How We Got It / How to Read It
- What is the Bible?
- How Did We Get It?
2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...
- Old Testament
Review: Luke 11:49-51
Don’t some Bibles have extra books?
- New Testament
Review: John 16:12-14
How do we know what books belong?
(click thumbnail to enlarge)
- How Do We Know It’s True?
- Archeology
- Science
Isaiah 40:22 - It is he who sits above the circle of the earth...
Review: Isaiah 46:9-10 | Mark 12:35-37
- How Do I Read It?
- Read it Seriously. (Psalm 138:2)
- Read it Straightforwardly.
- Read it Seekingly.
Questions to Ask Yourself When Reading the Bible:
- What stands out to me from the passage?
- Is this passage calling me to do something? Stop doing something? Think about something?
- Is someone serving as an example in the passage? Is this a good or a bad example?
- Does this passage give me a promise from God to claim?
John 5:24 - Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:12
Typically at Harvest Bible Chapel, we walk through a passage of Scripture seeking to understand what did God say and what does this mean and how do we apply this?
00:13-00:27
And you can almost think of it in terms of as we're walking through the Scripture, it's sort of like walking through the forest and we're looking at all the vegetation and the wildlife and all the details.
00:28-00:32
We're going to be doing something really different over the next 10 weeks.
00:32-00:38
Instead of walking through the forest, we're going to be getting in a helicopter and flying over it.
00:39-00:53
As we just showed you in that video, what we want to do is, after these 10 weeks, every one of us to have a real firm grasp on here's how the Word of God is put together, and here's how we can be better Bible students.
00:54-01:01
And the goal, as we had prayed earlier, is not to just become Bible fatheads.
01:01-01:04
We want to know the God of the Bible.
01:04-01:10
And we don't want to be intimidated to read the Bible, but we want to have great confidence in going forward.
01:10-01:13
So, first Scripture passage.
01:14-01:21
To kick this all off, before we can actually look at the content of the Bible, today's message is the Bible.
01:22-01:25
how we got it, and how to read it.
01:27-01:28
And it all starts here.
01:28-01:29
2 Timothy 3.
01:31-01:32
Verse 16.
01:34-01:50
It says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." I'm going to start here.
01:50-01:51
This is the claim.
01:52-01:55
And there might be some people here who don't believe that yet.
01:57-02:03
But whether you believe it or not, I want it to be clear that this is actually what the Bible claims about itself.
02:03-02:05
Scripture is breathed out by God, first of all.
02:06-02:10
The Bible makes this claim that God wrote it.
02:10-02:14
That God spoke through people to write His Word.
02:15-02:20
There's another word up there that I want you to see.
02:21-02:23
And it's the very first word.
02:23-02:28
It's the word "all." Because this is a word that's often disputed.
02:28-02:42
There are people that say, "Well, I think some of the Bible's inspired." "I think there are parts that are inspired." "I think there are parts that are kind of like filler or fairy tale or fable." Listen, the Bible doesn't allow for that.
02:42-02:45
You have two choices with this verse.
02:46-02:48
Either this is true, or this is not true.
02:51-02:59
Either all Scripture is inspired by God, or if there are parts that are not inspired, then this verse is false, right?
03:01-03:02
Those are the choices we have.
03:02-03:03
This is true or this is not true.
03:04-03:10
So again, if you don't believe that yet, I just want you to see what the claim is.
03:13-03:16
"All Scripture is agreed upon by God." Okay, so here's the claim.
03:17-03:21
The claim is this book, God wrote it.
03:21-03:25
His Holy Spirit spoke through man and God wrote all of it.
03:25-03:33
And if this is true, if this is true - now I believe that it is, and I know there are many people here that believe that it is.
03:34-03:50
But if this is true, that God wrote this book, The Lord, the Sovereign, the Almighty of the Universe communicated to man through a book telling us who He is, telling us who we are.
03:53-04:00
If that were true, this book would be the most important thing that we have on the earth, right?
04:01-04:02
If this claim is true.
04:04-04:06
would be the most important thing that we have.
04:08-04:10
It is the number one bestseller of all time.
04:13-04:21
And not just this being the number one bestseller, but did you know there's more books written about this book than about any other subject.
04:22-04:25
This book has inspired more songs.
04:26-04:28
It has transformed more cultures.
04:29-04:30
It has healed more hurts.
04:30-04:35
It has changed more lives than any other thing on the planet.
04:37-04:39
This is the most read book.
04:39-04:42
This is the most controversial book.
04:42-04:47
And it's also the most misunderstood book.
04:48-04:50
That's why we're starting here, okay?
04:51-04:54
So, I'm going to give you a lot of information today.
04:56-05:03
First of all, understand that the information I give you a tenth of the total amount of information that I've studied this week.
05:03-05:04
So everybody say thank you Pastor Jeff.
05:06-05:30
Because you know, I give it all to you. I'm just going to give, this is just going to scratch the surface. I understand that I can't get up and in 30 or 40 minutes communicate something that some people dedicate entire lives to, and entire schools of study and entire libraries have been written on this subject. So I'm going to get up and I'm going to speak on this for a few minutes. This is an overview, okay? This is an overview.
05:32-05:39
So even as an overview, there's going to be a lot of information, and you can go back and listen to it again if there's something that you missed.
05:41-05:49
So, the first question that we're going to ask is, "What is the Bible?" What is the Bible?
05:49-05:57
The Bible is 66 books, divided into Old Testament and New Testament.
05:57-05:59
Look at that bookshelf image up there.
05:59-06:08
A better word than "Testament" - I know we use the word "Old Testament" and "New Testament" - but a better word really is the word "Covenant." It's the old covenant and it's the new covenant.
06:08-06:10
You're like, "What's a covenant?" Well, a covenant is simply this.
06:12-06:21
A covenant is God's commitment to keep certain promises to His people on certain terms.
06:22-06:26
So I want you to look at this bookshelf because we're going to be referencing this a lot.
06:27-06:32
this is the Old Testament, okay, or the Old Covenant.
06:32-06:38
And then these two shelves down here represent the New Testament or the New Covenant.
06:38-06:40
So first of all, what is the Old Testament, the Old Covenant?
06:42-06:56
In general, what this portion, more than half of your Bible, is God's interaction with the world circling around specifically the nation of Israel.
06:56-07:05
This takes place from creation to about 400 years before Jesus Christ came to the earth.
07:05-07:07
The Old Testament is 39 books.
07:09-07:11
Okay, then we have the New Testament.
07:14-07:16
That's the latter chunk of your Bible.
07:17-07:25
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ enters, Jesus Christ completes His work, Jesus Christ establishes His church.
07:25-07:28
and there's 27 books in the New Testament.
07:29-07:36
Now, the reason we have this image up here is to understand that your Bible isn't really just a book, okay?
07:36-07:39
Your Bible is actually a library. That's why we have this picture up here.
07:40-07:43
Your Bible is a book of books, okay?
07:43-07:52
So when you hold this Bible in your hand, it's like you're holding an entire library in your hand, because in your hand, in your Bible, you have all of these books.
07:53-07:54
And it's all different kinds of writing.
07:54-07:58
For example, the first five books of the Bible, this is the law.
07:58-08:10
This describes not just creation and those things we'll be talking about in the next few weeks, but it talks about how God gave the Old Testament law, the Old Covenant law to Israel.
08:10-08:13
Then you get to these books from Joshua to Esther.
08:13-08:15
These are called books of history.
08:15-08:24
These are books that cover the nation of Israel going into the Promised Land under Joshua's leadership, all the way to some post-exilic stuff.
08:24-08:25
We'll be getting into that.
08:25-08:28
But these are books about the history of the nation of Israel.
08:29-08:31
These books are called books of poetry and wisdom.
08:31-08:34
That's Job to Song of Solomon.
08:35-08:39
And then we have, completing the Old Testament, we have prophets.
08:39-08:42
There's major prophets and there's minor prophets.
08:44-08:45
What's the difference?
08:45-08:48
Well, the major prophets aren't more important than the minor prophets.
08:48-08:51
They're called that just because their writings are longer.
08:52-08:53
They just had bigger books.
08:54-08:59
And the Minor Prophets, or the Book of the Twelve, completes the Old Testament.
09:01-09:01
Alright?
09:02-09:06
The New Testament we have - these first four books are called Gospels.
09:06-09:08
They are biographies of Jesus.
09:09-09:11
Then we have the Book of Acts.
09:11-09:14
Somebody here might know something about that.
09:14-09:16
We've been talking about it for the last couple of years.
09:16-09:23
But Acts talks about how the early church was born and how it grew and how it advanced as Jesus promised.
09:23-09:25
And then we get to Paul's letters.
09:25-09:30
There's 13 letters written by the Apostle Paul whom we are studying in Acts.
09:30-09:42
These are actually letters that he wrote to churches describing here's what Christian conduct looks like because it's based on a right understanding of who God is and who we are.
09:42-09:45
And Paul's letters were arranged from longest to shortest.
09:45-09:48
And then there's general letters, Hebrews to Jude.
09:49-09:51
literal letters, meaning these weren't written by Paul.
09:52-09:56
These were written by some other guys we'll be talking about here down the road.
09:56-09:59
And the last book in your Bible is a book of prophecy, revelation.
10:02-10:06
The Bible - this is absolutely staggering.
10:06-10:22
It is a book of books, but it was written in three different languages - And these authors all come from different backgrounds.
10:22-10:27
You had shepherds, you had tax collectors, you had preachers, and you had kings.
10:28-10:28
All writers.
10:30-10:33
And they came from three different continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa.
10:36-10:43
Over a period of 1,500 years, the Bible was completed in the first century.
10:45-10:47
But this is the amazing thing.
10:50-10:54
over a period of 1,500 years, but it tells one story.
10:55-11:06
If I grabbed 40 people here who all live in the same time period, in the same geographic area, if I grabbed 40 people here and said, hey, I want you to write a story, it would be all over the place.
11:09-11:18
But here we have such varied people from different times and places all writing these stories that are compiled, and it just reads out to us.
11:18-11:19
It reads like one book.
11:19-11:24
And the reason for that is because there really is at the end of the day only one author.
11:25-11:30
The Holy Spirit wrote the book over that course of time through those people.
11:30-11:33
All Scripture is breathed out by God is the claim.
11:36-11:37
That's what the Bible is.
11:39-11:39
Here's the question.
11:40-11:40
How did we get it?
11:41-11:42
How did we get the Bible?
11:44-11:47
You know, God could have communicated to us any way that He wanted.
11:48-11:49
God could have sent us a movie.
11:52-11:53
God could have sent us an email.
11:56-12:00
God could have written His message in the clouds and the sky.
12:02-12:04
Instead, God chose a book.
12:04-12:07
God says here's how I want my people to know who I am.
12:08-12:11
That way it's not a matter of this guy's opinion or that guy's opinion.
12:11-12:17
God says I'm going to write it all down in an objective source of authority that everybody can look at.
12:18-12:24
That way when somebody says, "Here's what God is like," we can turn to this and say, "This is what God has said about Himself.
12:24-12:25
He wrote it down.
12:25-12:30
It's a brilliant plan." So it doesn't matter what you think or what I think.
12:30-12:32
God says I have it written down so you can read it and check it.
12:33-12:34
So how did we get this book?
12:34-12:38
I don't know about you, but my Bible didn't just drop from the sky one day.
12:38-12:41
I'm like, "God, I want to know You." It's like, boom.
12:41-12:42
Like, "Oh, I got this book.
12:42-12:45
Thank you very much for that." How did it come together?
12:48-12:49
Well, let's talk about the Old Testament.
12:49-12:50
How did it come together?
12:50-12:52
The Old Testament, as we said, is 39 books.
12:52-12:55
It's also the Jewish Bible - the Tanakh.
12:56-13:07
But understand that Jewish people - Orthodox Jews - Jews that believe in the Scriptures, they don't call it the Old Testament.
13:09-13:11
Because they don't believe that there is a New Testament.
13:11-13:16
They don't believe that Jesus Christ He is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament.
13:17-13:27
But understand, in your Bible, your Old Testament is exactly like the Jewish Scriptures; the Jewish Old Testament.
13:29-13:30
The same material.
13:31-13:32
Here's the question.
13:32-13:34
Who assembled those 39 books?
13:34-13:36
Do we have that bookshelf again?
13:36-13:37
Keep that handy.
13:37-13:43
Who took all these books that were written by all these different people Who put them all together?
13:46-13:47
Here's the answer.
13:49-13:49
We don't know.
13:52-13:53
Like, well, then how do you know?
13:53-13:55
Okay, Pastor Jeff, hang on a second.
13:56-14:02
You don't know who put those together, but you're telling me that I should believe in them as belonging together.
14:03-14:05
That's absolutely what I'm telling you.
14:06-14:08
You're like, well, why should I?
14:08-14:08
Well, here's why.
14:10-14:21
"By Jesus' day, the Old Testament was assembled." In fact, several times, Jesus affirmed the Jewish Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures as authoritative.
14:21-14:23
Luke 11, look at this.
14:24-14:27
Luke 11, verses 49-51.
14:28-14:34
"Therefore also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute.
14:36-14:41
The blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world against this generation.
14:41-14:43
But look at this phrase.
14:45-15:01
"From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary." Jesus used a very specific phrase there talking about, obviously, persecution and martyrdom, but He was talking about Abel and Zechariah.
15:02-15:05
Why did He pull those two names out?
15:05-15:20
Jesus didn't just take two random people from the Jewish Scriptures He said, "From Abel to Zechariah." He was using them as bookends, meaning all of the Old Testament Scriptures.
15:20-15:20
Why?
15:23-15:26
Because the Scriptures start with the book of Genesis.
15:27-15:32
But you know, the Jewish Scriptures are actually arranged a little bit differently than ours.
15:33-15:38
The Bible in your hand was arranged according to how they were arranged in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
15:39-15:39
I don't know who made that up.
15:42-15:56
But if you have an Orthodox Jewish Bible, again, it's the same material, but instead of going from Genesis to Malachi as ours do, theirs goes from Genesis to Chronicles.
15:58-16:08
Okay, and the last major event in the book of Chronicles in your Bible is 2 Chronicles 24, verse 21, was the murder of Zechariah.
16:10-16:13
And of course, the murder of Abel was in the beginning of Genesis.
16:15-16:21
You see, Jesus in His day, He talked about the law and the writings and the prophets, which is what they referred to as their scriptures.
16:23-16:25
Talking about the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.
16:26-16:29
Jesus talked about the Old Testament as being literally true.
16:29-16:31
We're going to talk more about that in a second.
16:33-16:36
At this point, somebody would say, "Well, wait a minute, Pastor Zip.
16:36-16:39
Don't some Bibles have extra books?
16:39-16:45
You know, my grandma has this Bible that has some other books that aren't on the shelf that you mentioned.
16:45-16:47
Well, there are some other books.
16:47-16:48
It's called the Apocrypha.
16:49-16:59
The Apocrypha are intertestamental books, meaning they were written between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
16:59-17:00
You're like, well, why aren't they in the Bible?
17:02-17:12
Because nobody - no Jewish scholar, None of the apostles - nobody saw them as authoritative throughout church history.
17:13-17:15
But here's the thing though.
17:16-17:19
Even the Apocrypha itself doesn't claim to be authoritative.
17:21-17:26
Their own writings, they confess themselves that they're not authoritative writings.
17:26-17:27
That they're not included.
17:30-17:32
The Old Testament we know is assembled by Jesus.
17:32-17:33
What about the New Testament?
17:35-17:37
We've got the 27 books of the New Testament.
17:37-17:42
As we said, these are the biographies, the mission, the commentaries, the return of Jesus Christ.
17:42-17:43
How did it come about?
17:46-17:48
You see, God didn't just send a new book.
17:50-17:56
The New Testament, the New Covenant really started when God personally came to the earth first.
17:59-18:02
And when you study the life of Jesus, He made all these claims about Himself.
18:03-18:09
Jesus made claims about Himself that weren't just equal to the Old Testament, but they went beyond the Old Testament.
18:09-18:12
Some of us in our church are memorizing the Sermon on the Mount.
18:13-18:32
And if you read that, so many times Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, but I say to you..." Jesus said, "Yes, this is authoritative, but I'm telling you, we're going a step further than this." The kind of authority and teaching that Jesus brought meant that this book, this Old Testament Scripture, was going to have to be expanded.
18:35-18:41
And Jesus actually promised that the rest of the Scripture was going to be coming through the Holy Spirit.
18:42-18:47
John 16 - Jesus talked about this in many places, but here's just an example.
18:47-18:48
Again, this is overview.
18:49-18:52
Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
18:52-19:05
When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, Whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.
19:06-19:19
He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you." So Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit was going to be bringing more divine revelation.
19:23-19:25
So how do we know what books belong in the New Testament?
19:26-19:44
You know those 27 on our bookshelf in everything from Matthew to Revelation How do we know that those are the books that belong in the New Testament because the truth is there are a lot of other books Written about Jesus. How did these 27 get picked to go in the Bible?
19:45-19:55
Well the early church selected with various criteria things like you know Was it written by an apostle or a close associate with a possible? Does the information line up with?
19:56-20:00
the rest of the information, but it was so much more than that.
20:03-20:11
You see, it was the church recognizing that these writings were the authoritative word from God.
20:12-20:25
You understand, it wasn't like the early church looked at some Scriptures and said, "You know what, we hereby deem this authoritative." And they looked at another book and said, You know what we hereby deem this authoritative?
20:25-20:27
It was actually the opposite.
20:27-20:34
They were authoritative, and the early church recognized - this was obviously written by the Holy Spirit.
20:34-20:36
God obviously inspired that.
20:36-20:39
They recognized the authority that these books had.
20:41-20:49
Ultimately, it was because God's glory was manifested through them and recognized by the church.
20:51-20:53
That's a question I get asked so often.
20:54-21:02
"Pastor Jeff, how do we know that what we have written in the Bible is what was originally written?" I get asked that a lot.
21:02-21:05
People say, "The Bible's been translated over and over and over.
21:05-21:07
Pastor Jeff, you know the telephone game, right?
21:07-21:10
How many people played the telephone game?" You know what I'm talking about?
21:12-21:19
We played this in elementary school where you whisper a message to the first person and they have to whisper it to the next person.
21:20-21:24
and by the time you get to the end of the line, it's a completely different message.
21:24-21:31
People say, "Well, that's obviously what had to have happened with the Bible." You know, like, 2,000 years later, the message just keeps getting told and retold and retold and retold.
21:32-21:36
So obviously some things are going to change, and who knows what it says?
21:36-21:38
How do we know it says what was originally written?
21:41-21:50
We have more reason to believe that the Bible says what was originally written, than any other book.
21:51-21:53
You know, the test that they use for that's called the bibliographical test.
21:54-22:07
The test whether an ancient document actually says what was originally written, what they have to do, is they say, "Okay, let's see how many ancient copies we have of the book." And then we line up all the ancient copies and see, are they all saying the same thing?
22:09-22:14
Now, the number two ancient book in the world that passes the bibliographical test is Homer's The Iliad.
22:16-22:52
there are six hundred and some ancient manuscripts that you know scholars compare with one another. My point is this if you went to some university and said to an English professor, "Hey, the copy of the Iliad that you teach in your classroom, are you sure are you sure that it's what Homer originally wrote?" He would look at you like you're crazy. He'd be like, "Dude, you realize we have like We are absolutely certain that the Iliad is exactly what was written by Homer.
22:53-22:55
And what a dumb question to ask, is it what was originally written.
22:56-22:57
That is a really dumb question.
22:59-23:03
As I said, that's number two, with 600 and some copies.
23:04-23:10
Would you care to guess the number one book in the world that passes the bibliographical test?
23:10-23:11
Anybody want to take a guess?
23:11-23:14
I'll give you a hint, it's our middle name, Bible.
23:14-23:16
Harvest Bible Chapel.
23:16-23:18
It's the New Testament specifically.
23:19-23:22
You know how many ancient copies we have that have been compared?
23:22-23:24
Try over 25,000.
23:26-23:27
25,000 is number one.
23:28-23:30
Iliad number two was 600 and some.
23:31-23:37
So scholars have over 25,000 forms and versions of ancient manuscripts.
23:38-23:39
We don't have the originals.
23:39-23:40
We don't have the one that Paul wrote.
23:41-23:48
We have all these ancient manuscripts written, copied very close to the originals, that we compare one with another.
23:52-24:06
So get that out of your head if you're saying, "Well, I don't know if it's what was originally said." That has been proven. That has been proven. The Bible that we have says what was originally written.
24:07-24:18
Okay, so here's the next question. We've talked about what is the Bible, how did we get it, Here's where the rubber meets the road, right?
24:19-24:25
I hear what you're saying, and I hear it put together, and okay, okay, it says what was originally written, but how do we know what was originally written was true?
24:27-24:28
And you know what?
24:28-24:34
I could keep you here until November, telling you stories of archaeology.
24:35-24:39
More and more and more and more archaeological evidence verifies.
24:39-24:46
Archaeology concerning the exodus of Israel, archaeology concerning King David, "Hey David, we can just talk about the Hittites.
24:46-24:52
You know the Bible talks about a group of people called the Hittites." For years, scholars laughed.
24:52-25:02
They're like, "Your little Bible fairy tale book talks about these people called the Hittites, and we have zero evidence that a group of people called the Hittites ever even lived.
25:02-25:06
What a bunch of fairy tale nonsense." They stopped saying that.
25:08-25:16
Because since then, hundreds upon hundreds of references have been found in archaeology of this ancient people group called the Hippites.
25:18-25:24
That these critics learned well the expression "Make sure all your words are sweet because you might have to eat them." Right?
25:28-25:30
Archaeology verifies the Bible.
25:31-25:32
What about science?
25:33-25:35
Understand the Bible is not a science textbook.
25:36-25:46
When the Bible makes claims that are related to science, Remember the big scare back in 1492?
25:47-25:49
Do you remember the big scare back in 1492?
25:50-25:53
Christopher Columbus, some of you, Mike, you remember that.
25:53-25:55
You helped build the boat, didn't you?
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Do you remember how everybody was so scared?
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They're like, "Christopher Columbus, if you sail, you're going to get right off the edge of the earth." Do you remember that?
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Do you know who said that?
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People that didn't know their Bibles.
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Because hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and hundreds and hundreds of years before everybody was scared that Columbus was going to sail off the edge of the earth.
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Isaiah chapter 40, verse 22, God says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth." You know, the Bible calls the earth a circle, while people who don't read the Bible are afraid that Columbus is going to sail off the edge.
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We could talk about archeology, we could talk about science, but there's really an even greater proof that the Bible is true because it's the proof that God Himself gave.
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And that's predictive prophecy.
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God says, "Here's how you know My Word's true.
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Here's how you know.
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I'm going to tell you what happens ahead of time, and then when it comes to pass, you're going to be like, "Oh, God said that was going to happen." That's how you're going to know My Word is true.
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Isaiah 46:9-10 "Remember the former things of old, I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like Me.
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Look at this next phrase.
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"Declaring the end from the beginning." And from ancient times, things not yet done.
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That's the proof.
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God declares ahead of time things that are going to happen.
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And then we see them happen.
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Just concerning the person of Jesus Christ, Did you know that there are over 350 prophecies about Jesus?
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Did you know that?
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Over 350. Many of them were fulfilled the first time He came.
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Other prophecies apply to His second coming.
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But here's the thing.
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Some people have foolishly said, "Well, obviously this Jesus of Nazareth was familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures, and He made it look like He fulfilled the Scriptures." That's idiotic to think that.
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Because the Scriptures pertain to things concerning Jesus that no normal human person has any control over.
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For example, the Bible says when the Messiah was going to live.
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Not just when, but the Bible says where the Messiah was going to be born.
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Nobody has any control over that.
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Did you pick where you were going to be born?
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No, of course not.
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The Bible says what His mother was going to be like.
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You don't have any control over that either.
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The Bible describes how Jesus died.
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You know, in the Psalms, the Psalms describe the crucifixion of the Messiah centuries before crucifixion was even invented.
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It describes in brutal detail how the Messiah was going to be crucified even before crucifixion was a thing.
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all these prophecies circling around Jesus, circling around nations, things that we're watching being fulfilled in front of our eyes today.
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But I want to insert this here too.
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How do we know it's true?
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Because when we talk about the Bible, people say, "You know what, Pastor Jeff?
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I believe in Jesus." I do.
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"I believe Jesus lived." Because you have to be foolish to think that Jesus never lived.
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We obviously believe Jesus lived.
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"I believe that Jesus said the things He said." But you know, Pastor Jeff, you know what I really struggle with?
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of that stuff in the Old Testament.
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Like, how do we know that's true?
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I mean, a guy gets swallowed by a fish.
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You think that really happened?
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Or God created the world by speaking it?
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You think that really happened?
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And absolutely, I do 100%.
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Why?
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I believe in the Old Testament because Jesus did.
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That's the bottom line.
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I believe in the Old Testament because Jesus did.
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Mark 12, verses 35-37.
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It says, "And as Jesus taught in the temple, He said, 'How can the scribe say that the Christ is the Son of David?'" Look at this phrase, "David himself in the Holy Spirit declared." Jesus was ascribing the Old Testament as being written by the Holy Spirit.
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So listen, church.
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I have zero problem talking about Jonah being swallowed by a giant fish.
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We actually preached a whole series in this church through the book of Jonah.
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And I preached it and I believe it as being 100% literally true.
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Why? Because Jesus did.
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"But Pastor Jeff, you realize so-and-so says that's impossible." Okay, who are you going to stand with?
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Are you going to stand with so-and-so or are you going to stand with Jesus?
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I'm going to stand with Jesus, okay?
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If you want to believe Mr. So-and-so who wasn't there, you can believe him.
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I'm going to go with Jesus, who said that the Holy Spirit was written by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus spoke about Jonah as being literally true, by the way.
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Like, what about creation?
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Do you really believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days, and the earth is young?
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Yeah, I absolutely believe that 100%.
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Well, why do you believe that? Because Jesus did.
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You know Jesus talked about creation as being literally true?
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Like, well, what about marriage?
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We live in a day that marriage is being redefined.
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I believe that marriage is as God intended, should be as God intended in Genesis 2.24.
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Why?
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Because Jesus believed that that was literally true.
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I could go on and on and on and on, but I believe that the Old Testament is true because Jesus did.
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I'll stand with Him.
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Jesus didn't present the Old Testament as some fable or fairy tale or just these imaginative stories made up to teach a moral lesson.
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Jesus spoke about them as real events and real people and real places.
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All good with Him.
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How do we know it's true?
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Archeology, science, yeah, but it's predictive prophecy.
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Again, it's Jesus verifying the Old Testament.
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last thing for today. How do I read it? "Hey Pastor Jeff, we know this is what the Bible is, this is where it came from, okay so this is how we know it's true, but you know what, it is an entire library. So how do I read it?" I'll leave you with three things today. Number one, read it seriously. Read it seriously. The Bible is a very a very serious thing to God.
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How serious?
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Psalm 138.2 says, "For you have exalted above all things your name and your word." Some translations even say you exalted your word above your name.
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What I want you to see is God has exalted His Word.
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And we should take it very seriously.
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We shouldn't read the Bible like we or a sports magazine, or flip through a cookbook.
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You should read it seriously.
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I encourage you, before you read the Bible, start with a short prayer.
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Just a short prayer. Say, "God, I'm about to turn to Your Word right now, and I pray that You would open my eyes and my mind to understand what it is You're communicating to me." Start with a short prayer like that.
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Like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, you said yourself there are 66 books.
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How do I even know where to start?" If you're looking for a place to start, and you're like, "I've been wanting to read the Bible, I'm not sure where to start." Start with the Gospel of John.
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Don't get distracted.
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Start with the Gospel of John.
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And can you just take it one chapter at a time?
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And I encourage you to underline things.
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That's what I do.
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When I read, I always have a wad of pens, different colors.
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But I underline things, and I'm always Drawing circles and making connections. Why?
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Because I'm trying to stay focused on, "Okay, what is this passage talking about?
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What does God want me to know?" It's okay if you're writing your Bible.
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Not like to add information.
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Underline, circle, highlight, all good stuff.
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Read it seriously.
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Secondly, read it straightforwardly.
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Let's get our bookshelf back up there, can we?
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Read it straightforwardly.
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You realize there are many different types of writings in the Bible.
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Like, for example, you get to the law and the history.
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These books are just straightforward narrative.
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These are the people, and this is where they went, and this is what they did.
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So that's just narrative.
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But then you get to these books of poetry.
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You know, Psalms are actually songs.
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They sang those.
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And we sing those songs.
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versions of them even today.
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But they're not going to read like the books of history.
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Proverbs are these sayings of truth to apply to life.
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It's not going to read like a narrative.
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And then the prophecy a lot of times is written in a prose or a poetic type of a format.
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So there's different types of writings.
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In the Gospels, it's going to be more like the narrative.
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This is who Jesus is. This is where He went.
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This is what He did. Acts, as we're walking through.
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It's narrative. Paul's letters, again, these are letters written to churches.
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They're going to read a little bit different.
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Okay? He wrote these to churches and to pastors.
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Saying, "Look, here's how you conduct yourselves, church.
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Here's how you conduct yourself, pastor, because of who Jesus is and what He's done." Again, with the letters and then prophecy, revelation.
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It's going to be a lot like a lot of these other things, because Revelation is going to have some poetry and prose and metaphor in it, but it's also going to have some straight narrative in it.
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Like, well, how do I take books and pieces of this and read it?
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Just read it straightforwardly.
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God didn't give you a crossword puzzle.
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God gave you a book.
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God didn't give you a riddle.
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He gave you a book.
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God wants you to understand this.
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Do you know that?
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God wants you to understand this.
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God's not up in heaven like, "Man, I hope they figure this thing out," or "I wonder if they will." God's like, "I wrote it all down.
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Read it straightforwardly." I want to give you an example of what I mean by straightforwardly.
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I just jotted this down.
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This is a silly example, but I think this is going to make sense to you.
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Some people are like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, there's a lot of stuff in the Bible that's like imagery and metaphor that's maybe not literally true, Like it's a story being told or a picture being painted.
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Like for example, when Jesus tells a parable, those parables weren't events that actually happened, they were stories that Jesus made up in order to teach a truth.
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But then you have straight narrative and metaphor, and it's hard.
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But I just want to encourage you, you're used to reading stuff like this all the time.
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Straightforwardly means you just take it for what it says.
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But don't let the figures of speech and maybe the change of types of literature, even within the same book, don't let that throw you.
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Because we do that all the time.
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Straightforwardly.
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Like for example, here's a sentence that uses different figures of speech, but if you understand it straightforwardly, you know exactly what I mean.
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If I said to you, "We went to this restaurant in the middle of nowhere." Now how many people understood what that sentence meant?
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"We went to this restaurant in the middle of nowhere." Okay? There's nobody here that's like, "Okay, the first part of that sentence, 'We went to this restaurant,' that's literally true.
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I think they actually went to a restaurant." But the middle of nowhere is not actually a thing.
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That's not actually a real place.
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And that's sort of like a word picture.
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But how am I supposed to understand what Pastor Jeff is saying when he's mixing narrative with word picture.
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You know exactly what I was saying, right?
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Because you understood the sentence straightforwardly.
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And that's how you should read the Bible.
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God gave the Bible so little Jewish children can understand this.
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OK, you don't have to be some language scholar that went to Bible college and seminary and beyond.
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God wrote this for the average Joe.
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He wants regular people like us to be able to read this and to understand it.
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So because of that, we should read it straightforwardly.
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And I also want to encourage you to not be afraid to use tools to read the Bible.
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And I would encourage you to use the tools, but don't replace the Bible with the tools.
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When I was preparing this week, I got a little overzealous, and I'm like, "I'm going to bring some tools and show them how to read the Bible." "Here's a study Bible, and it's got some study notes." And I put that on the desk, and I'm like, "The Handbook of the Pentateuch, a Bible handbook, that's a good thing.
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And here's a handbook and the whole Bible." And I had this whole stack of books, and I'm like, "I don't really need to do that." But I did bring one.
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Study Bibles, Bible handbooks, those things are all great.
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But here's one that I really recommend to people.
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You don't have to have this exact one, but there's many like it.
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This is an Old Testament survey book.
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I use this.
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What's an Old Testament survey book?
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It's just simply this.
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Imagine if you were going to a movie, or you were planning on going to a movie, and you knew somebody that already saw the movie.
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And you said to them, what's the movie about?
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Are they going to give you a two-hour and 20-minute explanation, line by line?
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And then, OK, so the scene was dark.
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And then the first character said this.
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And then the car rolled up.
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No, they're not going to do that.
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"Oh, you know what the movie was about?
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It was about this cop and he, you know, he's going through some hard times, he started a donut shop or whatever." They're just going to give you the overview, right?
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That's what a Bible survey book does.
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It's like this portion of Scripture is about this person and this people group and this happens and God says this about it.
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And there's times when I'm going through especially some of the longer prophecies like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I'll pull this thing off the shelf It might sum up three chapters in a few sentences, but I'll read that, and then when I actually go to the text, I'm like, "Oh, I know what I'm anticipating here.
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He's going to be talking about a certain people group.
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He's going to be saying some things about their sin that tells me what to be keeping an eye out for." Does that make sense?
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Survey books and handbooks, things like this, I think are incredibly helpful tools.
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Don't use them to replace the Bible.
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That would be really lame.
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Okay? Because God didn't write this.
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really smart guy Paul House wrote this. It summarizes things but it shouldn't replace the Bible. These are great tools to use and really help you make sense of the Bible. So read it seriously, read it straightforwardly, thirdly read it seekingly. Like is that a word? Yeah according to Webster's Dictionary online I find it is a word.
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Seekingly.
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Seekingly!
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You should be reading the Bible with the mindset of what is God trying to communicate to me?
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I shared this with you before.
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I alluded to it earlier.
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When I read the Bible - now this isn't going to be ultra profound.
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It's going to be very simple.
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But when I read the Bible, this is simply what I do.
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Like I said, I have pens and pencils to highlight underline I'm really looking for two things when I read the Bible what is the subject of the passage all right second thing what is it saying about the subject that's what I'm going after like that's pretty simple yeah we can do that right what's the subject and what's it saying about the subject meaning what's the subject is this passage about a person great what's it saying about that person maybe the subjects not a person maybe the The subject is prayer.
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Oh, he's talking about prayer.
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What is he saying about prayer?
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Oh, this is talking about money.
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What is it saying about money?
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That's how I read the Bible.
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What's the subject and what's it saying about the subject?
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That's what I do.
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I'm going to get a little more specific now.
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These are questions to ask yourself when reading the Bible.
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I'm going to go through these very quickly.
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Questions to ask yourself when reading the Bible.
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Number one, what stands out to me from the passage?
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What stands out to me?
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You're reading the passage, you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Has that ever happened to you?" I'm reading it like, "Wow!" What stands out to me from the passage?
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Maybe there's something in particular in that passage that God really is wanting to drive home to you.
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What stands out to me from the passage?
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Number two, we're getting specific.
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Is this passage calling me to do something?
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Is this passage telling me to stop doing something?
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Is this passage telling me to think about something?
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You're going to see those kinds of things in the Bible.
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You're going to get to some passages that are going to say, "Darla, you need to be doing this.
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Darla, get on this." You're going to be reading some passages like Steve, stop doing this.
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The Bible says I shouldn't be doing this and God's speaking to me here.
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I need to stop doing it.
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And you're going to get to some passages like Ben, you need to think about this.
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What are things you need to focus your mind on and change the way you think about?
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So ask yourself, what's the Bible telling me to do or think or not do or not think?
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Number three, questions to ask yourself when reading the Bible.
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Is someone serving as an example in this passage?
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You read about God - King Saul, King David, Solomon, Gideon.
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You're reading about all these different people.
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Okay, these people are obviously an example.
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Are they a good example or are they a bad example?
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That's the question.
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Good example or bad example?
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And number four, questions to ask yourself when reading the Bible.
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This is a huge one.
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Does this passage give me a promise from God to claim?
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Does this passage give me a promise from God to claim?
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The Bible says, okay, for people that receive Jesus Christ, and it gives you this promise, like yeah, you know what?
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receive Jesus Christ. This is for me. We are blessed with every blessing in the heavenly place. That's for me. We have this Holy Spirit as a gift, as a seal, as our guide, as our counselor. That's for me. Read it seekingly. I encourage you when you read your chapter and dig deep into, you know, what's the subject?
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What's the thing about the subject? What does this mean to me? How does this apply to me? Close your Bible time with a short prayer when you're done. A short prayer saying, "God, help me to understand what I've read and help me to make this truth a part of my life." Be very specific about that.
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This is God's book.
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A few would say, "Well, Pastor Jeff, can you take these 66 books by these 40 authors over 1,500 years from three continents in three languages?
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Can you summarize all of this in a paragraph?" I could.
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Could you summarize all of it in a sentence?
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I can even do that, but I can do you one better.
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Pastor Jeff, can you summarize this entire book with one word?
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And I can do that.
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To summarize everything this book says in one word, it's this word.
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You ready? It's a name.
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It's Jesus.
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This book is about Jesus.
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The Bible centers around Jesus.
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And the purpose of the Bible is to know God through Jesus.
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One last verse.
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This is why we place so much urgency, so much emphasis, so much encouragement on reading God's Word.
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Look at John 5.24.
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Jesus said - look at this closely.
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"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me as eternal life, does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life.
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So working backwards, Jesus said that you can have eternal life.
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You can have that.
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You can have that today.
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How do you get it?
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Well, Jesus said to get eternal life, it's about believing in Him.
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Like, well, how do I do that?
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How can I believe in Jesus?
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How can I know Jesus?
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Well, go back one more step.
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You have to hear His Word.
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That's why this book is so important.
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Because this book won't just change your life.
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This book will give you life.
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And over the next 10 weeks, including today, we're going to be hitting the highlights of this book.
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You know how incredibly difficult it was for me to narrow a Bible 101 series down to 10 weeks?
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It was tough.
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But I was thinking, what are 10 things people need to know about this book?
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We have one down.
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Next week we're going to be getting into the book.
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And over the following nine weeks, we're going to be hitting some mountain peaks to say, these are things that God wants you to know.
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OK?
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Join me in the journey.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we covered a lot of information today, Father.
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I know that.
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It's my prayer that the amount of information doesn't exceed our capacity to receive and appropriate and apply.
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But God, we just want to pause today and we want to thank you for your Word.
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How messed up we would be if we're navigating our way through life, trying to figure out who you are.
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There's all these opinions and all these so-called experts talking about who you are and what you're like, and who knows who would be right?
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but You've given us Your Word so that we may know.
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We may know You, we may know Your promises, we may have assurance of them, we can bank on them, we can rest in them.
48:44-49:11
Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters here that over these following nine weeks, we all come together, getting some of these major things in your Bible, And through it all, Father, we again, not just know the Bible of God, we want to know the God of life.
49:12-49:16
In the glorious name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Review the Message!
Who wrote the Bible? How do we know?
How is the Bible structured? What parts make up the Bible?
How do we know the Bible is true? What evidences do we have, internally and externally?
What are some ways you can improve your understanding in reading the Bible?
Breakout Questions:
How is your personal time in the Bible? How does this information encourage you to be a better Bible student? What are your plans to do better?