God Must Reveal Himself

I'm reading a book called "9 Marks of a Healthy Church," and every time I pick up the book I chckle 'causs the author's name is Mark Dever. Get it? 9 "Marks"? Makes me laugh...

Anyways, I'm chewing on this thougt of his and I wanted to share it with you:

"Because we have seperated ourselves from God by our sin, God must speak if we are to know him... God will not be known if he does not speak, and we can not know him if he has not spoken a word that we can rely on. God must reveal himself. That's the point of the Bible. Because of our own sins, we could never know God otherwise. Either he speaks or we are forever lost in darkness of our own speculations. We see this clearly throughout the New Testament. Consider Romans 10:17 -Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ" (page 49).

I love it!

We didn't create God, nor do we create God. He reavealed himself to us. When I read the Bible, he reveals himself to me.

How come the book of Thomas didn't make it into the Bible? Who decided that n how do we no they were right?

So you saw the Da Vinci Code?

There are a lot of books that people would like to have included in the Bible –one of those is the “Gospel of Thomas.”  There are a number of reasons that this particular book is not a part of the Bible:

-It has internal discrepancies –have you read it?  It’s a joke!

-It is not at all in alignment with the rest of the Bible –both the Old and the New Testament.  Alignment with all of the Old Testament was one of the criteria that the early church used when considering what books could be a part of what we now call the New Testament.

-It claims to have been written by an eye witness (Thomas, Jesus’ Disciple), but the age of the writing seems to indicate that it was written far too late for the author to have been a contemporary of Jesus.

-One of the criteria that the early church used to decide what would be included in what we now call the New Testament was that it had to have been written by one of the Apostles or an eye witness and this “lost Gospel” does not meet this criteria.

Why is the bible not in chronological order?

There are 2 reasons that work together to create the order we find in the Bible:

 

1^st  -The Old Testament was written out on scrolls, not in nifty and compact little books.  If you put the entire Old Testament on a single scroll it would have been so big that no one could have unrolled it and read it… so a large book, like Isaiah got it’s own scroll.  But little books, like Jonah, Micah, and Habakkuk were all combined onto one scroll, even though they weren’t written at the same time.

 

2^nd –The books are grouped by genera of writing (or format of writing).  For instance, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all recount the story of Jesus’ life (often called the Gospels) and Acts is the story of the spread of the gospel out into the world –they are all stories.  These stories are followed by a group of books called “Epistles.”  Epistle means “letter.”  These are letters that were sent to new churches that were being started as the gospel spread out into the world.  A letter reads very differently than a story… This format of grouping by genera doesn’t make much sense to us today, but it is traditionally how large groups of writings were categorized –think of the Dewey Decimal System at the library.

 

So the order of books that we find in the Bible today has more to do with tradition than anything else.

Does biblegateway.com have the reading plan of the bible in historical order?

Yes.

Go to  http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/readingplans/

And you want the "Chronological" reading plan.  It'll take you through all of the event of the Bible starting with the oldest and progressing forward.  Or if you'd rather print it out, go to  http://www.esv.org/assets/pdfs/rp.chronological.pdf

But, if you've never read through the Bible before, I wouldn't start there.

 

If this is your first time ever reading any part of the Bible, I'd encourage you to use the following reading plan that focus' on Jesus' life  http://www.tniv.com/Experience%20it/docs/plan_jesus_30.pdf

 

If you want to take on reading through the entire Bible for the first time, try this reading plan that gives you a little out of the Old Testament and a little out of the New Testament each day  http://www.esv.org/assets/pdfs/rp.through.the.bible.pdf

 

And if you want a little scripture texted to your phone every day, you sign up at  http://www.youversion.com/

 

You can do it!

Why are there so many versions? Which one do you prefer?

The Bible wasn’t originally written in English.  The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek, with a little bit of Aramaic.  Since most of us don’t read those languages, we have to rely on Bible translations, where someone has done the work for us of translating the Bible into English for us to read.

 

There are a lot of variables that go into translating anything from one language into another: reading levels, grammar, differences between the two cultures, play on words, phrases, philosophy of translation, etc.  It’s all these differences that create the need for various translations.

 

The New International Version (NIV) was completed in 1973 and was written for someone with a 7^th grade reading level (the national average for the United States).  That old, beat-up Bible that I use when teaching is a NIV.

 

The King James Version (KJV) is one that was completed in 1611 and is written in a style of old English (like a work by Shakespeare) that no one uses anymore –in fact, many of us have a very difficult time understanding it.  But some people call it “poetic” and really like it.  If you got an A in your Literature class in the unit on Shakspeare, then you might like this version.  Personally, I find it too difficult to read and understand.  Having said that, I love the Reese’s Chronological Bible.  A guy named Reese took his King James Bible, cut it all up and rearranged it so that the entire story was in Chronological order (the Bible isn’t laid out in chronological order like we expect a story or history lesson to be).  The Reese’s Bible helps make sense of what happened when and who was a contemporary of who.  Good stuff!

 

The Message was completed in 2002 and reads more like a novel; the sentences are smooth and any ideas that are unusual for an American living in the 21^st century is explained.  It’s considered a “paraphrase” which means that the translators sometimes blended up entire paragraphs in an effort to most effectively translate ideas, not just words, into English.  If you’ve never read the Bible before, this is the one to start with.  Personally, I love reading the Message.

 

Another one of my favorite Bible translations is the Holman Christian Standard Bible.  If you love history, maps, and archeology, then you need a copy of the Holman Christian Standard Study Bible.  It has footnotes explaining how the Biblical characters fit into world history, where they lived, and the archeological proof behind it all.

 

And yes, there are some versions of the Bible out there that are bad translations; some translators just didn’t have the skill and tools necessary to properly do the translation work, and even worse, some translators inserted or omitted particular issues (such as the New World Version).

 

Is the Bible the only way that God communicates with us?

Christians always say the bible is the "main way God communicates with us". Where does this idea come from? People haven't always had the bible, and some people don't have it now. Why do Christians put so much emphasis on reading/knowing it? Did God really just stop talking to people at some point and say "now I will speak to you through the bible?"

 

The stories in the Bible show that God has spoken to people using a plethora of ways.  He’s used an audible voice, dreams, visions, writings, experiences, via angels, through other people, and very specifically through Jesus –just to name a few.  Please understand that God hasn’t stopped using all these other means –he is still actively communicating to people today.  As you hear or experience what you think is God talking to you, the question comes up, “is this God telling me something, my own wishful thinking, or that meatball sandwich I had last night coming back to haunt me?”

 

By reading the Bible we learn what God’s “voice” sounds like.  The things that are close to his heart.  The way he tends to interact with the world.  The things he would never say or do.  His character.  -A close relationship with God must include reading his Bible.

 

Then, when we think God may be speaking to us, we compare that new message to what we know to be true in the Bible and it helps us discern who’s really talking.

 

 

Why is it so important that the old and new testaments work together

The Bible is divided into 2 main parts -the Old Testament (sometimes called "the Older Testament") and the New Testament.  They work in tandem –neither is complete without the other.

 

-The Old Testament records the history of God's interaction with the Jewish people, leading up to the promised birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  It explains why a messiah was needed (to rebuild our broken relationship with God) and how to recognize the messiah once he arrived (we call this prophecy).

 

-The New Testament records the birth, life, death and resurrection of the messiah (the fulfillment of the prophecies from the Old Testament).  It also records the history of the good news about the messiah, and our opportunity to have a right relationship with God, being spread throughout the known world.  And it gives glimpses into what God has planned for the future.

“Doesn’t the Bible contradict itself a lot?”

The question I get from friends and family is, “Doesn’t the Bible contradict itself a lot?”

There have been a couple of times when people have asked me this question.  My response has been I'd be interested in takeing a look at those issues with them -they never go where to go from there.  The idea that the Bible contradicts its self is an urban myth.

txt Your Questions

We all have questions about the Bible.

Where did it come from?

Is it reliable? What do I do with it?

post your questions.

www.goodnewschurch.org