claiming to be God. The high priest tore his clothes and says, why do we need any more witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. 

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[00:13:44] Now, you can try to explain away one or two of these incredible identity claims from Jesus. Just like if a friend of yours made one crazy claim about himself or herself, you might give the benefit of the doubt and find a way to reinterpret it. Maybe someone misheard the person. But even treating the New Testament just as a historically, generally reliable document, there's just too much repetition and variety of these crazy identity claims all over the scriptures, from multiple sources. To my mind, the rational conclusion is that Jesus absolutely believed himself to be divine, the Messiah, the Son of God. And once I came to this conclusion, then I had a decision to make. Is he telling the truth? And the scriptures say that God had provided proof by raising Jesus from the dead. That's Acts 17. And I won't rehearse the arguments for the history of the resurrection here. We can do that on another episode. But I and many others have come to the belief that they are incredibly robust. 

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[00:14:47] Huge part of my story. I couldn't even imagine that there could be so much you could look into to fortify that belief in the history of the resurrection. It blew me away. If it's completely new to you, I encourage you start by just opening up the Bible and reading the beginning of 1st Corinthians 15, which is an incredibly early creed that predates the letter of 1st Corinthians and goes back extremely close to the events themselves. And ask yourself, what could possibly explain the fact that all of these people were walking around after Jesus had clearly been killed, utterly convinced that they were spending time with him? So convinced of this, and so convinced that this proved his claims of divinity, that they were willing to give their lives rather than deny him. And despite 2000 years of historical scholarship and speculation, I would say there's not a single other even remotely plausible explanation for the eruption of the Christian movement. 

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[00:15:48] It should have been that Jesus died and that was the end of the movement. And then you have the eruption of the greatest movement of all time. Other than the actual historical, miraculous, bodily resurrection of Jesus, I have no idea what historically can account for that. So, to summarize my process, once I believed that was true, that Jesus had claimed to be God and had put a stamp of approval on that claim by rising from the dead, my next question was, okay, Jesus is now my model for everything; so what does the life of Jesus tell me about how I should think about the Bible? This Jesus first approach was really important to me because the scriptures can be complicated. Many books in many different genres, written over a long period of time in ancient cultures that I didn't have direct access to. 

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[00:16:43] If all I could do is open it up at my desk and assess its authority on my own intellect and understanding, I would not have had a lot of confidence in my conclusions, especially because I would expect a perfect, infinite God to say a lot of things that wouldn't just strike me a finite, sinful person, as true on first read. But by looking to Jesus to tell me what to think of the scriptures, I could come to a place of much greater confidence. It's like if I put a complex mathematical equation on a board in front of you and asked you to assess its validity. If you were just standing there on your own, your confidence level would probably be pretty low. But if Einstein was standing next to you and you could turn to him for his perspective, your confidence would shoot through the roof. And I think when we look to Jesus first and say, what does his life tell us about the confidence we can have in the scriptures? Likewise, our confidence can soar. 

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Jo Vitale [00:17:42] Yeah, I really appreciate, John, the way you said that. You talked about this in the context of devotion to Christ. And one of the things I think about when I think about what does it mean to be devoted to Christ, is that, well, Jesus himself says, if you love me, you will obey my teaching. And I find that really helpful framework because then I think, okay, the way I show that I love Jesus and I recognize that He's God and I'm devoted to him, is by obeying his teachings. So, what was his teaching? And specifically around this question, what was his teaching in regard to what he had to say about Scripture? And one of the first things we kind of want to draw attention to here is that Jesus very clearly saw himself as the fulfillment of Scripture. When he talks about the scriptures that he had, which we as Christians refer to today as the Old Testament, but back then that was just the scriptures, he calls them a story about him. 

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[00:18:36] So in John 5: 39-40, he says this to the Pharisees who were challenging him. He says, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, but you do not come to me to have life." Now, I find this really fascinating here, that when Jesus speaks of the scriptures that testify about him, he's not talking about the full gospels. There's eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life. At that point, the New Testament hasn't even been written yet, but Jesus is instead referring directly to the Old Testament. And so, in doing so, he's making this staggering claim that before he was even born, these scriptures were speaking about him. As he boldly states in John 5:46, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." How is that even possible? How can it be that these books written in all these different languages, across this huge time period by different people, are all about Jesus? 

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[00:19:34] Now, in human terms, that would be impossible. But that is precisely Jesus' point. I think that when it comes to Scripture, as far as he's concerned, we're not simply dealing with a work of human authorship, but as he says in John 5:37, "The Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me." How has he done that? He's done it through Scripture. Scripture that is the testimony of God the Father. And the subject of that testimony, according to Jesus, is the son. In other words, Jesus is saying the story of the Bible, it is his story and it's a story told by God himself. Now, just consider the beginning and end of Jesus ministry and life as a helpful framework for this as well. Because we see this understanding of Scripture in his life being the fulfillment of it, being the clear framework for everything that he does. 

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[00:20:23] We're told in Luke, for example, that when Jesus stands up at the beginning of his ministry, that he opens the scroll from the prophet Isaiah, and he reads, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And then he rolls up the scroll. He gives it back. He sits down. Everyone's looking at him. And then he says to them, "Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, he's saying right at the beginning of his ministry, "My life's purpose is to live out what is written in these texts." And then we see the same towards the end of his life as well. In Matthew 26:52-56 when they come to arrest Jesus in the garden, he says, "If I wanted to, I could put up a fight here. But then how would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" 

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[00:21:13] And again in verse 56, "But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled." See, note that the fulfillment of prophecy isn't something that Jesus here could have just humanly even brought about himself. It's not just a case of Jesus reading a bunch of ancient texts and saying, oh, I can see ways that I can make that happen in my lifetime. But even the things that go on to happen in the events of his death and how he's crucified, is so specific to the ancient messianic prophecies from the Old Testament. And just two examples, have a read through Isaiah 53 and what that has to say about the suffering servant that Jesus is clearly identifying with and seeing himself, as stepping into that role. Or think about Psalm 22 and just read that through, like the details of the crucifixion, right down to thirsting and nakedness and casting lots and the piercing of hands and feet. I mean, Jesus couldn't just master all of this up on his own effort. It's just uncanny the way that so many of these prophecies are fulfilled in his life. 

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[00:22:16] And then we consider Luke 24: 27, when we're told that Jesus when he is instructing his disciples after his resurrection, [inaudible] to think about the events that have happened. They're traveling down the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and we're told that along the way Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So, it's not like is just like, well, there are a couple of books here that got it right. He's talking about all of the scriptures and he's telling this story of Luke, this is how the whole story of God unfolds. This is all of the things that have been prophesied about me right from the beginning. And suddenly it all falls into place as the disciples realize that this entire overarching narrative of the Bible, it was building up to Christ with plenty of these prophetic, messianic signposts that foretell him and point to his coming along the way. 

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Vince Vitale [00:23:09] Yeah, these are really big claims. And I smiled when you shared about Jesus sharing in the synagogue. I've often thought if I could be present for one moment in Jesus's life, that would be pretty high on my list. When he stands up and says, "These words are fulfilled in your hearing." 

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Jo Vitale [00:23:26] Like, mic drop.

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Vince Vitale [00:23:28] The biggest mic drop of history. And not only does Jesus view himself as the supernatural fulfillment of divinely inspired scripture, but then when we look at his life, we see that he also treats Scripture as an ultimate authority for himself. You think about the way when Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4 by Satan, and to counter Satan's deceptions and lies he quotes Scripture one time after another and he just says, "It is written, it is written, it is written." He literally quotes Scripture at Satan without any other argument. Scripture in and of itself, on its own authority. That's all that he needs to refute him. And then he concludes really significantly, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Having just quoted Scripture, he says every word that comes from the mouth of God. That's his understanding of Scripture in his life. 

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[00:24:27] Or if we look at Matthew 19, so Jesus is quoting the human author of the book of Genesis, and he says, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning?" So, he's referring to God, "Who created them from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife." So, he's quoting the book of Genesis, but he's referring to God himself and saying God said it and then quoting from the book. That's an incredibly strong statement. And in light of that understanding of Scripture, Jesus says, Scripture cannot be broken or set aside. That's John 10, and that until heaven and earth disappear-- this is really strong-- not the smallest letter, not even the least stroke of a pen, not even an iota or a dot will disappear from the law. That's in Matthew 5. 

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Jo Vitale [00:25:26] Yeah, I find those texts incredible. Especially thinking about that line, "you can't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." I mean, he's basically saying, if you want to live, you need the Word of God. You need Scripture. It's actually essential and necessary for you to have real spiritual life. I mean, that blows my mind. But what also amazes me is going even deeper, that it's not just that Jesus is quoting Scripture as an authority, even that he lives by, even that he is putting himself under as the Son of God. But he draws such specific conclusions from even the tiniest word choices and phrases in Scripture. It's not just like he's saying, oh, in general, we want to take the broad strokes of the story or the broad strokes of Scripture. But even when it comes to interpretation, the tiny details of the text in the Old Testament really mattered to him. 

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[00:26:16] So going back to John 10, Vince, you already quoted it when you said Scripture cannot be broken. But that comes in the context of this hostile exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees, where they want to stone him. Because Jesus has said, "I and the father are one." And in their minds the Pharisees are thinking of Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is one." And so, [inaudible] are thinking he has contradicted Scripture. We've got to stone him because he's claiming to be God. Jesus could have come in and said, hey, that was the old. Now we're here with the new. Forget about old scripture. Now I am here as the new authority. But that's not what Jesus does. Actually, he says, your problem is you don't know the Bible well enough. It's not that he's removing himself from the Bible and saying, hey, doing a new thing here, guys. He's saying, no, if you really knew the text. Look with me this very specific line from Psalm 82:6. It says here in this text Jesus says other people are being referred to as gods. The Bible itself uses this phrase to talk about human beings, so you can't stone me for using the same language. 

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[00:27:15] In other words, he's challenging the Pharisees to say, know your Bible better before you pick up your stones and challenge me. And I just find that such a fascinating response. We see the same thing again in Matthew 22 when he's arguing with the Sadducees and they try and catch Jesus out with this question. And Jesus stops them short in verse 29, he says, "You're wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God." Again, his argument isn't, well, forget about the scriptures now, because I'm here and I'm the power of God. No. It's, guys, you need to know your Bibles better; dig deep and then you would understand how to properly read these texts. And we see him hanging so much, even in terms of his own identity, on certain readings of the Psalms, like, when he challenges them in that same passage by saying, "Who is the Christ? Whose son is he? And they say, the Son of David. They say the Messiah is going to be the Son of David. And he throws back to them this verse in the Psalms, he quotes, "And the Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.'" If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? In other words, Jesus turns to Scripture to stomp them in order to make his identity claims. And he does it in very specific ways. 

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Vince Vitale [00:28:24] And he makes a really significant theological conclusion out of a detail of a single line of the text, which is not something you can do if you're just taking it as sort of a generally reliable ancient document. You are really saying that word for word, this is a text that can be relied upon to draw deep conclusions about reality. And as they closely follow Jesus, we see the same exact approach to Scripture in the apostles and the authors of the New Testament. So just to take one example, Galatians 3 Paul writes this is in verse 16, "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed." Scripture does not say 'And to seeds' meaning many people, but 'And to your seed' meaning one person who is Christ. Did you catch that? Paul draws out a huge theological conclusion about the promises and covenant of God, based simply on the fact that the scriptural text has a single word in the singular rather than in the plural. It says seed rather than seeds. So, both for Jesus and for the apostles, every detail is significant and sacred; not one jot or tittle, not one apostrophe or exclamation mark of the Word of God will pass away. 

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Jo Vitale [00:29:44] Yeah. So, what we're getting at here is that it's clear from these various examples that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, they believed that the scriptures they had inherited were not just useful historical documents, but that they were actually divinely inspired. And when we use this phrase, divinely inspired, we're referring to 2nd Timothy 3:16 description which says, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training and righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." And I think this is important here. You mentioned in your question, is the Bible divine? I don't know if that's the precise language I would use because the Bible is in God. I think when people talk about the authority of the Bible, it's almost like a shorthand for saying God has authority. God is the authoritative one. There's only God himself, but he has given authority to the text because it comes from him, because he himself is the inspiration behind it. It derives its authority from God's ultimate authority. These are the words from his mouth. 

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[00:30:49] And so, in this sense, it's clear that the first Christians they understood God to be the primary cause and author of the Bible even if humans are serving as his vassals or his mouthpieces in some way. Like this verse that talks about being God breathed-- this is a really interesting phrase because it doesn't imply that the text was already there and God breathed into it, but it means breathed out. That he's the inspiration behind the writing in the first place. The Apostle Peter summarizes it this way in 2nd Peter 1:21, "For no prophecy of Scripture was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So yes, humans may be writing it, but it's the Holy Spirit who's carrying them along as he leads. 

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[00:31:31] It's this kind of thinking we see when the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95 and introduces the text by saying as the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews chapter 3:7. Or we see the same thing in acts 4: 25, when a different quote from Psalm 2 is described as said by the Holy Spirit. So yes, these Psalms were penned by human beings, but the verses testify to that absolute influence that the New Testament writers believed the Holy Spirit has upon the writers of Scripture. Or, as the apologist Norman Geisler once put it in response to the challenge of how could a perfect word of God be written by flawed human beings? Like, how is that possible? His response was to say, well, it's no contradiction for God to draw a straight line with a crooked stick. 

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Vince Vitale [00:32:17] Now, at this point, you might say you've only spoken about the Old Testament; so what about the New Testament? There was no New Testament when Jesus and the apostles were saying some of these things, at least not in its canonized form. So how does this relate to the New Testament? Fair point. Glad you asked. Because this is another topic that I almost never hear spoken about, in particular this idea that we might actually have strong reason to expect the formation of a New Testament, of an expanded canon that goes beyond just the Old Testament scriptures. Now, just think about it for a second. If the law and the prophets required a canon, how much more so would you expect a canon of Scripture in response to the Messiah coming into the world with new teaching and to form a church and to commission his followers into the world? I mean, it would be very odd to have a canon of the prophets who testified to the coming Messiah, but not a canon of the Messiah himself. 

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[00:33:16] It would be very odd to have a canon of the legal codes of the Old Testament, but not a canon that gave instructions to the church, the eternal bride of Christ. And this is what Norman Anderson said really well. He said, "If we accept Jesus's testimony to the God given authority of the Old Testament, it would seem intrinsically unlikely that the most stupendous event in human history, the life and death and resurrection of the incarnate Lord, would have been left by the God who had revealed it in advance without any authoritative record or explanation for future generations." 

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Jo Vitale [00:33:50] Yes, that's a good quote. It makes me think of Jesus' words when he says you don't pour new wine into old wineskins. We need a new wineskin for this new wine that is being poured out. And Jesus points to this very thing, actually. He says twice in John 14:24-26 says, these things I've spoken to you while I am still with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name-- in other words, He's the Spirit of Jesus who testifies to Jesus. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Now Jesus is basically preparing his disciples for the doctrine of the inspiration of the New Testament. And then again in John 16: 23-24, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. You're not ready for it. 

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[00:34:37] But 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. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. In other words, the Spirit of Jesus is not done testifying about Jesus. But in the very writing down in the remembrance of these things from his life, Jesus is preparing them, that the Spirit of God Himself is going to come upon them, and that he is going to be inspiring them to be this repository of inspiration in order to pass it on to future generations. So, Jesus himself is pointing in this direction. 

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Vince Vitale [00:35:19] And then this is, in fact, how the New Testament writers understand their own writing. So, Paul in 1st Corinthians 2, "We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual." Or chapter 14, "If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandments." I mean, that's extremely strong to be writing about his own words here, that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. And Peter also saw Paul's writings as part of an expanding canon of Scripture alongside the Old Testament scriptures. And we see that in 2nd Peter 3. Paul's letters contain some things that are hard to understand, Peter says, which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction. So, he's referring to Paul's writing in the category of the other scriptures. And we see the same approach from the Apostle John who in revelation chapters 21 and 22, in both those places, writes that his prophetic words are trustworthy and true. Why? Because they come from Jesus himself. 

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Jo Vitale [00:36:35] So just to frame this for you, all of this to say, if we have reason from Jesus to trust that God was at work in the canonization process of the Old Testament, even over thousands of years by so many different authors and different times and places, then doesn't it follow that we have the same reason to trust that God could supernaturally be at work in that same way through the canonization of the New Testament? Indeed, Jesus even tells us to expect it. And these first apostles certainly experienced themselves to be writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit in this way. And then we see the early church from the very beginning treating these writings as authoritative. They understood it in that same way as well. From 90 A.D. onwards, we see the New Testament writings being quoted at great length by church leaders and fathers. 

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[00:37:23] And with the whole communities gathering around these same texts and carefully copying and passing them on with such precision precisely because they were understood to be authoritative on account of that apostolic authorship and the closeness of these original followers and church leaders to Jesus who were reading, interpreting, understanding, and writing Scripture after the model of Jesus who they were following. So, canonization, it's not some random, ad hoc, unreliable process, but from the very beginning, these were the foundational texts that served as eyewitness material to the life of Jesus and were written by those who knew him best and understood to have been inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself as the foundation of the church. 

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Vince Vitale [00:38:04] And so, returning to the significance of today's topic, John Piper makes a very powerful point about how all of this is related to the Christian life. The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is Jesus saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit." And then listen to this next part, "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." Piper's point is that it is impossible to follow this very essential commissioning and commandment unless the Bible is in fact divinely inspired in a very strong sense. Unless it can act as an ultimate authority in our lives, as the scriptures did in the life of Christ and the apostles, so that we actually know what Jesus has taught and therefore can go and teach others to observe all that he has commanded us. 

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Jo Vitale [00:39:07] So, we know that there's still a lot to be said around this question. I know there are more questions that follow on from it. Like, what do we mean by these terms we use like inerrancy or infallibility? How do we understand the scriptures to have been preserved and passed on? In what form are they perfect. And, of course, then questions about how do we read it? It was interesting to me that you used the phrase that the Bible is the perfect word of God; does that mean it's uncriticizable. And I thought that was interesting because there's a sense in which we're still called to use critical thinking even in terms of understanding, well, what is the text saying and how am I supposed to read it and what genre is it? And what role does context in history play in the understanding of the texts? And there were still thoughtful, intelligent questions that we need to ask in order to rightly understand what the Bible is saying to us. 

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[00:39:53] I mean, even Peter says like, oh yeah, Paul's writings can be hard to understand, but yet he says they're still scripture. So yeah, sometimes things are going to be hard for us to understand. But I think the point we're making here is that we need to do the work. I think the point we're making is do we treat the Bible in a way that is consistent, logically consistent with how Jesus and the apostles and the early church treated it? Yes, it's going to be hard to understand, but what is our posture towards it? Are we sitting there thinking, hey, I'm the one in authority over the text. I'm the arbiter deciding what is true and what is false. Ultimately, that is my decision making. Or are we coming to it from in a posture of receptivity, saying, no, I actually believe that Jesus, the same Jesus by whom in whom through whom all things hold together. Through whom everything is made. This Jesus who says that these words are from the mouth of God and puts himself under them and says, it is written, it is written, and he upholds it. 

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[00:40:50] That's Jesus who says that he gives us the Holy Spirit, and that Holy Spirit is the one who inspired these texts. Are we coming to that same Holy Spirit now and saying, help me. Help me to receive this. Help me to understand. Help me to trust that just as you inspired these texts, God, so too can you help me to understand them, even if I find them challenging. I want to submit to an authority that is greater than me and actually take you at your word, even as I do my best and ask for your help in understanding what it's saying. And believing that actually that Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus who inspired it, is alive in me today, and therefore that actually I can also receive it as a living word to me. Still, Hebrews 4:12 puts it this way, "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." 

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[00:41:46] I find that such an interesting turn of phrase, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart, because that is a radically different experience of the Bible. Rather than me judging it and coming in authority over it, I'm letting the Bible judge my thoughts and attitudes to discern what is true and what isn't. I'm allowing myself to be surrendered and trusting that there is a God who speaks, and that actually if the Bible really is his word, rather than thinking it's going to say everything I agree with, I should actually expect the opposite. That if there is a God behind it and an authoritative sense, it's not always going to agree with me because I'm not God. And so, actually a sign that it might be true is the very fact that I don't always understand it or agree with it. Well, sometimes it cuts against some of my convictions. So, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said here about what is our posture and how are we approaching it? 

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[00:42:36] And to just encourage you, because I sometimes hear people say, well, why can't God just have made it simpler? Why didn't he just give us a list of laws in the Gospels? Just keep it really slim down and straightforward rather than this whole library, these 66 books from all these different centuries by different authors. And sometimes people can feel overwhelmed by it. But the longer I go on in my Christian faith, the more I actually feel like, gosh, I'm so grateful for the richness of the Bible. I am so grateful for how robust this actually is, because I'm coming to realize I need all of it. I need the whole counsel of God in order to live my life well. And in different seasons the Lord has really spoken distinctly through different books. There have been times when he's really impressed upon me the justice of God and his holiness and his concern for how we treat each other and the vulnerable and the poor through the legal codes: Deuteronomy, Leviticus and the prophets. 

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[00:43:29] And then other books that have really taught me are from the Lord, like, how do I live well before him, flourishing and being humble and, and walking out my faith. Whether it's Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, kings and chronicles or. Or how do I walk through seasons of suffering and grief, things like Lamentations in the Psalms. And then how do I experience intimacy with the Lord in Isaiah, in the Song of Songs, in the Psalms, in Genesis, and all these narratives of how people are walking out their faith before the Lord. And there's just so much to it that in different seasons of my life, the Lord is speaking to us differently through it. And I'm so grateful. The more time I spend in it, the more I think, wow, there is so much life in this book. Even this week we had a friend going through a really big crisis and a really difficult time, and I just sort of felt prompted as I was praying for them to start writing down Bible verses for them to hang up for them. 

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[00:44:19] But as I started writing, just different things were coming to mind from all over Scripture, from Isaiah, Psalms, Genesis, Job, Jeremiah, Malachi, Proverbs, the Gospels, the pastoral epistles, revelation. It was all over these verses were just leaping into my mind. And I just felt so grateful to be able to draw upon so much of God's living word, to be able to speak hope today into the life of somebody who really needed that living word in that moment, who couldn't live by bread alone, but needed every word from the mouth of God. And I think sometimes it's really sad how much we can miss when we water the Bible down to nothing more than an academic resource or outdated history, or just a beautiful piece of poetry. Because I think in the process, we miss out on so much of what the Bible-- not only what it actually is, but who we were made to be as well and how much the Lord has to say to us. 

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[00:45:10] And I was really struck by these words of Gandhi actually who had this to say about the Bible. He wrote, "You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature. And those words really conflict me because I think, gosh, how many times in my academic studies did I do just that, did I approach the Bible and that way rather than coming to it in this posture of saying, "God, I believe you're there. I believe you're a God who speaks. Would you speak to me today?" Do I really believe Jesus when he says, "These are the scriptures that testify about me, but you don't come to me to have life." I want to come to Jesus to have life. I want to take him at his word and I want to show that I love him by obeying his commandments. And I believe that those are found in the very scriptures that do testify about him. 

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Vince Vitale [00:46:09] We'll just finish today with words from Psalm 19, a beautiful psalm about how we can know God. And it starts by speaking very highly of the general revelation we can have about God, even just from the world around us. And it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech. They use no words. No sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the earth. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes it circuit to the other. Nothing is deprived of its warmth." 

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[00:46:57] And so, we hear these words from the psalmist, honoring this general revelation, what we can know about the Lord, even just from creation, but then he turned to this special revelation of the word of God. And we hope what we've shared today has helped you to have greater confidence in these holy words that are from the mouth of God. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward. 

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