Tag: The Year of the Bible

I’m no expert on the Bible. In fact, there are no experts on this subject. I agree with Sir Walter Scott, who once said: “The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of the Bible. The more deeply he works the mine, the richer and more abundant he finds the ore.”

Whereas I readily admit I’m no expert on the Bible, I unashamedly confess that I am most passionate about it. I’ve lived my life studying it, preaching it, and teaching it, and wouldn’t exchange my life’s pursuit of it for any other life pursuit.

In conclusion to my passionate yearlong posts on the Bible, permit me to share with you my hope that these posts have been both informative and inspirational. Indeed, it is my sincere prayer that these posts have inspired within you what will prove to be a lifelong appreciation for the most incredible book that has ever been written—the Bible!

I believe the Bible is true. I believe it says what it means and means what it says. I do not believe its “Thou shalt not” or its “Thus saith the Lord” are negotiable or open to interpretation. Neither do I believe that Christ’s claim to be “the Way,” the only way to God, is optional. Instead, I believe it is obligatory, obliterating all man-made religions and their made-up gods.

I believe the Bible must be received or rejected; it cannot be revised. It is either all God’s Word or not God’s Word at all. Although all men have the God-given right to either adore or abhor it, no man has the right to alter it, and all men will answer to God for what they do with it.

“I am a Bible-bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small.” (John Wesley)

The Bible is the greatest love story ever told. It is summed up for us in the greatest verse of the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ’s incomprehensible love for us (Ephesians 3:19). He also explains how it has been clearly manifested to us. According to Paul, it is made evident by the fact that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 8:5). The Apostle John echoes the Apostle Paul by presenting the following proof of God’s unconditional love: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

There is, in my mind, no greater proof of the prevalence of spiritual darkness and deception in today’s politically correct world than the condemning of the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the greatest love story ever told, as hate-speech. Furthermore, to condemn Christians as hate-mongers for sharing the truth of Christ in love to a lost and dying world is tantamount to condemning a caring surgeon as a butcher for his use of a scalpel on a critically ill patient.

“There is an old saying that a man is as good as his word. Well, God is as good as His Word. His character is behind what He has said.” (J. Vernon McGee)

Did you know that there is something God honors above His own name? There is; it is the Bible, God’s Word. King David, Israel’s famous psalmist, praises the Lord in Psalm 138:2 for magnifying His Word above His name.

How serious is God about his Word? So serious that He honors it above His own name. If he fails to ever fulfill everything He has said, He vows to step down as God.

Now that you know how serious God is about His Word, you need to ask yourself a serious question. “How serious am I about God’s Word—the Bible?

On this Christmas Day in our “Year of the Bible” let us remind ourselves that the subject of Scripture is Christ. The Old Testament predicted and prepared the world for His Coming. The New Testament tells us the story of His Coming and of the promised salvation He has wrought for the world through His death, burial, and resurrection.

Our Lord Himself taught us this tremendous truth that He alone is the subject of Scripture. In John 5:39-40, our Lord said: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” As our Lord taught us Himself, the Scripture testifies of Him. He is the subject of the Bible!

The whole purpose of the Bible—the written Word of God—is to get us to Jesus—the living Word of God. If the Bible, God’s written Word, doesn’t do this for us, it can’t really help us, since only Jesus, God’s living Word, can give us eternal life.

As the Apostle Peter teaches, believing God’s promises, which are recorded for us in His Promise Book, the Bible, results in our godliness and the lust of this world losing all of its luster (2 Peter 1:4). Like Peter, the Apostle John also taught that focusing our attention on God’s promises has a most purifying effect upon our living.

According to John, our hope of receiving God’s promises at Christ’s Second Coming should result in holy living (1 John 3:1-3). Why should a Christian, assured by the Bible of an eternal and incorruptible inheritance at Christ’s Second Coming, be distracted from Biblical living by temporal earthly things? Truly, if we really believe the Bible and its promises, we will live Biblically, finding all worldly allurement appalling rather than appealing.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Bible is not a rule book, but a promise book. It’s a book that tells us about all that God has promised us in Christ, who died upon the cross of Calvary to provide us with an incorruptible inheritance in Heaven.

In 2 Peter 1:4, the Apostle Peter penned under divine inspiration these most insightful words: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Notice, Peter taught that it is God’s promises, not His commands, that make us “partakers of the divine nature.”

According to the Apostle Peter, it is the godliness produced in us by God’s promises to us that enables us to escape the corruption of this world. In other words, once we realize all that God has promised us in Christ, the lust of this temporal and corrupt world will lose its luster in comparison to the eternal and incorruptible inheritance awaiting us in Heaven.

The Bible is divided into two major divisions, the Old and New Testaments. What is the meaning most often associated with the word “testament” today? Is it not someone’s “Last Will and Testament,” which is a legal document that tells what someone has left to others upon the occasion of his or her death.

The Bible, as suggested by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:2-5, may be seen as the “Last Will and Testament” of Jesus Christ. Its two Testaments, especially its New Testament, tells us all about the incorruptible inheritance Christ has left for us in Heaven as a result of His death for us upon the cross of Calvary.