“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness". (2 Timothy 3:16)
We will be looking at the history, authenticity and the divinity of the the Bible in the next few weeks. Today we celebrate the Reformation Sunday, the last Sunday in October. This Sunday, we use as an opportunity to remember particularly what the non-Catholic churches do to celebrate the history of Martin Luther and the day that he nailed that 95 theses on the door at Wittenberg. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. Barely four years later the Catholic Church would brand him a heretic and the Holy Roman Empire would condemn him as an outlaw.
Over 500 years ago, opened up the way for all of us to read the scripture. That was mostly hidden before that. So let us remember the people who have gone before us and be thankful for the word of God that God has given us to meditate on and to be blessed with. This is taken from the second Timothy chapter 3, verse 10 through 17. "But as for you, continue what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it. And how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which can make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God's breath and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
Thank God for the Reformation that happened so that we can freely and boldly now read the word of God, the scripture. We celebrate the Reformation on Sunday, the freedom to preach about and teach about the scripture itself. I'll be preaching the next couple of Sundays, about the importance of the scripture, the importance of trusting the scripture, and the significance of scripture now where we live today.
A Young Pastor who took charge of a new pastor in a church when he came to the first Sunday morning, and he wanted to visit the Sunday school class. So he went to the Sunday school class and he asked the teacher to step out a little bit so he could get to know the children and see what they were studying. He asked the simple question if they knew who destroyed the walls of Jericho. And a little boy named John stood up and said, "Preacher, I have done a lot of bad things, but it was not me." So he was a little disturbed, you know, that he expected that middle class to know that kind of story from the Bible. So he went out to the teacher and told them what happened and said, "the boys were like looking at me and one of the boys said this answer to me." Then the teacher said that the boy is good. He wouldn't do it. So the picture was more troublesome now the teacher was not getting it so he went to the Deacon of the church and then he talked to Deacon the Chi the leader of the deacons there and said the same thing. "We don't know what happened to the boy. Now, preacher, you need not be confused or disturbed about this church. This church is a very loving and giving church and I am sure that we can raise enough money and Build That Wall again." So that is where many times the understanding of the scripture goes. We need to read the scripture. to learn the scripture and to apply that scripture in our lives. It's very important these days, particularly when more and more places are stopping our children or people from using the scripture and reading the scripture in public places in schools and other places that we used to do before. Many of the Christians who regularly go to church also do not read the scripture even though they have the scripture at home and they have it available in their churches, too.
The Psalm that we read today 119 is the longest chapter in the whole Bible. It talks about the Scripture all the way through, line by line verse by verse. We read that the whole of Psalm 119 is about the scripture the word of God. The psalm calls the scriputre by various names like testimonies, God's ways, God's precepts, God's Commandments, statutes, and various names. Each section in the scripture has a different letter in the Hebrew alphabet if you look at it. Significantly, every verse in the section begins with the Hebrew letter, which has that section. Some say that the Psalm must have been written at a similar time that we have today. It was a time of religious skepticism people but abandoning God and not trusting in God and they were taking the scripture out of places that they used to read and study. They doubted whether there was a god. The people jumped from one religion to another looking for peace in their lives similar to our situation now. And also we see that the Psalm is probably by a man who was faced with a lot of troubles during that time and he went to the scripture and then found comfort and peace by reading the scripture. So we ought to understand the importance and the significance of scripture in our lives and also in the world today as a whole so we can only take the scripture anywhere and talk and preach to other people on the scripture.
The word 'bible' comes from the Greek word 'biblia', that means a collection of books. It's not nothing about that makes it holy word or anything. It is a collection of books and we know that the Bible is a collection of 66 books 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament, which was finalized in the 1600s or the 1800s and later came to be the final 66 books. So the Old Testament that we know started from the beginning of Genesis and we went through a whole series on that. We studied the Book of Genesis starting from the creation and then the call of Abraham and all his descendants descendants and then Jesus Christ to his descendants of Abraham and then through Jesus Christ God Choose all of us together so that the whole world will be one family. The whole humanity belongs to one father and that is what we are today as Christians.
The New Testament is the history of the gospels of Jesus Christ and His life in this world and then Paul's letters about the church and the building of the church and how we ought to act and worship together as Christians. So all together we see this as a collection of books. where the authorship belongs to about 40 different people who wrote in a span of about 1600 years, ending around 90 AD. That's what the time frame is. And it is so amazing how the Holy Spirit brought all of these books written by various types of people; from the shepherd boy, from the Shepherds, from the warriors to the songwriters to the intellectuals and the fishermen. All kinds of different people whom God used to write all of these books in over 1,600 years the Holy Spirit brought all of that together. So that we can have it together as one book that we can take with us and meditate on and have peace and blessing in our lives.
That's a great blessing that God has given us the Bible. But for the Bible, what would we have? What would the world be like world be like without the Bible. The Gospel is the light that shines everywhere in the world. We have no idea what the world looked like in the African countries, in Asian countries, in China and in the West and various other parts of the world. The gospel has spread the light of the knowledge of God. Wherever the gospel went there people became enlightened. And we saw that in our own lives in India where I grew up because of the missionaries and those who have come and started schools and colleges and hospitals. That's how people started reading and become literate and they had a new awareness about things that they did not have before. Gospel is here as a blessing to bless the world and it is ours as people who believe in it to spread that word so that it will not go away from the next generation.
The reason why I wanted to preach about the scripture despite its diversity the Bible is one book that talks about basically one thing. And that one thing is about one person. And that one person is Jesus Christ. Right from the beginning of Genesis to Revelation. Every book in the Bible talks about the redemption of human beings through God's son Jesus Christ one way or anotther.
The Bible was not given to us by any church. It was not given to us by any rulers. That is the amazing wonderful fact about the word of God it was given to us by the Holy Spirit. The Word was there with God. Newton did not invent gravity. Gravity was always there, but he just exposed it. The Holy Spirit exposed what was already there. So we can use it now in our lives to bless us all and to bless the world. The three major religions are Christians, Jews and Muslims. They all have their own holy books. And the Muslims say that they have four holy books. One of them is the Injeel, which is the gospels. So they accept the gospel as a holy book in their religion, even though they do not believe Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Muslims, Christians and the Jews all believe in the Torah, which is the Old Testament part of the book. So we are all together on that. Christians believe that God has planted a way to redeem us from our brokenness through his son Jesus Christ. And that will eventually become one body through Jesus Christ who came to this world and who died like a criminal and then he rose again so that we can overcome death and live in eternity. That is what we Christians believe about the resurrection and the life after our death.
So what is in the Bible? What is in the Bible? It is about Jesus Christ. I just told you but if you are somebody many people don't even know some people will say that you know, one of the kids in a Sunday school said that we collect pictures and use this collect the pictures in the Bible the family pictures. So when they look for an old family picture they go and look at the Bible so they can find it. Some people keep their money in the Bible because they know that that's the last place that kids will look for money. So they think it is the safest place to keep money because nobody will look at it. So many people use it differently in some Fates in some other geographical locations of the world people use it near the pillow or people in their bed thinking that the evil spirits will not come to them. So many people use the scripture and Bible differently, but the purpose of the book is not to be careful as something and never to be opened. It is supposed to be opened and he supposed to be read every day every moment of Our Lives. That is our Guiding Light because of the scripture. We have a standard that we can follow. God has given us a measuring yard or a stick scripture so that we can be directed we can be corrected. We can be taught and we can be disciplined. That is what we read in the Gospel reading the scripture reading today from the New Testament. So it is given to us for reading for our teaching for our Doctrine for our Direction in our life every day. The Bible is lost in many houses and many places, but it is still alive and well today. The gospel is working in the hearts of thousands and thousands and millions of people around the world. People who are opening their hearts to Jesus Christ because they are reading the scripture through various means particularly in the electronic age through online. So the person of the book is the content of the book.
What is in the Bible is about Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation of God in Genesis. Jesus is the promised seed as we saw that in Exodus is the Passover Lamb and in Leviticus is the Lamb of God and then going on and on when he comes to the Psalms. He is the song of the ages and in the Proverbs and the cliches the great preacher and the teacher and they become to the prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Lamentations. He is the weeping prophet the Prince of Peace. He is the Rebuilder of the kingdom of the Temple. Then we come to the closing chapters of closing books of the Old Testament like say, Joel and Malachi. He is the The coming prince will be born in Bethlehem. Then we have new Testament the Matthew Mark Luke and John where we read the life of Jesus Christ, who is the king of kings the suffering servant the Son of God, and when we come to the letters like Romans Corinthians and Galatians Ephesians and Philippians Letters by Paul. He is the Heavenly one our sufficient savior the great coming Christ. Those are the things that Paul brings out in his letters and when we come to the letter of James and Peter and John and Jude that reassures us of our Salvation how precious our faith is and the Assurance of our salvation and the one who can keep us from falling. And then we come to Revelation. He is the one who is coming. King of kings and Lord of lords who will be coming back again to take us all to have one day. So right through from Genesis to the Book of Revelation, it is all one person that we are reading one way or another. It is about Jesus Christ and he will be coming back again to redeem us to join us together as his church. And it is not a science book. It is not a history book, even though history is in the Bible. But we don't use it as a history book or a science book because that is not the purpose of it. The purpose of the scripture or the word of God is not to prove science or not to prove mathematics. It was given by God to change lives of human beings.
So do not toss it aside do not keep it as a dust collector at home open it to our children. I was able to take the scripture every day the Bible in my hand and we had a Bible study during lunchtime every week. and people sometimes mock you and make fun of you because you're carrying the Bible along with your other regular textbooks. It is something that you need to carry and he is more than needed this time, particularly during this time of confusion and doubts
A young man graduated from high school and was ready to go to college. His dad and he were looking at a car to buy for his college. So they went around and looked at many cars and The week before the graduation they found the perfect car. But they did not buy it. The father wanted to surprise the boy. On the eve of the graduation his father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible as a gift. The boy was expecting probably a box with the key of the car in it, but he was very disappointed when he opened the box and saw that it was a Bible. He left it aside and left for college without the car. He never took that Bible with him. He was so angry and he was so disappointed and upset. He and his father never saw each other for a couple of years while he was in college and finally, sadly his father died. And then he came home for the funeral and he sat there going through all the things of his father's possessions and looking for all the stuff. He came across the Bible that his father had given him still sitting there where he left. And he brushed away the dust and opened it and then on the first page he saw an envelope. And he opened that envelope and then he looked at it and it was the same amount of money that he and his father looked for that car. The father gave him the gift in the form of a check that he could have used if he ever opened the Bible. The Father wanted Him to make the Bible a part of his son's life.
This may not be a real life story. But when I thought about the story I could not help but wonder how many people in this world have done the same thing to God. We toss aside the wonderful promises that God has given us through the scripture and missing out without reading it. Let us continue to read scripture and use it and apply that in our lives and teach that in our two kids regularly so that they will be strengthened and not to be ashamed to carry the scripture alone. May God bless you with this word as we go and proclaim the word of God and the love God to this world.
Comments
Post a Comment