Apologetics #2 - The Divine Inspiration of the Bible (Part 1)

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   We are going to start now this morning. This is apologetics class two. Last week was introduction to apologetics. Today we're going to move into this is class two, but this will be divine inspiration of the Bible part one. There will be several parts to this aspect of it about divine inspiration of the Bible. Of course the term apologetics, we covered it last week, means to give a defense, to give an answer, a reason, an argument of why you believe what you believe. Uh to give reasonable evidence, reasonable proofs, and again just logic and reason why. Uh we used the scripture last week. We went through the scripture 1 Peter 3:15 about be ready to give an answer always to every man the reason and hope that is in you. We were in Philippians chapter 1:7 and 17 talking about Paul said, "I'm set to give it a defense of the gospel." So, uh one of the aspects of this of course is uh the issue of the Bible. Is the Bible the inspired, inherent word of God that's been preserved to us as God gave it to his prophets and apostles down through the centuries. And of course this is really where the battle lies. The battle is against uh the scriptures. It's really uh I think the battle and the attacks on the scripture have increased. But listen, this is nothing new. Okay? This attack on, you know, we got a lot of people say, "Well, I believe in God. I believe or I believe in intelligent design. I believe in you know, creator, but I don't necessarily believe the Bible." Uh of course as several of our speakers at the conference a couple of weeks ago, you know, made mention of was that, you know, that there's a lot of people that make these statements and they haven't even read the whole Bible all the way through. But also, there's an aspect to it that there are people that just don't understand a lot of what they read. They don't know how to put it into proper context. They don't know how to rightly divide the word. And of course, we have what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians about, you know, it's really the the natural man cannot discern or understand the things of the spirit of God sometimes. So, but but we have to do the best we can, right? As Christians and especially if we're called to be ministers of the gospel, teachers, pastors, evangelists, prophets, apostles, we have to be be able to try to break through that either lack of discernment, lack of understanding, lack of ability, lack of knowledge of the scriptures themselves or the evidences and proofs that surround them. So, we're just going to be looking this morning at some of the basic things you need to know about the Bible itself, okay? And we're going to get into some of the evidences and what those are. Very important. So, let's just look at

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   this. Who and when, all right? The Bible was written over period of 1,400 to 1,800 years. Now, I'm going to pause there. One of the reason that's stated is because there most scholars are not sure when the book of Job was written. It was probably the earliest book, but I happen to think it was probably way before way before Moses, possibly even around the time of Abraham or before Abraham. But it's definitely one of the first of the Old Testament books to be written. The Bible's written over a period of 1,400 to 1,800 years by more than 40 different authors. The Bible is a a of 66 separate books divided into two primary divisions, the Old Testament containing 39 books and the New Testament containing 27 books. It is believed that all of the books of the Bible were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is kind of how it breaks down here and this is good for you to know who. Now, sometimes uh we're uncertain as to who, but I tend to look at it this way. You have You got to remember you have liberal scholars. And liberal scholars will sometimes, even though it's pretty clear who's writing the book from the way it's written or or from the perspective of of it's written or even the people around it, who's telling the story, they still want to have these question marks, right? But anyway, you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy written by Moses, 1445 BC through 1405 BC and so on down the line. Joshua, it just ki- kind of gives you a time frame here and I'm I'm going to leave these up for a second just so you guys can can either copy these down or or take a screenshot if you need to or however you want to do this, go back and take screenshots. Um we just go we're we'll rock right on through here. First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, so on down the line. And then you have the book of Psalms and you notice the book of Psalms is kind of broken up. Sons of Korah wrote certain Psalms, Asaph wrote certain Psalms. Of course, King David wrote certain Psalms, Solomon wrote some. Uh but you know, it's important to get a hold of two. Just just make a mental note of this and the King David is around 1000 BC. That's something you need to remember cuz he was considered not just a king, but a prophet and a priest. And we'll cruise on through here. Just let everybody see this. You can so you kind of understand the dates. It's It's good when you're reading the Bible, when you're studying the Bible, to kind of know if you're reading, for instance, if you're reading the prophet Isaiah, it's good to know that, you know, he was writing that between 740 and 680 BC. Right? Think about that, you know, 700, nearly 800 years before the Messiah came, Jesus Christ came,

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   Isaiah was writing very specific prophecies about him. We're going to be talking about that in the days that probably in part two. We're going to get into the prophecies of Jesus' first coming. I want everybody to see this. Here's on down to Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets. Really says 600 to 450 BC, but we really know it was around 450 BC when the Old Testament was completed as we know it. Here's the New Testament. This is important to get a hold of. I want you guys to really know this right here. It helps you so much when reading the New Testament that Matthew was written in the 60s AD. Uh Mark, probably the earliest of the Gospels, late 50s, early 60s AD. Luke 60 AD, of course, the Gospel of John, late 80s, early 90s AD. Acts written by Luke, 61 AD. Romans by Paul, 55. First Corinthians, 54. Second Corinthians, 55 AD. Again, really helps you get a grasp on on this. What's interesting, I want everybody to notice that one of the very earliest, I think the the earliest epistles of Paul was Galatians. Having to deal with the the whole do we keep the law and the rituals and the ceremonies and the circumcision and the Sabbaths and all that. He dealt with that very early on, 49 AD. So, you're going down Ephesians 60, Philippians 61, so on down. Look at the book of James was a very early New Testament book. The half-brother of Jesus was in the 40s or 50s AD, somewhere in that time period. Of course, bringing us on through. Peter, first first and second Peter, 63, 64 AD. First, second, and third John, we got the late 80s and early 90s AD. And of course, the book of Revelation. Somewhere probably around 80, 95, or 96. So, very important to just kind of have a grasp on the time frame that the Bible was written in. Each book and epistle. Now, we have here, why trust the Bible? Why trust the Bible? And these are going to These are five things that we're hopefully going to cover, maybe not in order, but we're definitely going to cover these reasons why. And I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt, it's not blind faith. Okay? It's not blind faith for me, and it really shouldn't be blind faith. Remember Thomas, the apostle, said, "If I don't touch the nail prints in his hands and his side, his pierced side, I'm not going to believe." And what did Jesus appear in there and say, "Come here. Come come see. Come touch. Come put your hand Come put your hands in here." And so, the Lord doesn't mind giving us evidence. The problem is, most people

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   don't know the evidence. Most Christians don't know the evidence and don't know the history and they don't know the archaeological confirmation and so on. So, these are the five areas: manuscript evidence, we will look at historical accuracy and references from secular sources, archaeological confirmation, fulfilled prophecies, the supernatural and mathematical evidence. I mean, when I say mathematical when you start compiling a list of like prophecies for instance, this is like mathematical evidence. This is in the book Evidence Demands a Verdict, which is one of your books for this course. But uh Josh McDowell talks about you take 30, there's 300 plus prophecies of Jesus' first coming. He said, "If you just take 30 of those, the likelihood of 30 of those being any other man than Jesus Christ, he said would be like taking the state of Texas, burying it 2 ft deep in quarters. All right? That's a lot of quarters. Painting one orange and having a guy jump out of an airplane and parachute down and land on that quarter. That's the chances that Jesus is not the prophesied Messiah of the Bible just taking 30 prophecies. And there's 300. All right? Think about that. So, we have the supernatural prophecies. Fulfilled prophecy is the supernatural and mathematical evidence. All right? And then of course we have testimonies of changed lives of of of historical figures like Saul of Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul. We have testimonies that lead up into from way back in antiquity into the modern times now of changed lives and how the Bible uh has changed people from being you know, murderers and drug addicts and alcoholics and you know, terrible, promiscuous, sexually immoral, and all kinds of terrible situations and changed their lives. So, uh fairy tales don't do that. All right? So, again, you need to know this. Why trust the Bible? We're going to go through manuscript evidence, historical accuracy, and references is secular sources, or we should non-Christian or non-Jewish sources as well. Archaeological confirmation, fulfilled prophecies, testimonies. All right? So, let's keep going here. All right. It says here, "The divine inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible is the most crucial aspect of our faith in Jesus Christ as our God and Savior. This truth is foundational. It is under attack by Satan as never before." Psalm 11:3, and you'll need to know this one. "If the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do?" Now, that does not mean that Satan can destroy the word of God. He can't. God promised that his word would never be

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