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This week’s devotions are based on the Week 6 “Explore God” – Is the Bible Reliable? (WATCH HERE)

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1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!

What’s in a relationship?

Do you remember the first time you asked someone out on a date?  You were nervous, a bit clunky and deathly afraid of being rejected.  When the individual said, “Yes” you were happy inside and enjoyed going out on a few more dates after that.  Then, perhaps, the questions got more serious as you wondered, “What is the status of our relationship?”  “Are we just friends?  Are we boyfriend/girlfriend?  Are we exclusive? Etc.” 

Relationships are a key part of our earthly interactions.  We not only have a relationship with our spouse, but we have relationships with friends, co-workers, neighbors etc.  Some people you have to have a relationship with and others you choose to have a relationship with and still others you desire to have a relationship with.

What makes relationships challenging is when you have to guess where you stand with that person.  Are they a friend or foe?  Are we good or not? 

As we consider our final question of the series, “Can I know God personally?” one realizes that the intellectual answer to the previous question, while important, is not complete if there is not faith to believe the answers God gives to the questions.

Can I know God personally?

The short answer is, “Yes, you can.”

However, perhaps the place to start is not with the 10 steps to get to know God, but rather the answer to the question, “Does God want to know you personally?”  This answer is “Yes, he does.”

Perhaps when we start with the question, “Can I know God personally?” we focus on what I have to do to get to know God.  However, when we start with understanding how much God does because he personally knows and loves you, it quickly engenders the reaction, “Yes, I want to know this God who knows and loves me so well and so much.”

The Apostle John wrote in his first letter, “We love, because he first loved us.”  This is true with every aspect of the Christian faith and life.  It is always God’s love and relationship with us that leads us to have a relationship with him. When I see and understand God’s deep love for me, a natural response is, “Why wouldn’t I want to have a personal relationship with him?”  God becomes the coolest kid on the block that everyone wants to be friends with.  God becomes the most popular kid at the dance that everyone wants to dance with.  He moves our response of faith by simply being the God who loves you so much.

And when he establishes his relationship with us in our hearts, we begin to see more clearly the wisdom and truth of the answers he gives to the six previous questions.

 

Apply: What aspect of God’s relationship with you moves you the most to believe more fully in him?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for doing all that was necessary to have a relationship with me.  Lead my heart and my life to always live for and follow you.  AMEN.

 

This week’s devotions are based on the Week 6 “Explore God” – Is the Bible Reliable? (WATCH HERE)

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This week we have presented various evidence that the Bible is reliable.  However, even if I believe something is reliable, it has no use unless I trust it enough to put it to use in my life.  In a simple way, I trust that bananas are a reliable source of potassium.  I have no intention of eating them.

So if we simply put the focus on the empirical evidence of the reliability of the Bible and simply let it rest with the conclusion, “Ok, you’ve convinced me the Bible is reliable,” we still have missed the full point.  The good Lord has given us his Word ALONG WITH evidences of its integrity and credibility for one purpose: to USE it!

In our group this week, one of the participants pointed out this very important reality which especially applies to Bible-believing Christians.  We can have all the confidence that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God and still let it collect dust on our shelves or the app remain unopened on our phones.

Jesus knew this would happen, but didn’t want it to so he speaks this encouragement:

Matthew 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

The full power of the Word of God is unleashed when we a) hear God’s Word and b) put it into practice.  

And perhaps here lies the greatest tension for us in this question, “Is the BIble reliable?”  The BIble is reliable.  Will we rely on it?

Perhaps we see the Word of God like a generator.  When the storms blow and the power goes out, we rely on the generator to work.  It often does and then when we are done, it sits to collect dust in the garage.  We need to repent of this spirit with the Word of God.  It is not a “break in the case of emergency” book.  It is God’s Word for every day of our life which also leads to a faith that brings us to eternity.

What we find when we listen AND put God’s Word to use is the blessing God communicates is unleashed.  We find peace in the promises of God that remind us of his love, presence, and protection.  We find hope in knowing with certainty we are fully forgiven and eternal life is ours through Jesus.  We find guidance for better relationships, management of wealth, and involvement with the body of believers.

And much more.

Perhaps our reaction is like the crowd when Jesus finished his Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 7:28-29) 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. 

We may just be surprised at the authority, the impact, the reliability of God’s Word when we open the Bible, read it, practice it and in every aspect of life and faith, rely on it.

Apply: What is one habit you can work on to bring the Word of God into your life daily WITH the habit of putting the truth you read into practice as well?

Prayer: Lord thank you for providing your powerful, reliable, life-giving Word to me.  Forgive me for neglecting it all too often.  Let me be the wise person that daily hears your word AND puts it into practice.  AMEN.

This week’s devotions are based on the Week 6 “Explore God” – Is the Bible Reliable? (WATCH HERE)

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Almost every online store has some sort of rating system.  If you sell things on Facebook Marketplace, you as a seller are rated.  One of the things that factors into the ratings is if the product description is accurate.   If you say something works, it has to work.  If not, people will not trust you to be honest in your listing.

If you buy something on Amazon, you will look at the reviews and determine if the product you are looking at does what it is supposed to and whether it will last, or has durability.  

When we invest in something, we want to make sure it works.  If it doesn’t work, we are not going to spend our time or money on it.

So what about the Bible?  Does it work?

Perhaps it may be hard to define what it means if the “Bible works”?  But a place to start is to see what the Bible claims it is supposed to do.

Here are three Scriptures which give us indication of what the Bible is supposed to do:

1. Create faith:

Romans 10:17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

1. Give salvation:

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

1. Guide life:

Psalm 119:105: Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

If these are three claims of the Bible, then I would expect to find evidence that the Word of God actually does these things.  Here’s an example of each:

1. At Pentecost, the message of Jesus changed the hearts of 3000 people!

Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

1. John is given a glimpse of all those that are in heaven because of faith in the message of Jesus…the Gospel

Revelation 7:9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

1. And is there blessing for life by being in the word of God?

Psalm 1:1-3

1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,

2  but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.

And then there is your experience.  It’s the Word that has brought you to faith.  It is the Word that has given you the certain hope of heaven through the Gospel and it is the Word that brings blessing to you as you put its truth into practice in your life.

Is it reliable?  It works.  If it works, it is reliable.

Apply: What impact have you realized from the time you have spent with the Word of God?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for your Word which is powerful and effective, to bring me to faith, guide me in life, and promise me eternal life with you.  AMEN.

This week’s devotions are based on the Week 6 “Explore God” – Is the Bible Reliable? (WATCH HERE)

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Matthew 5:18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 

At first read this verse perhaps seems like an exaggeration Jesus is making to highlight the point that his Word will last forever.  However, in his words is a very practical point that had been carried out for centuries by those that were privileged to be “Scribes,” or ones that HAND copied the pages of the Old Testament.  Each of these individuals had a very high regard for the text they were handling and considered it the Word of God.  They in no way wanted to be the ones responsible for allowing the smallest letter or word to disappear from what they fully considered the Word of God.

To understand the detail, here are nine realities about the process of hand copying the Scripture:

1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word “Jehovah,” every time they wrote it.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).
9. As no document containing God’s Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah – a Hebrew term meaning “hiding place.” These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.

https://scottmanning.com/content/process-of-copying-the-old-testament-by-jewish-scribes/

As a result of this meticulous work to bring the words of God from one manuscript to the next and then preserve them for future generations, we see the hand of God in this human process to ensure there was no deviance from the very words and the very truth of God’s Word.

So, is the Bible reliable?  If one looks to the history behind the transmission of the text of the Bible, we can safely conclude that from every human means possible, those that engaged in this awesome responsibility of copying God’s very words, took the matter very seriously.  And when something is taken seriously so that accuracy might be passed on, that builds a rock-solid reality of reliability.  Thank God for this gift!

Apply: Which of the above points of process for the scribes give you the most confidence that the Word of God truly is reliable?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for guiding the process of copying your word so we can be certain we have your very words with us today! AMEN.

This week’s devotions are based on the Week 6 “Explore God” – Is the Bible Reliable? (WATCH HERE)

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Is it reliable?

We often ask this question when purchasing a product that is not consumable.  Recently we had to replace our washer and dryer.  In reading reviews, we looked for comments on certain models that indicate that the machine would last for awhile.  In that list of reviews, sometimes the company itself has reviews about the product.  Internal reviews are good…however, what validates the claims of a company is the experience of people who have used the product OUTSIDE the company.

When one asks the question about the reliability of the BIble, a simple answer can be, “It’s God’s Word and that’s enough to make it reliable.”  No argument with that.  However, it may not be satisfactory to the non-Christian who is honestly questioning whether they can believe the Bible and rely on it.

So what might help and also build your confidence and credibility in professing the reliability of the BIble.

Sometimes there are “fly-over” verses that we maybe don’t pay much attention to, but God’s Spirit has preserved them because they are important.  A number of these verses provide the intersect of the events of the Bible with secular rulers and history.  These intersections provide reference points with secular historians that validate that historical credibility and reliability of the Bible.  Here are just a few examples:

Ezra 6:3 In the first year of King Cyrus, the king issued a decree concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem:  Let the temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid. It is to be ninety feet high and ninety feet wide,…

Luke 2:1-3 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

John 3:1-2 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert

Sometimes in the small details of Scripture come gems that give hope and comfort to believers.  These are not just made up people included at the whim of a fictional author, they are real historical figures used by God to carry out his plan of salvation.  These connections with other rulers, countries, and historical events remind us that God was not just interested in his chosen people, but is one that orchestrates the events of the world for the benefit of his people.  This didn’t stop once the revelation of the BIble was finished, but rather we can find peace and confidence to know that the Lord is still intersecting and orchestrating the events of the world to his glory and the benefit of his church.

Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

 

Apply: What comfort does the fact that God intersects and rules over all rulers and nations bring to you as one of his children?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for ruling over all nations and rulers to bring to reality your church, your blessing and your guidance for us as your people. AMEN.