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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. So today, we're going to answer the question, How can I know the Bible is the Word of God? We're going to talk about the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Have you ever wondered as you read the Bible, how do I know this is true?
What is it that separates the Bible from the Quran or the Book of Mormon or any other religious book? Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, there are thousands of excellent books by wonderful Christian authors available to us today. But no Christian book rivals the most important one, the Bible.
That's because the Bible is inspired by God himself. And today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress provides compelling evidence for why we can trust what God has written in his Word. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Theology matters. Let me say that again. Theology matters. Now, you might think, well, theology matters to seminary students or pastors or missionaries.
But in reality, theology, which is the study of God, pertains to every person on earth. It's imperative that we know our Creator, and it's essential that we understand the most important things about Him. So, this month on Pathway to Victory, I'm presenting a teaching series in which I'll help you understand 10 core beliefs or doctrines of our Christian faith.
These 10 core beliefs are like major pillars that hold up the structure of the church. My series is called What Every Christian Should Know. For your benefit, I've also written a book by the same title. In my book, I'll show you what every Christian should know about the Holy Spirit, about angels and demons, and about the end times. Ten chapters about 10 essential doctrines that will help keep your feet on solid ground. And a hard-down copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Now, let's get started with today's study. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to live the Christian life without your Bible?
Impossible, right? Well, for that reason, our first message is a primer on the book that surpasses any other in history. I titled this first message in the series What Every Christian Should Know About the Bible. Our late member and theologian, Dr. Charles Ryrie, said it best when he said, the Bible tells the truth. When you read the Bible, you can know you're reading truth and not error. Well, a discerning mind would say, well, is there any evidence outside of the Bible that it is without error? I'm so glad you asked that question, because I have four evidences for the trustworthiness of the Bible.
Let me briefly go through them with you. First of all, the dates of the New Testament book. Most of the New Testament was written between 40 and 65 AD. That means many of the books of the New Testament were written within a decade of the events of Christ, marked the earliest gospel just a few years after the resurrection of Christ.
Why is that important? Why does that give us confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible? Because when these books came out and started being circulated, there were people who were alive when these events, the gospels referred to, took place.
Corresponding to that, secondly, the early acceptance of the message. Not only did these New Testament books record these events, but apparently the earliest followers of Christ believed them so much, they were willing to give their lives for these beliefs. Remember, most of the New Testament converts, early converts, were Jews. And notice how quickly they changed their belief system.
I mean, almost overnight. They changed their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. They gave up the sacrificial system. They exchanged the act of circumcision, the mark of faith.
They replaced that with baptism. All of these seismic changes show that they actually believed what they were writing and proclaiming. A third evidence that's external for the inspiration of the scripture is the fulfilled prophecies that the Bible records, prophecies from the Old Testament that came true in history.
Let me give you just a couple of examples of that. To me, one of the most fascinating is one recorded in 700 BC in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah the prophet recorded that Babylon would one day conquer the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, and take her captive. But Isaiah didn't stop there. He also predicted that one day Babylon would be overthrown by another nation, the nation of Persia. He prophesied that in Isaiah 21, verse 9.
But he didn't stop there. He said God would raise up the king of Persia, a man named Cyrus, who would give the orders that would allow Judah to go back to her homeland in Israel. And he made that prophecy. Isaiah wrote that in 700 BC, 100 years before Cyrus was even born. How do you explain Isaiah prophesying something that specific 150 years before the fact? In the New Testament, we've talked about this. Look at all of the fulfilled prophecies in the life of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, there were 61 major prophecies about the Messiah, his place of birth, the manner of birth, his teaching, his crucifixion, his resurrection, being buried in a rich man's tomb, being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. All of these things were prophesied in the Old Testament hundreds of years, in some cases 1,000 years before the fact.
I don't want to belabor this. We talked at Christmas time about the chances that any one man could fulfill 61 of those prophecies. Accidentally, Peter Stoner, the mathematician, calculated the odds that one man could fulfill those prophecies, just eight of them accidentally. Remember what the number was? One in 10 to the 17th power. That's 10 followed by 17 zeros. That's for one person who could have accidentally fulfilled eight of the 61 prophecies.
Jesus fulfilled them all. What are the chances of that happening accidentally? Zilch.
It couldn't happen. That's one of the reasons we trust the Bible, because of fulfilled prophecies. Fourth, archaeological discoveries. These are external evidences that the Bible can be trusted.
Archaeological discoveries. It wasn't that long ago, say 150 years ago, the critics of the Bible were saying, look at all the names, places, locations mentioned in the Bible. If they actually happened, wouldn't you think there would be some archaeological evidence? I mean, Ashkenaz, the court official in the Book of Daniel, Sodom and Gomorrah, major cities. There's no evidence of that. There's been no evidence of that. King David is so important in the Old Testament.
There's no evidence of a Davidic dynasty in Israel. Pontius Pilate. Nobody's heard of Pontius Pilate in secular history. Megiddo and all of these things were thought to be fanciful imaginations. Then a funny thing happened on the way to declaring the Bible historically unreliable. Archaeology occurred, and suddenly we began discovering things. An inscription from the ninth century BC was discovered calling David a great dynasty, the Davidic dynasty in Israel. An excavation in Megiddo, one of Solomon's five chariot cities in the Old Testament uncovered thousands of chariot stalls that the Bible discovered. Clay tablets going back to 2500 BC named the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
An excavation of the city of Jericho shows that it was surrounded by a wall that collapsed in an unusual way. A brick containing the name of Ashkenaz from Daniel in the Old Testament verified that truth. Tablets naming the Hittites who were thought to be mythological beings were discovered. And in Caesarea, many of us have been there to see the replica of it. There was a stone called the Pilate stone that mentions Pilate as the governor of Judea at the time that Jesus was crucified. Can you prove every event in the Old Testament through archaeology?
Of course not, but here's the important point. There's nothing been discovered in archaeology that does anything except confirm the Bible. Now again, a discerning mind would say, well, Robert, when you talk about the Bible is inspired without error, you're always careful to say in the original manuscripts. But we don't have the original manuscripts today. How can we know that the Bible we have today, which is a translation and a copy, how do we know it's accurate and reliable?
Let me share with you three ways we know the Bible we have is reliable. First of all, the accuracy of the copies. Now people say this whole debate of inerrancy, if it's just related to original manuscripts and we don't have manuscripts, then it's irrelevant. But think about that, how ludicrous that is. If the original has errors in it, then what are the chances the copies will be without error?
Zero. If you have an errant original, then you can't have an inerrant copy. But if the originals were without error, then there's the possibility that over thousands of years, the copies have remained without error as well.
And there's great testimony that that's in fact what has happened. Let me talk about the accuracy of the copies of the Bible. No, most ancient literary works we study in school had very few manuscripts to support them.
For example, there are only seven manuscripts for the works of Plato, 10 for Caesar's Gallic Wars, 20 for the historian Tacitus. By comparison, we have 10,000 manuscript copies of the Old Testament. The most significant of this, of course, is the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd. And you know those scrolls that were found contained fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament, and they contained almost a complete copy of Isaiah.
Now, here's what was interesting. These manuscripts gave us insight into how accurate the copies of Scripture had been through the year. Prior to finding the Dead Sea Scrolls, the most recent, the earliest copy of the book of Isaiah we had was 900 AD. Remember, Isaiah was written in 700 BC.
The most ancient manuscript we have was 900 AD, but the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah was written 1,000 years earlier in 100 BC. So, was there any difference between what had been written in 100 BC and what the copyists were copying 1,000 years later? Remember that old game we used to play as kids called telephone, where you'd sit in a circle or get in a line and you'd whisper a message to one person, then whisper it to the next one and the next one and the next one.
And by the end of the line, you would see how closely the last messenger was close to the first messenger. And usually, there was no relationship between the messages that had become distorted as it was passed on down. Well, that was the copyist, what they were doing. They were copying manuscript after manuscript after manuscript. How accurate were the copies that were 1,000 years old, compared to the ones found in 100 BC?
Listen to this. Scholars discovered that 95% of the words in the text written in 900 AD matched their counterparts in 100 BC. The text of Isaiah 53, one of the key chapters of the Old Testament, offers a telling look at the accuracy of the copies. Of the 166 words that comprise Isaiah 53, scholars found that only 17 letters were in question. Ten of those were simply spelling differences, four were related to minor issues like conjunctions, and the three remaining letters in question spelled out the word light in verse 11. After 1,000 years of copying 166 words, only one word was in question, and that word was insignificant in the meaning of the text.
That is a remarkable thing. God has preserved his word. The manuscript support for the New Testament is even more telling. Today, we have nearly 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. Contrast that to Homer's Iliad, which is next in terms of available manuscripts. You know how many manuscripts we have of that? 643, compared to 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. Do you hear anybody in school questioning whether Homer's Iliad is the real thing that we study?
Of course not. One writer has said there is more and earlier manuscript support for Jesus as revealed in the gospels than any other figure in the ancient world, including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. Again, when we look at the differences in these manuscripts, they're minuscule. For example, there are 20,000 lines of text in the Greek New Testament. The Greek New Testament has 20,000 lines on about 250 pages.
Did you know the variations? The words in question in the Greek New Testament from Copias, there are only 40 lines of 20,000 lines that are even in question. That is about one page of the Greek New Testament. Most of those 40 lines of questionable copying mistakes have to do with whether a word ought to have a the before it or an a before it. One page out of 250 pages of the Greek New Testament and not one question has anything to do with a major doctrine.
The accuracy of the copies is phenomenal. Secondly, the high standard for inclusion. How did we know that we got the right books in the Bible? Have you ever wondered that? People would make you think, oh, there's some great debate about what books belong in the Bible.
Not at all. The 39 books of the Old Testament were verified as scripture, some of them as soon as they were written, like the Ten Commandments. Between 250 and 150 BC, we have the first Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which means by 250 BC, it was settled. Jesus affirmed every book of the Old Testament as scripture. There's equal reason to believe the 27 books of the New Testament are the ones that ought to be there. To be in the New Testament, a book had to be written by an apostle or supervised by an apostle. In spite of what you hear from the Da Vinci Code and the other movies and books that would have you to believe that there's great controversy over which books belong in the Bible, there has been no serious attempt to add any books to the New Testament since their approval.
393 AD was the Council of Hippo that technically affirmed the books of the New Testament, but we know from the church fathers that it was actually a subtle matter many years before that. Have you ever heard about contradictions in the Bible? Well, pastor, you say the Bible's inspired and inerrant. What about all of the contradictions in the Bible?
Most times, what is alleged to be a contradiction is simply a differing account of a same story. You find that in the gospels. You find paraphrases of Jesus' words. You can trust that the Bible is telling the truth.
Now, here's the real question. What does all of this mean to me? If we believe that the Bible is inerrant, inspired, properly canonized, that there's no more truth being written, Jude 1-3 says the faith has been once for all delivered to the faith, what does that mean to me? If we stop here, all we have is a reliable historical document, but the Bible is much more than that. The Bible is God's message to us. Let me tell you what the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scripture mean to us today, why it's important. First of all, because the Bible is God's word, the Bible frees us to live a God-honoring life. In Hebrews 4-12, the writer says, for the word of God is living.
It's active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces as far as the division of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow. The Bible is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of a heart. You know, in this world, we are all bound up in a wrong way of thinking that leads to wrong behavior.
As a man, as a person thinks in his heart, so is he. If we believe that freedom comes from disobeying God, then we're bound up in misery. If we believe that we're responsible for our own well-being, then we're bound up in anxiety and worry. If we believe that money is the key to happiness, we're bound up in greed.
If we believe retaliation is the best response to wrongdoing, then we're bound up in bitterness. But the Bible is that giant sword that cuts through our wrong thinking that leads to a miserable life. It frees us to live the life that God wants us to lead. Secondly, the Bible guides us. If you're a Christian today, you want to know God's will for your life. God uses his word to reveal his will. In Psalm 32 eight, the Psalmist said, I will instruct you and teach you in the way in which you should go.
I will counsel you with my eyes upon you. David said in the 119th Psalm, verse 105, your word is a lamp to my feet and the light to my path. God's word isn't a floodlight that shows us what to do for the next 30 years or 50 years. It is a flashlight that gives us the illumination we need, all we need to take that next step and to follow God.
And finally, not only does the Bible free us and guide us, the Bible inspires us. It lifts us beyond our present circumstances to see God's view of the world and our lives as well. You know, frankly, we sometimes read the Bible and we think, how does this relate to me?
Hear these strange names, I can't even pronounce, of people who do some really weird things and have weird customs. How am I supposed to relate to that? The unifying element in the Bible is not the people or the people or the customs, it's God. And the Bible reminds us just as God was faithful to work out His will and the lives of those strange people who lived thousands of years ago, who did strange things, God is also working in my life, in your life to work out His plan. God is the unifying theme. In Jeremiah 1 12, the Lord said to Jeremiah, you have seen well for I am watching over my word to perform it.
Ladies and gentlemen, God is going to perform His word in your life, not just in the world in general, but in your life specifically. And the Bible inspires us by reminding us of that. If you've listened to me for any period of time, you know that one of my great historical heroes was Dwight Lyman Moody, D.L. Moody, the great evangelist from the 19th century, the founder of the Moody Bible Institute.
One time D.L. Moody explained how his faith began to grow exponentially. He said, I prayed for faith and thought that somehow faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But faith didn't come that way.
One day I read the 10th chapter of Romans. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I had closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now open my Bible and begin to study and faith has been growing ever since. Are you ready for your faith to start growing? Look, it's one thing to take the Bible literally, that's great, but we need to take the Bible seriously as well. If we take it seriously and realize it's God's message to us, the best investment of our life is to study the word of God, to search the unsearchable riches of the word of God, and to apply God's timelessness to timeless wisdom to our lives today.
That's what every Christian should know about the Bible. Well, I hope today's message has inspired you to take your next steps down the pathway to victory. Maybe you're motivated to learn more about these 10 essential doctrines of our Christian faith.
The best time to get started is right now. To help you in this personal journey, I've written a best-selling book for you. It's called What Every Christian Should Know, 10 Core Beliefs for Standing Strong in a Shifting World. The purpose of my book is to help you get in touch with the non-negotiable essentials of your Christian faith, and I've written this book so that it's both scholarly but also accessible.
By that, I mean it's both credible and engaging. I want to show you what every Christian should know about 10 core beliefs, such as the church, the end times, the Holy Spirit, and so much more. A hard-bound copy of my book, What Every Christian Should Know, will be sent to your home right away when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of pathway to victory.
My book is over 270 pages in length, so you might gauge the size of your gift with this in mind. But please rest assured, your generous gift is all that's required to request your copy, and we're deeply grateful for your partnership in providing these daily Bible studies on pathway to victory. Now, in addition to my book, our team has put together some other helpful resources for you, and David's going to describe those tools right now.
David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. You're invited to request the bestselling book, What Every Christian Should Know, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of pathway to victory. Call us at 866-999-2965 or visit online at ptv.org. And when you give an especially generous gift of $75 or more, we'll also include the complete What Every Christian Should Know teaching series on audio and video discs.
Plus, you'll get a study guide to use for personal or group study. Call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also send your request by mail. Write to PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
One more time, that's PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you back next time when Dr. Jeffress shares what every Christian should know about God. That's Wednesday here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska with Dr. Robert Jeffress set sail from Vancouver, British Columbia on June 15th, 2024. Join me along with musical artists, Rebecca St. James and Michael O'Brien and comedian Dennis Swanberg for a vacation you'll never forget.
I promise you will come back spiritually, physically and emotionally refreshed. Book your spot on the seven-day Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska at ptv.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in his word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
