Can We Trust the New Testament?

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=50 BGCOLOR="#333366" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Can We Trust the New Testament?</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=165 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="132" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 35 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id611.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jesus and the Value of Women"><U><B><IMG SRC="007151d0.gif" border=0 width="21" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id613.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jesus Mere Mortal Man or God in the Fle"><U><B><IMG SRC="008151d0.gif" border=0 width="21" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="20"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="35" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="20" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="13"></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="27"></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <div> Previous/Next Sermon</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="www.stanbaker.org"><U><B>Home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Biblical and Theological Studies"><U><B>Biblical and Theological Studies</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Church Ministry"><U><B>Church Ministry</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id15.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sermon Notes"><U>Sermon Notes</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id4.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>Links</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Personal"><U><B>Personal</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> www.stanbaker.org</div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=430 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>"The Da Vinci Discussion: Can We Trust the New Testament?"</B></div> <div> <B>Berean Bible Church, May 21, 2006</B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.stanbaker.org/audio/Sermon-2006-05-21-Stan_Baker.mp3" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.stanbaker.org/audio/Sermon-20"><U><B>audio</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div>      I know most of you will not have your basic views about Jesus and the Bible changed as a result of reading or seeing Dan Brown's <I>The Da Vinci Code</I>. Dan Brown said, “My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.” We want you to be able to answer the question, <I>why</I> do you believe what you believe about Jesus and the Bible?</div> <div>      In 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, The Apostle Paul confessed his fears to the Corinthians. He said, “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”</div> <div>      Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:13-14 <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >NLT</FONT>, “Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me - a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.”</div> <div>      <I>The Da Vinci Code</I> makes some claims (in the words of character Leigh Teabing) about the Bible and its history and authority. "And everything you need to know about the Bible can be summed up by the great Canon doctor Martyn Percy ... The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven ... The Bible is a product of <I>man </I>... Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book ... More than <I>eighty </I>gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them." In answer to the question of who chose these gospels, this is the response: "Aha ... the fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great" (see pp. 250-251, ch. 55).</div> <div>      Which raises the question that all of us should learn how to answer: Can we trust the New Testament, as being true and as having authority for our lives and for eternal life?</div> <bR> <div> <B>1. </B><I><B>Why</B></I><B> do the New Testament books have authority?</B></div> <div>      By the time of Jesus Christ, there was a set of Scriptures we now call the Old Testament, 39 books in all, accepted and authoritative and true for Judaism and for the church. Paul was talking about these Scriptures when he wrote <A HREF="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch.php?passage_request=2 Tim 3:14-16&tniv=yes" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch"><U>2 Timothy 3:14-16</U></A>. Turn there please. Scripture comes from God, and they are meant to change our beliefs and our lives. 2 Peter 1:21 says, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This is true, not only of the Old Testament, but also of the New Testament. In fact, Peter recognized Paul's writings to be “Scripture,” true, authoritative writings that reveal truth about God (<A HREF="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch.php?passage_request=2 Peter 3:15-16&tniv=yes" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch"><U>2 Peter 3:15-16</U></A>). </div> <div>      If Jesus was who he said he was, if he died and rose from the dead three days later, his story needed to be preserved and proclaimed, so people like us could benefit from it. The only way to reliably preserve such information is for eyewitnesses and early researchers to write things down for future generations. Will the people living in the year 2306, 300 years from now, have a better handle on the events of September 11, 2001 than the eyewitnesses and researchers of our times? Of course not. Please read <A HREF="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch.php?passage_request=Luke 1:1-4&tniv=yes" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.tniv.info/bible/passagesearch"><U>Luke 1:1-4</U></A>. Luke says he undertook a detailed historical study (based on eyewitness testimony) to validate and record the teachings about Jesus that were being passed down verbally.</div> <div>      The New Testament gospels and letters deal with the historical story of Jesus, with his identity, and with his teachings about salvation, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and how to live life on earth. All of them were written by the end of the first century. The four gospels were written at the latest between 60-80A.D., very soon after the events which they describe. They were written at a time when people could do a little digging to see if these things were true.</div> <div>      When the letters of the apostles were written to the Christians of a particular city or region (like Colossae or Ephesus or Rome or Asia Minor), many were recognized as authoritative. So most of their letters would be shared with the other churches. In Colossians 4:16, Paul said, “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea” [probably Ephesians]. As time went on, the books judged and accepted to be from God, to be true, and to have authority for Christian teaching were kept, and other writings were rejected as not having the same level of authority and truthfulness.</div> <div>      On what basis were certain books accepted as true and authoritative (Lutzer, <I>The Da Vinci Deception</I>, p. 72): 1) The book was written by an apostle or sanctioned by one. 2) The book was consistent with the teachings of the Old Testament and the New Testament apostles. 3) The book had widespread and continuous acceptance by the people of God.</div> <bR> <div> <B>2. </B><I><B>When</B></I><B> was the authority of the New Testament books recognized by the church?</B></div> <div>      By 200AD, <I>four-fifths</I> [80%] of our New Testament books were recognized <I>everywhere</I> as Scripture. Books questioned <I>in some areas</I> were 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude, Revelation, James and Hebrews (Garlow and Jones, pp. 143f.). By the time the complete list of our 27 books of the NT appeared in the year 367A.D., by Athanasius in his Easter letter, “this canon [or standard] of twenty-seven books, with some variations, had already functioned as the rule of the church for more than 250 years” (Lutzer, p. 71).</div> <div>      Two factors helped the early church figure out which books were authoritative and true.</div> <div>      1) Persecution: When the order to destroy the “sacred books” comes, which books are on the list to be destroyed? Persecution raises the question, Which books were true and worth dying to protect? Which books would <I>you</I> be willing to suffer persecution to keep and protect? Not every book qualifies. The early church had to figure these things out (Bock, <I>Breaking the Da Vinci Code</I>, p. 121).</div> <div>      2) The rise of competing views and theologies: One example is Marcion. By 140AD, Marcion was challenging widely held beliefs about which were and were not NT Scriptural books (Garlow, pp. 132-134). Challenges like this created the need to clearly identify and list which books were considered to be the Scriptures.</div> <bR> <div> <B>3. What about the Gnostic Gospels?</B></div> <div>      Another example of competing views and theologies are the Gnostic gospels, which came years later than the New Testament books we have (at the earliest, 150<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >A.D.</FONT>).</div> <div>      Shouldn't they be authoritative, too? Consider the following description of Gnostic teachings: "The most striking theme common to all fifty-two texts dug up at Nag Hammadi is the rejection of the Genesis creation account. The Gnostic texts constantly mock the Creator God as a blind fool. Jahweh is the first and mightiest of all oppressive patriarchs. He is the 'heavenly' counterpart of all blustering macho brutes who think they know everything because they are male. These texts despise all created thinks; especially sexual distinctions, marriage, and motherhood. The true believer must be liberated from such earthly constraints. The Gnostic is also free from any law because the foolish Jahweh made up the law. In this way of thinking, there is no sin, the fall of Genesis 3 is <I>liberation</I>, and the serpent of the garden speaks wisdom. The Gnostic Jesus comes with the same message - not to free us from our sin, but to free us from our ignorance. We do not know who we really are. He brings us <I>gnosis</I>: knowledge. The knowledge is this - we are divine" (Garlow and Jones, p. 166). How do those ideas compare to the Scriptures? And what does that tell us?</div> <div>      "Several years ago I (Jim) was flying home to San Diego. Seated next to me was an incredibly muscular young man. He was so phenomenally brawny that I finally decided to ask him what he did to get so big. I found out that he was preparing for the Olympics, in the hammer throw competition. I asked him why he was flying to San Diego. He explained to me that he was coming to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. When we landed, I got off the plane before he did, found my suitcases at the baggage claim, and went outside to meet my ride. As I waited at the curb, I glanced to my left and saw a van from the Olympic Training Center. Inside sat three enormously muscular men, all in their twenties. They were obviously part of the hammer throw competition and were there to meet their friend who had been seated beside me on the plane. Since I knew his name, I decided to play a practical joke. I walked up to those three montrous men and said, 'Are you looking for Joe Smith?' (That isn't his real name.) They said, 'Yes.' I said, 'I'm him. I'm here. I'm so glad to meet you!' I began to shake their hands excitedly as though I was on of the members of their team. It only took a fraction of a second for it to register on them what was happening. The look on their faces was first one of shock, then disappointment; then a nanosecond later, it changed to a 'wait a minute' kind of look. They immediately knew this was a practical joke. They said, 'No, you're not - surely you're not - you can't be him!' Putting them on the spot, I quickly responded, 'Why do you say that? What makes you think I'm not him?' None of them wanted to say the obvious: 'Because you don't have the muscular physique to do what we do. If <I>you</I> are on our team, we will most assuredly lose our chance to go to the Olympics.' No one said that. But I could tell they were all thinking it" (Garlow and Jones, p. 112-114).</div> <div>      When you take contrary ideas, called “gospels,” and set them along side the NT gospels, you realize they are not the same, they both cannot be from the same source and carry the same truth and authority. Neither the early New Testament Christians, nor the Gnostic “Christians” thought their respective teachings could sit side-by-side as equally valid (Bock, p. 89).</div> <div>      You can trust the Bible to speak the truth, with authority. Read it, believe it, and obey it. People have given their lives to protect the truth of the Bible; thus, complacency towards the Scriptures is not an option.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> copyright, 2006, Stanley Baker</div> <div> www.stanbaker.org</div> </td> </tr></table></body>