We are continuing today with the God questions – the most popular questions that people have about who God is and what Christians think about God. Last week, we started this series with ‘Did you really create the world?” I got a number of comments afterwards and that message is on the website as well as the podcast.
Today’s question is ‘Did you really write the Bible?” People are not sure what to think about the Bible. First of
all, a lot of people assume that religion is weird. This 
week a woman was arrested in Malaysia for
her conversion to a tea worship cult. The sect “emphasized ecumenical dialogue between religions, the teapot symbolized the purity of water and 'love pouring from heaven'.
Added to the fact that some people will believe anything, there is the problem that the Bible is not designed to be read from front to back. It is not a story, or a history, or a textbook. It’s design is like a wool knitting project where straw and thorns were never combed from the wool, so the pattern takes time to discern and still looks unfinished.
Added to the fact that people don’t know what the Bible means when it speaks about God’s anger about evil. God seems willing to destroy the world to have justice. The Bible seems like a violent text with images of the cross. Street Prophets Pastor Dan said recently, “did you think that a God who spent thousands of years alternately proclaiming his love for his people and threatening to blot them out from the face of the earth, only then to turn around, send his son to earth, let him get killed, raise him from the dead and lift him into the sky with a promise to return the same way at some unexpected hour … would seem rational?”
And finally, it seems like any American who has a dumb or hate filled idea ties it to the Scriptures. The United Methodist Church just finished a campaign yesterday to convince President Bush to uphold the new law on torture. President Bush wants the power to force prisoners to perform sexual acts, to subject prisoners to mock executions and water board them. We failed to convince Mr. Bush to follow the Christian way and most people of conscience don’t understand what Christian faith means. We let him remain a United Methodist and he is famous for his Christian faith. People on the street look at this and assume that the Bible is not really that unhappy with torture.
And so, the question comes from ordinary people, ‘Did you really write the Bible?” We’re going to look at an insightful passage from the book of Paul to Timothy. It’s a big question. If you came today, worried about the strength of your own faith and troubled by whether it makes sense to trust God, I pray that this is a time to receive encouragement to stay on the faith road. God bless your willingness to ask.
‘Did you really write the Bible?” The verse that sets out a strong claim is 2 Timothy 3:16. 16 ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.’ The context of this verse tells us a lot about how Paul sees the writing of the Scriptures. It was time in that society much like our own. He describes a society where many people have discovered the power of religion. Faith is such a powerful force that people can manipulate other people with it. And in Paul’s time, they did. ‘They were lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, abusive, 3 slanderous, without self-control, brutal, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, — 5having a form of godliness but denying its power’. People often ask me if the great religions don’t have a lot in common. Usually they are saying that all religions basically teach the same thing. I believe that the Scriptures have a unique message in the sacrifice of Jesus for sin but one way in which all religions are similar is that unfaithful people see them as an opportunity for exploitation. John Hagee has recently become famous for endorsing John McCain. I have long considered him a harmless irritant but I see that he fits this description in Timothy beautifully. He is one of the highest paid evangelists, was defrocked by the Assemblies of God over a moral issue, and turned his television ministry into a church to remove IRS reporting requirements. He works up hate against people and has 15,000 people in church on Sunday. Paul warns questioners that many people will use religion as a way to inflame our natural passions and enrich themselves. It is a shame that much of what Hagee will offer people is not the Scriptures.
How do you find out what the Bible says? What I believe about the Bible is that there are 66 themes, one for each book. Each author has an organizing point to make and you need to read the book and discern the theme. Its like poetry. Its not always clear on the first reading what the theme was. As you study more, you can see that the Gospel of Mark is a political text that claims Jesus as King. Psalms are human responses to God’s actions on grace and evil, gathered in five sections. Habbakuk is three questions asked to God in the agony of war. All of these themes merge into one message. There is no disharmony in the Scriptures. What is the message? We have on the web site the 7 stories of the gospel which I think tell the basic themes that Scripture builds. If you are a Christian already, I wish you had those 7 themes memorized. It’s a quick primer on what our faith is all about, taken from the themes of Scripture. If you are impatient, use Karl Barth’s summary of the one theme that brings together all of Scripture, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Why is there violence in the Scriptures? Friends, this answer is the most tragic of this message, but I find it absolutely convincing. You cannot have a religion which responds to the level of violence and evil in the world without painful answers. Is God angry to demand the death of God’s son to answer the claim of justice? The way to the cross is required if we are to hear the cries of the oppressed. There has to be answer to sin, not just a decision to ignore it. People will suffer and die today unjustly. The Christian answer is that God does not forget one cry of pain. Jesus’ death is payment for that oppression, the death of a perfect person to take the punishment for another. Our answer is that good works cannot save us if we have oppressed, only faith that our punishment has been taken by our Savior.
Lastly, I speak again to Christians who do not live out the Scriptures. I am ashamed that more people do not change deep seated hatreds after they seem to convert. Christians continue to quietly raise the flags that Hagee and others wave proudly, hatred of Catholics, gays, and minorities.
I came across a graph about the presidential election this week. This is the first time that a black man may become president. And a political scientist was trying to find out what is affecting the election. He finds that being a white Christian in the South means that you are much more likely to think about race in your vote. He measured the population of Southern Baptists in all the states. The regression line shows that in states with more Southern Baptists, the percentage of white votes for Obama decreases.
Obama or Clinton may win or lose. But they should win or lose based on how they plan to lead and their character, not being white or black.
The Book of Acts, chapter 6 shows a multi cultural group of leaders being chosen to lead the church. The Scriptures tell us that there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free in God’s kingdom. Christians are not a good advertisement for the Scriptures when we refuse to lay down evil ways. What is Scripture for? According to Paul in Timothy, for reproof, teaching, correction, and instruction in justice.
Did God really write the Bible? Even as I prepared this message, the wonderful answer is again yes!. It is not a book of which I'm ashamed. Do I fully understand it? Not at all. But it is a message of life, a message of peace with God for anything that troubles you, a message of hope if you are oppressed, a message of miracles to keep us going, and a message of a heavenly kingdom where everything is going to be all right. I pray that you join me in these grand beliefs.
