Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in here at Trinity Streetsville. We are a group of ordinary
people learning to follow Jesus in our day. Hey, do you ever wonder what people mean when
they say that the Bible is inspired or that the Bible has authority? Well, today we're
in for a treat. We have a guest speaker, Professor Justin Stratus from Wycliffe College. It is
here today to talk to us all about the power of the Bible.
A reading from 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 16 to 21.
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we were told you about the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honour
and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory saying,
This is my son, whom I love. With him I am very well pleased. We ourselves heard this
voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well
to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the
morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of scripture
came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin
in human will, but prophets through human spoke from God as though they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit. This is the word of the Lord.
So yeah, my name is Justin and I'm your guest preacher today. Apologies for that. Rob will
be back next week. Let's have a word of prayer and then we'll get into it.
Lord we believe, help thou our unbelief. Amen.
Okay, so our text this morning comes from 2 Peter, which if you haven't read it, is
for my money one of the weirdest books in the New Testament. It's very strange. There's
so many strange aspects to it. I mean there's bits that talk about angels that are going
to hell. There's stuff about the entire world being destroyed by fire. Not to mention the
fact that most scholars actually don't think that Peter the apostle wrote this letter.
So it's a very strange book of scripture, but it's the weirdness of 2 Peter that I think
actually helps it fit quite well into our sermon series. Because as Rob has been teaching
us over these past few weeks, the trick is to learn to think about the Bible like grownups.
And that means frankly grappling with the fact that the Bible is so weird. Not least
because it was written thousands of years ago in all sorts of cultures that just aren't
familiar to us today. And therefore it would be immature to just kind of pretend that those
confusing aspects of the Bible just aren't there. Right? That it's easy to read. That
you can just pick up the Bible and fully understand everything about ancient Near Eastern and
Greco-Roman culture immediately. Because at the end of the day, grownups have to face
reality and grownup readers of the Bible have to face the reality of what the Bible actually
is. As one of my old Bible professors used to say, when you pick up your Bible, it's
like you're traveling to another world. But there's another side of the coin. The Bible
isn't just an ancient text. Mature readers of scripture also want to say that the Bible
is God's Word. And that means there's more to this book than the times and places it
happened to come from. In fact, mature Christians believe that the Bible is in some sense alive.
That it has the power to transform us from the inside out, as Rob explained last week.
Which is why, in addition to Rob, the book of Hebrews also claims that, quote, the Word
of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, dividing soul and
spirit and joints and marrow. To put it another way, Christians believe that the Bible does
stuff. It can do things. So what is it about the Bible that makes it both an ancient text
that was written many, many thousands of years ago and also somehow the words of the living
God? Words that address not just its original readers, but even us sitting here in Mississauga
in 2024. Now the answer to that question concerns what theologians have traditionally called
the doctrine of biblical inspiration. Some of you might know that my day job is talking
about theology and stuff at Wycliffe College. So I like to say words like doctrine a lot.
So apologies for that. But this is the doctrine of biblical inspiration. It's the idea that
the Holy Spirit had kind of a hand in the writing of scripture in and with the human
beings who did the actual writing. And that word, inspiration, comes from the passage
that we heard about last week from 2 Timothy chapter 3, where the apostle Paul says that
all scripture is inspired of God, or literally breathed out by God. That's what that word
means, inspire. So what I want to do this morning is talk a little bit about how this
morning's passage from 2 Peter 1 fits in with this doctrine of biblical inspiration.
First by talking a little bit about the context of that passage, and then by thinking through
some of the implications of it for how we think about the Bible. And I want to focus
especially on verse 21, which, true to form, is a weird verse. In that verse it says that
prophets spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So let's turn to
2 Peter 1. And if you have a Bible or a Bible app, now would be a time to get that in hand.
There's a couple places in the world where it's not weird to just whip out a Bible, and
one of them is church. So if you have it, now's the time. Now, as the title suggests,
this letter claims to have been written by the apostle Peter. And whether or not that's
true, it's clear that the author wants his readers to do something very specific. He
wants his readers to remember what the apostle Peter taught them about Jesus. In fact, he
says three times in verses 12 through 15, I will always remind you of things. It is
right to refresh your memory. See that after my departure, you remember these things. In
particular, he wants his readers to remember a very specific thing that Peter taught them.
And that is that Jesus Christ was coming back. That he didn't just sort of float away into
the ether, you know, like a hot air balloon in the ascension, but Jesus was coming back
just as he promised he would. Now remember, Peter was there when Jesus Christ ascended
into heaven after his resurrection. He was there when the angels told the crowd, men
of Galilee, why do you stand here looking at the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken
from you into heaven will come back in the same way you've seen him go into heaven. Peter
was there when that happened. That's why he says in verse 16, we did not follow cleverly
devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power,
but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. What Peter's worried about here is the possibility
that after he dies, people would start to forget that all these things about Jesus actually
happened. That somehow Jesus's teachings, all that he said and did would transform from
being an account about real events and turn into some kind of abstract religious sort
of thing. In fact, even that word that's translated cleverly devised stories in the NIV is based
on this Greek word mythos. It's the word that we get our English word myth from. So Peter
saying, if you forget my teachings, you're going to be more and more tempted as time
passes on to think of Jesus as just kind of like a religious myth rather than a real person
that we saw, that we talked with, that we hung out with. It's the same sort of thing
that we do on Remembrance Sunday. It's the idea that if you're not absolutely intentional
about remembering the past, it starts to get easy to sort of mythologize the past or in
some cases deny the past altogether. Right? There's people in this world that deny the
Holocaust. One of the most monumental, horrific events in human history. And they say it never
happened because the further you get from certain events, the easier it gets to deny
that they ever even happened unless you make it a point to remember. So Peter is saying,
look, when you hear stories about Jesus, remember that they're based on the testimonies and
the memories of actual eyewitnesses, people who were there, who talked with Jesus, who
spent years with him, who watched him die on the cross, who saw him after he was resurrected
and who heard him with his voice promise that he would return again. But more than that,
Peter says, these people actually saw Jesus' glory. As he puts it in verses 17 through
18, he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the
majestic glory. What an interesting phrase. Saying, this is my son whom I love with him
I'm well pleased. And Peter goes on to say, we ourselves heard this voice that came from
heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. So Peter's very exercised that people
are going to forget this. Why is he so concerned that his readers would forget all the stuff
that he taught them about Jesus? Well, there's two reasons. The first one, as he hints in
verses 12 through 15, is that he's about to die. He's nervous that once he goes, once
his generation goes, that the stories of Jesus will go with him. And I'm sure many of us
have experienced this with our elderly relatives. That sort of frantic telling and retelling
of family stories that comes at the end of one's life. I had that experience, I remember
when my grandmother died, I got many, many stories over and over, the same thing. I thought,
oh no, is she sort of getting into senility here? Or maybe she's just concerned that even
the words she's using to tell these stories get burned into my mind. Right? Peter's like
that. He wants these people to remember. People get nervous at the end of their lives that
the family lore will get buried with them. And Peter was no different. So he urges his
readers, look, one day I'm going to be gone, but don't forget this stuff about Jesus. But
there's another reason that he's worried. And that's the fact that there were people
in the church who were actively trying to get people to deny Peter's teachings. In fact,
pretty much the rest of the letter is Peter warning his followers to be on their guard
against what he calls false or pseudo prophets and teachers. I mean, pretty much the rest
of the letters, him kind of ranting about these people. If you want to avoid getting
tricked by these people, Peter says, you can't forget what I taught you. But why should we
trust Peter's teachings? What makes Peter's teachings and his message so special? Again,
two reasons. The first, as we already said, is that Peter and his companions were eye
witnesses to Jesus. They were Jesus's homies, if you like. They knew him. The false teachers
did not know Jesus. They were speculating. But the second reason is this. Peter says,
you should trust me and all the other apostles' teachings about Jesus over and against the
false teachers because our teachings are authorized by the Old Testament scriptures. In other
words, not only did they see Jesus with their own eyes, but they also knew who Jesus is
because they believed what the Old Testament prophets said about him, that Jesus is the
Messiah and the Son of God. So if you're Peter's readers, you have a choice. Either you're
going to believe the false teachers who claim that Jesus is never coming back, that we should
turn Jesus into just another religion and trust them about what that religion is about,
or you believe Peter and the apostles and the prophets who insist that Jesus is real
and he is coming back. Ah, but you say, skeptic that you are, maybe the apostles and the prophets
are just making things up. No, says Peter, we're not making stuff up. We knew him personally
and we actually saw his glory revealed right over there on that mountain that I'm pointing
to right now, the imaginary mountain. But maybe the prophets were just making things
up. No, says Peter in verses 20 and 21, no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophets'
own interpretation of things 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.
So the implication is this, you go with the apostles and the prophets and you kick the
false teachers to the curb. That's Peter's argument in this whole letter. But what's
interesting about this for our sermon series especially is what Peter says about the prophets.
Now back in the Old Testament, as you know, God used to call certain folks and have them
kind of say whatever he wanted them to say. So you have, for example, the prophet Amos,
who's hanging out tending sheep one day when all of a sudden God sends him a vision and
off he is prophesying God's word to the people. Or Isaiah, who's chilling in Judah when God
grabs him and shows him everything that's going to happen to the southern kingdom for
several generations. These prophets played a major role in Israel's history and what
they wrote down became precious writings and scrolls that are cherished by the Jewish community
to this day. But even if you buy that God really revealed himself to these people, right,
that Amos didn't just have a bad trip, that he actually had a vision of God in that sheep
field, even if you buy that, can you really trust that what they wrote down about those
visions is accurate? I mean, I've had all sorts of dreams in my life, right? I would
be hard pressed to write down everything I've dreamt with pinpoint accuracy, let alone interpret
my dreams with any sense of coherence. So the prophets had visions. Are they remembering
them correctly? Are they interpreting them correctly? To put an even finer point on it
for us, can we trust what they wrote down? Peter's argument is that yes, you can trust
the prophets. Not only did God give them the vision, God also helped them to interpret
the vision and he carried them along by the Holy Spirit so that what they said and wrote
really was the word of God. That's why the words of the prophets are, in Peter's words,
completely reliable, as he says in verse 19, because the prophetic writings are a product
of God's will as God used these people to speak and record what he wanted them to, not
just for the generations in which they lived, but for future generations too, particularly
the generations who would be the eyewitnesses to the reality of what the prophets talked
about, which was the coming of the Messiah and the person of Jesus Christ. So here's
where things get interesting. So the prophets were carried along, carried along by the Holy
Spirit as they wrote down the word of the Lord. What about the New Testament? Were the
New Testament authors also carried along by the Spirit in which they wrote? Well, there's
a lot of reasons why the church eventually recognized the New Testament as having the
kind of authority that the Old Testament has. And we don't have time to go over all these
this morning, but there's one reason that's present right here in this epistle in 2 Peter.
In chapter 3 verse 16, the author actually mentions another apostle, the apostle Paul,
and he refers to Paul's letters as hard to understand. Maybe for him, I find Romans incredibly
easy to read, but for him, it was hard to understand. So hard that people use that as
an opportunity to try and distort Paul's message, quote, as they do the other scriptures. And
that word scriptures, graphé in Greek, is the same word that's used in 2 Timothy 3 16,
which says, quote, all scripture graphé is inspired of God. So what Peter is implying
is that Paul's letters actually belong in the same category as those Old Testament writings
that he appealed to in the first chapter to bolster his own teachings about Jesus. The
point is this, what makes something more than just writing, what makes a particular text
scripture this higher category is the fact that the Holy Spirit supernaturally oversaw
its composition. The Spirit was there when this stuff was being written down so that
the text is somehow able to reflect or participate in the actual word of God. It's why when we
read the Bible today, the Lord is able to reveal himself through these old, old texts
to us, just like he did to the original authors. So yes, the Bible was written by human beings
in all sorts of times and places, but because of the presence of the Spirit, the Bible is
also the word of God. That's what the Christian doctrine of biblical inspiration teaches.
And that's the reason why we can talk about the Bible, which again, in Greek, is just
a word that means book. Vivlos means book. That's why we can talk about the Bible as
holy. It is the Holy Bible, a holy book, not just because it's closer historically speaking
to Jesus and the prophets and the apostles. The Bible is holy because it's a human text
that has been sanctified or set apart, made holy by the Lord from the very point of its
writing as its authors were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And that's where the
power of the Bible comes from, because the Bible is ultimately a product of the Holy
Spirit's ministry in our midst. All Bibles are Pentecostal Bibles. They're all charismatic
Bibles because they're works of the Spirit. As Rob said last week, the Bible can do things
that other kinds of books can't do because of this. It doesn't just inform us, but it
can also transform us. Of course, it can also do normal booky type things, right? It can,
for instance, give us a glimpse into the way people lived in the past. It can help us get
to know all sorts of interesting historical personalities like Moses and David and Isaiah
and Nehemiah and Peter and Paul and John and James and all the rest of the Beatles. It
might even have a good idea or two about morality and ethics or history or ancient religion.
But those sorts of things aren't what makes the Bible special. Other books do that stuff
too. What makes the Bible special is that it has been set apart by the Spirit to reveal
God to us. And as the Spirit continues to be with us, so the Bible will continue to
show us the power and presence of God even today. One of my favorite theologians is a
Swiss dude by the name of Karl Barth. He once said, within the Bible, it's like there's
a strange new world, the world of God. And that's what makes the Bible so interesting
to me personally. Other books are easily domesticated. They can be tamed. They can be understood.
Other books can be mastered, but not the Bible. No matter how much you read it, no matter
how much you memorize it, no matter how many degrees you get studying it, you cannot master
this book. It won't submit to that because the Bible is the holy word of a holy God.
And because of that, it will always stand above us. It won't fit into our categories
and our expectations. But on the other hand, it's because the Bible is just so strange,
so divine, so weird that even the least educated person can read it, can hear it, and can hear
in those human words a word from God. It's why even a small child can hear the phrase,
the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And sense the presence of their heavenly Father
right there in their bedroom as they drift off to sleep. It's the Spirit, the Spirit
who carried along the authors of Scripture who still whispers those words to us today
when we read them. That's why the Bible is a holy thing, a divine thing. It's why we
gather together week in and week out to hear it read to us, to have it preach to us, to
pray its words, and to meditate on its truths. It's not because we want to tap into some
kind of ancient wisdom. It's because we want to hear from the living God, and we believe
that we will. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift. Amen.
Thank you so much for joining us today for our sermon here at Trinity Church, Streetsville.
We hope you can come again next week and join us for our last sermon of the series, The
Bible for Grown-ups. Thanks again. Today's sermon was taken from the April 28, 2024 service
at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario.