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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity |
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September 30, 2007 Can I Believe the Bible? We of Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church make a great deal out of following the Bible. We maintain that the Bible is our authority in all matters of faith and practice. We assert that the True Church of Jesus Christ is not defined by an ecclesiastical organization, but by fidelity to the Apostolic Faith as found in the Bible. We assert that the faith found and taught in the Bible is eternal and unchanging. It does not need to be modified to fit the current culture and appeal to contemporary people. It is not the Bible, or Christianity, or God, which must change and adapt to us. It is we who must do the changing. It is we who must do the adapting. It is we who must conform to God and His will as revealed in the Bible. That is why we’re here this morning instead of in other churches. That is why, in our discussions with people in other denominations, we insist that issues like homosexuality are but the symptoms of a greater disease. We insist that homosexuality is not the issue, the issue is the Bible. Accept the Bible as truth, accept the Bible as the revelation of the will of God, and homosexuality becomes a non-issue. Reject the Bible, or relegate it to a secondary status, behind the will of culture or human reason, and anything becomes negotiable. Not only homosexuality, but everything else has the possibility of being blessed and baptized and legitimized by the “church.” I remind you, for example, that many in the “church” in Germany backed Adolf Hitler, despite his obvious departure from biblical Christianity. This brings us to yet another of life’s great questions. We have been looking at the Bible’s answers to life’s great questions lately. We have looked at the question, “What is the meaning of life?” We have looked at, “Can I know God?” Last week we looked at the question, “Do I know God?” In each we have opened the Bible to find the answers to these questions. But how do we know we can trust the Bible? What makes it so special? What makes it different, or better, or more authoritative than the words of, say, Plato, or Buddha, or Karl Marx, or the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or even our own opinions? In short, can I believe the Bible? That is our question for today. Normally a sermon on this subject would go right to 2 timothy 3:16, and explain what it means to say that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” That is the traditional place to start. And I am a traditional man, so I will begin there too. I want to say that the word “inspiration” refers to the process by which God gave the Bible to humanity. The word in Greek literally means, “God breathed,” and is a word picture of the act of speaking. It is a picture of the words of Scripture coming out of the mouth of God in the same way words come out of our mouths. Our words are breathed out. God’s word is breathed out. That is a powerful image. It is a claim that the words of the Bible are the words of God as literally as if they had come straight out of His mouth. That is the basis of the Bible’s authority. It stands, or falls, on this one claim. That is why the Bible has been under constant attack down through the ages. That is why the cults and their leaders have had to destroy or distort or replace the Bible. That is why those who wish to legitimize homosexual activity, first have to convince people that they know more about the will of God than did Moses, or St. Paul, or any of the human authors of Scripture. Because, if the Bible is not the eternal word of God, then we are thrown back to our own opinions about who God is, and what He wants from us, and how we are to be saved. If the Bible is not the word of God, it has no abiding authority. It may be pretty. It may present a nice picture of people getting along and loving everyone else, and that image of a world in love may capture our imaginations and inspire us to do good things, but if it is not the word of God, then it is simply the imaginings of other human beings, no different in authority or power from the words of those who advocate hate and destruction. But if the Bible is indeed the Word of God, then it alone above all human words, has authority and power. There is a story about a man who, taking his horse to the village blacksmith, saw a pile of worn and misshaped hammers in a corner. He at once realized they had been worn out by hard use in the blacksmith shop, and he began to wonder, “Where are the worn out anvils?” So he said to the blacksmith, You must have worn out several anvils to have gone through that many hammers.” The blacksmith smiled and patted the horse. “I’ve only ever had one anvil,” he said. “Hammers come and go, but the anvil remains.” The Bible is like the anvil. The critics are like the hammers. Critics come and go, each one prophecying the demise of the Bible. They rise and fall with the generations, but the Bible still remains. How did we get the Bible? That has a lot to do with whether we can believe the Bible or not doesn’t it? The Bible comes to us from writers in many ages, and various backgrounds covering more than a thousand years. It is composed of sixty-six books, bound together in one volume, and was written by peasants and kings, aristocrats and dirt farmers, rich and poor, the well educated and the almost illiterate. And each one of the authors wrote, and preached under the sense and conviction of the call of God, and that they wrote not their words, but the word of the Lord. Time after time, the Bible tells us, “The Lord spake unto Moses. The Lord spake unto Moses. The Lord spake unto Moses.” Moses had no desire to return to Egypt, where he was considered a murderer and a slave. Moses feared execution if he showed his face in Egypt again. Yet, he went to the Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, and boldly told him to let the Hebrews go. Why? Because, “The Lord spake unto Moses.” All through the Old Testament we read, “the Lord said unto Samuel,” (1 Sam. 8:7). “Then said the Lord unto Isaiah.” (Is. 7:3). “The words of Jeremiah … to whom the word of the Lord came,” (Jer1:1-2). “and the word of the Lord came unto me,” (Ez. 6:10). “The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah,” (Zeph. 1:1). I could multiply such references, but I have said enough, except for this, they were right. And we, having seen lives, and even the world itself transformed by the writings of these men, are constrained to say with St. Peter that “the prophecy [that is, the words of the prophets] came not … by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” (1Pet. 1:21). We must agree with the Apostle Paul that it was God “who in sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets,” (Heb. 1:1-2). Let’s look at that whole verse. “God, who in sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,” (Heb. 1:1-2). God was so concerned that we should know Him that He came to earth Himself to give His Word unto us. Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is that incarnation of God, as John tells us, “the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” (Jn 1:14). Jesus came from heaven to bring and to be the word of God. He taught The Word to His disciples, who were eyewitnesses to His miracles and His resurrection, and were earwitnesses to His teachings and sermons. They heard Him preach and saw Him minister for three years prior to the crucifixion. And then, for forty days after the resurrection they were taught by Him again. What a time that must have been. What an education they must have received. What rapt attention they must have focused upon this One who was dead and now is alive forevermore. And then, on the day of Pentecost, the torch was passed to the disciples, now called Apostles. By the power of the Holy Spirit they were enabled to understand what Christ had been teaching them, and to proclaim it wherever they went. They received the word from Christ. They proclaimed it while they lived, and they committed it to writing in the books of the New Testament. It is there called the “faith once delivered unto the saints” (Jd. 3). Once delivered, for all people and all time. That is why we can trust the Bible. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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