How Did the Bible Come About?

How did the Bible come about? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question. Here's our phone number.

You can also post your question on our Instagram or YouTube accounts. In fact, you can watch us live there as well, and you can always email us with your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Before we get to your questions today, we want to take a moment to pray for the situation in Hawaii and those terrible fires. If you haven't heard, at least 36 people have died.

A historic town has burned to the ground. Adriel, would you pray for those who have been impacted by this tragedy in Hawaii? Yeah, let's join together in praying for the people of Hawaii, especially on Maui right now. Father, we come before you and just think of those who have been affected by these fires, the devastation, the destruction, the loss of property, and the many lives that have been lost as well. God, would you be at work in the midst of this great tragedy?

Would you be drawing people to yourself? Would you cause the winds to die down and whatever is contributing to the spread of this fire, Lord, that it would get under control? Lord, that you would be with those who are suffering right now, comforting them, and be with your church there on Maui, Lord? Would you enable the believers to extend your grace and your love to a suffering community? Lord, help us to partner together with them with our prayers and any other ways that we can, Lord, to support our brothers and sisters who are there.

Please be with the people of Hawaii right now and bring peace and bring healing in light of this tragedy. In Jesus' name, amen. You know, when terrible things like this happen, oftentimes you hear people say things like, well, how could a loving, powerful, all-powerful God allow tragedies, allow these things to occur? What's the best response that a Christian can give in a situation like that?

Yeah. Well, in part, I mean, we ask those questions because we believe that there is a good God in heaven. You know, if you didn't believe in God, if you're an atheist, then these kinds of things, these kinds of random occurrences just make sense, you know. But when we say God is sovereign and all-powerful, but that he's also good, we have to make sense of, well, how can this be in light of the fact that there are these great tragedies? So I think recognizing that at the outset, that the fact that we sense that this is wrong, that there is brokenness, there's evil even in the world, presupposes the existence of a God who is good, a category for right, wrong, for evil. And the scriptures, you know, there are a lot of ways of approaching this question philosophically, but what we have is a real historical answer to the problem of evil and destruction in the world, and that's God sending his Son to assume humanity and experience suffering and brokenness, death and devastation for us and for our sins. And when Jesus speaks about tragic events in the Gospels, he does this on a couple of occasions.

I'm thinking of the Gospel of Luke in particular. He says, look, it's not that these people are worse sinners, and that's why this has happened to them. We're all called to repentance. We all face death and destruction. We all need Christ and the hope of resurrection. And so we pray, we join together in prayer, in compassion, and in clinging to the God who came into the world to conquer death.

So well said. This is Core Christianity. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, maybe something going on in your personal walk or maybe at your church. Here's the number, 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. First up today, let's go to Josh calling in from New York. And Josh actually called in at the very end of yesterday's program.

We didn't have quite the time we wanted to spend answering his questions. So Josh, welcome back. Can you ask your question once again to Pastor Adriel? Yeah, thank you for taking my call once again.

Yeah, so I wanted to ask my question and also add a little bit more light to it. As I said, I live in New York City and often think about moving to a different city, a better place to raise my children, somewhere that's more conservative and, you know, finally towards biblical standards. But often I am conflicted on whether or not am I sort of disregarding where God placed me and the work that needs to be done here or by wanting to go somewhere else or is it okay to go somewhere else and understand that there's additional work that's to be done wherever else I go and, you know, God is pleased with either decision. Yeah, Josh, thank you again.

And as Bill said, well, one, just thanks for calling us back. This is a question that's near and dear to my heart. Being in a place that's similar, I would say, to New York, being in California where there are, we have our own challenges in terms of being believers here and clinging to the gospel, the word of God. You know, oftentimes I have conversations with people who say, man, I think that'll be easier in Boise or I think that'll be easier in Texas. And it'll certainly, I mean, it's cheaper, cost of living is cheaper.

That's one of the things that's really, really difficult for so many in places like California and New York. And so just to the heart of your question, is it okay? Yes, it is okay. We don't have to overly spiritualize these things and feel like I'm bound one way or another. God gives us wisdom and freedom as Christians as we're thinking about how to lead our families and care for our families and provide for our families.

I don't think that you should see this as something where it's like, I have to go or I have to stay. You exercise wisdom and that comes through conversations with your wife, thinking about where God has you, the opportunity there, the ability that you guys have. I would say also roping in your church community and conversations there. I'm sure, Josh, that your pastor would hate to see you go. And for many of us ministers in areas like California and New York, we want to see the gospel continue to spread here.

And so when Christians leave, I mean, it's a bummer to me. I mean, I completely understand, but I could see why it would be hard for your pastor. And I felt that as well, Josh, as a minister in San Diego.

And so I think this is a decision that requires a lot of prayer, a lot of encouragement from the people around you. One thing I would say is we ought to, wherever we are, we ought to seek to cultivate a love for the people around us, our neighbors. And especially when we're in areas where we feel like, man, it just seems so hostile to Christianity here. It's easy for us to not love our neighbors, to think, okay, these people are, you know, God has done with them, I'm done with them.

I want to go somewhere where my Christian faith is going to be more accepted and I'm not going to be treated as a stranger or something like that. And I think it's just recognizing that, no, God calls me to love the people who are around me, my neighbors, wherever that may be, and to seek to bring the truth of God's word to the community that I'm in. And whether they're openly hostile or just sort of apathetic or complacent when it comes to that truth, I mean, that's what you're going to find in some other places, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. So God, wherever I am, help me to love the people around me, help me to love the community that I'm in, and to be faithful to you as a Christian, as one of your followers, not to grumble about where you have me and to complain about my neighbors.

That's one thing I'm concerned about. But just being in San Diego, being in California, I hear a lot of believers who, they're so frustrated with the liberal politics and whatnot, they just complain all the time. And they complain about their neighbors. They don't know a lot of their neighbors.

They haven't had them over for dinner, but they're always complaining about, everybody else out there, we just got to go somewhere else where we're going to be more accepted. And I think, well, that's not honoring to the Lord. Rather than complaining about our situation so much, man, let's seek to engage the people around us with the truth of the gospel because that gospel is the power of God's salvation for everyone who believes. And whether you're in Texas or Idaho or California or New York, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. And our confidence is in God's word and spirit. And so we have hope no matter where we are, and we got to engage the people around us no matter where we are.

And where you end up, again, that's going to require wisdom. And so, Josh, just because like I said, I so appreciate you calling back. I just want to give you one opportunity to follow up if you want to do so. Yeah, thank you. That's super helpful. I would just say, I'm talking to a local church here that's very sound and biblical, so there's no issues there. So really, it's a matter of some of the things you mentioned, raising children, homeschooling, and being in an environment to be more friendly towards those things. But this is definitely super helpful. Let me say, man, sociologist Christian Smith, he's done a lot of work on children and the faith of the youth, the American youth.

And it doesn't look good. He's the one that coined that term, moralistic therapeutic deism, where he says most kids raised in Christian churches, they don't really understand the gospel. They're not being discipled as Christians. They're moralists, right? They think, God wants me to be good.

Here's my list of right wrongs. Yeah. Therapeutic, God wants me to be happy. They're deist.

He's sort of up there, but I don't really know him personally. And that's what we're seeing all over the place, even in some of these more conservative places. So I would say that the main thing, and I think I was alluding to this a little bit yesterday on the broadcast, the main thing, look, you're a Christian raising your kids. The most important thing is what's happening in your house. Are you investing in your kids?

Are you discipling them? Are you having conversations about Jesus? That is the main thing, not where you live, first and foremost, but what's happening in your home. Beyond that, the next most important thing is the local church.

And so I'm stoked to hear, Josh, that you're in a solid church. That's really important. Those are the main things. And if you have that, then you're equipping your kids to think about the stuff that's happening around you and wherever you are, whether you're in New York or California or Texas.

There are different challenges that you're going to face that you're going to have to equip your kids to be ready for. It might be sort of complacent nominal Christianity. People say they're Christians and they have these sort of moral standards, but they actually are just moralistic therapeutic deists.

That's an error that you need to watch out for that has claimed many kids. Or it might be like out there in your face, sexual sin, promiscuity, whatever it is that you might see somewhere else. Whatever it is, I would say, brother, be devoted to what's going on in your home as a father and raising your kids in church, so important. And that's the main thing.

And may God give you wisdom about some of the other stuff. But going to a more conservative state and losing solid Christian community, I would think that would be a loss. And I've seen that happen. I've seen people go other places and be like, wow, it's cheaper here.

But I don't have that same community that I had. Not that there aren't great churches there as well, but a lot to think about. And Josh, appreciate you giving us a call again. May the Lord bless you and be with you and give you wisdom and grace and in conversations with your pastor as you seek to make the right decision for your family that honors the Lord. Josh, really appreciate you and thanks for listening to Core Christianity.

Just a quick follow up for you. I've heard some people say, okay, look at Lot in Sodom. It got so bad that Lot had, God actually told Lot to flee, get out of there. Could there ever be a situation where it's so bad in your particular community, let's say you have several children and some of the influences are becoming so destructive that you say, I got to get out of here?

Yeah. Well, I mean, the challenge there is, right, like we'd all like to think that, yes, I'm doing this because God is commanding me to do it. That's the thing is everybody wants their decision to be what God is telling them to do. And sure, if God audibly spoke to you and sent angels to get you out of California, then yeah, maybe. But living here and doing ministry here and just speaking for myself, that's not what we're talking about. And in fact, I mean, so Jesus says, you know, like, if they're rejecting your message, go somewhere else. That's happening all over the place. That's happening in conservative places as well, where people hear the gospel preached and yeah, maybe they align with some of your conservative values, but they don't care about Jesus.

They don't want anything to do with him. So if we're just looking for some sort of veneer of, you know, religiosity or, I mean, you could go to Utah, right? It's gonna be very different than California. And you're just gonna have to deal with the Mormon heresy and all of that stuff there. And so it's different.

It's a different beast, right? It's a different thing that you're gonna have to address. And I would just say, we need to stop with the whole, this is, you know, God is telling me to do this and say, no, let me take a step back. God is calling me to love my neighbors wherever I am and to exercise wisdom in leading my family and in that. So.

Well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We mentioned that this week we have gone live on Instagram. So you can actually watch Adriel live in the studio and see what he's up to in here. See his beautiful Core coffee mug, which he has by his side. It's empty right now.

There was not a lot of coffee in the office. So Nikki actually is watching us on Instagram and she has a question for you. And she says, what is free will in the Bible?

Well, that's a very complex question, Nikki. I mean, Adam and Eve were created in the garden, left to the freedom of their will. You know, God gave them free will and left to that. They sinned against God.

They fell eating the forbidden fruit. And as a result, you know, in one sense, we still have a will. It's a part of human nature, but our wills have been bound in a real sense. Our wills have been affected by the fall so that we do still make free choices, real choices all the time, but we're incapable of saving ourselves. It's not like we can will ourselves to salvation. In fact, oftentimes our wills are bent inward and we're following our own sinful hearts, our own sinful inclinations.

And so you have to think about it, you know, where are we in the history of redemption? Well, pre-fall, you know, Adam and Eve had this free will. They could have chosen to sin or chosen not to sin. Now, you know, with our wills being broken as they are, because of the entrance of sin into the world, we still make real decisions that we're responsible for, but we can't, apart from the grace of God, follow the Lord, choose the Lord. Our wills are corrupted. And so it's only in Jesus Christ that those wills are renewed and we're enabled by the grace of the Holy Spirit to follow after the Lord. And so that's, you know, the calls to repentance that you see in scripture were called to follow the Lord, to make real decisions, to make real choices, but it's only the Spirit of God and the grace of God that enables us to hear the call of the Lord and to respond to it. We're spiritually dead apart from Christ and apart from the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, you were dead in trespasses and sins, the sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to, you know, the evil one, but God made you alive in Christ. And so the will is a part of human nature. This is why when the Son of God, in eternal word of the Father, assumed humanity, assumed also a human will.

We've talked about that on the broadcast before. It was a part of him healing what was broken in us. And so, sorry to get into a little bit of complex theology there, but it is a complex question and appreciate it.

And hopefully that sheds some light. Feel free to follow up if you'd like, Nikki. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. I want to mention that we have some great Bible studies available for you on both the Old and the New Testament. And as we're coming up on fall, this is a great opportunity for you to get one of these studies either for your personal study or maybe in a small group or Sunday school setting.

Yeah, if you've been blessed by the broadcast that we have here, know that there are a lot of other resources that we want to put in your hands as well, stuff that you can do on your own time or with a group of friends at your church, Bible studies through books of the Bible, like the book of Hebrews, the book of Revelation, which I would recommend a lot of people interested in the book of Revelation, the Gospel of John for those who are maybe newer to the faith or just getting into studying the Bible. And we also have other studies that aren't so much through a book of the Bible, but are more theological. So Core 101, how to read the Bible. If you want to grow in your understanding of biblical interpretation, get ahold of these resources. You can find them over at corechristianity.com. Boy, I'd highly recommend that how to read your Bible one because it's so important to understand the context of scripture.

A lot of times people take that out of context. You need to understand how to read the Bible for all it's worth. You can find those by going to corechristianity.com forward slash radio. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash radio. Well, we do receive voicemails here at the core. You can call us 24 hours a day. Leave your voicemail question 833-843-2673.

That's 833 the core. Here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named Alfredo. How did the Bible come about? Who decided to put it together and who did and when? Alfredo, a super practical and important question, you know, where did we get the Bible from? We believe the Bible is inspired by God, and so holy men spoke as they were moved, carried along by the Holy Spirit.

This is what, you know, Peter says, for example, in Second Peter. We didn't follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you these realities, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty, and Peter says we have the prophetic word which you do well to heed as a light shining in a dark place. We have the prophetic word. We have the inspired word of God, and so people, men, were inspired by the Holy Spirit, carried along to write these things down infallibly for our benefit so that we could hear and receive God's special revelation. It wasn't so much something that the church created or a council created or a person decided, one person decided, this is going to be the Bible. It was something that the people of God received as the very voice of God. You think, well, how do we know the voice of God? It's interesting. One of the things that the Protestant reformers said is, well, when God speaks, you just know.

That sort of makes sense. I mean, it sounds like, well, that's a circular argument, but the fact of the matter is their point was God doesn't need the church or a man to say, okay, that's your word, God. You guys should accept it.

We're giving it the stamp of approval. God's voice doesn't need my stamp of approval. He's the Lord, the sovereign one. When he speaks, what did Jesus say in John 10?

My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, but there were a number of things that early on Christians were saying. The people of God said, this is kind of how we're gauging this. Catholicity, that is, were these books, the books that we're receiving, are they universally received, or is it just like a couple people over here are saying, oh, this is God's word, or is this something that the whole church has received? Antiquity, were these books written around the time of the apostles, around the time of these events, or were these things that were written way later? Sometimes people point to the Gnostic gospels, for example, and there's a big stir about that a while ago.

Well, those come way later. We're not talking about during the same time that some of these epistles are written and whatnot. Apostolicity, were the writings, and we're thinking here specifically about the New Testament, were these writings associated with the apostles or written by one of the apostles? Do these books cohere together, or is it just like, okay, this is way out of left field? I mean, if you read some of those Gnostic gospels and you compare them to what we have in the revelation that we've been given, you realize immediately like, no, this doesn't fit. This is not the same kind of thing. Alfredo, what I would say to you is, how did the Bible come about?

God inspired men to write these things infallibly for us, and the church received them as the Word of God on the basis of some of the criteria that I just mentioned there, and we've been benefiting from the Holy Scriptures ever since then. Well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Samantha calling in from Arkansas. Samantha, what's your question for Adriel? Yes, I have two questions actually, but it says somewhere in the Bible where two or more gathered, you know, he will be there. Does that mean when we're alone, he's not with us?

Hey, Samantha, excellent question. You're referring to a verse in Matthew chapter 18. It's Matthew chapter 18 verse 20 where Jesus said, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Now here, specifically, this comes in the context of Jesus talking about church discipline. Matthew chapter 18 is as if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you've gained your brother, and he goes through this whole process. And then in verse 18 he said, truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. So here it's in the context of the judgment of the church, church discipline. But also I think that, you know, the reality, there's something special about the people of God gathering. Now does that mean, just to get straight to your question, does that mean that when you're by yourself that the Lord is not there?

Absolutely not. When we're alone in our prayer closet calling upon the name of the Lord, when you're reading the scriptures on your own, Samantha, the Lord is there. He hears your prayers.

He's there to minister to us by the grace of his spirit and through the gospel of Christ. And so he's talking specifically there in Matthew 18 about a kind of judgment that's rendered and the people of God agreeing on that. And so you said you had another question we might have time to get to.

What was that question? I just wanted to know specifically how do we know what God's will is? Great question. So in 15 seconds, the will of God is revealed for us in scripture, his revelation. So it's important for us to know the Bible.

But then there are a lot of things that just require wisdom. And we have that wisdom as we grow deeper in our understanding of scripture. Thanks, Samantha. God bless you. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833 the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.