Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled Truth for Life, which is a study of bibliology, or the doctrine of the scriptures. Today's sermon will be preached by Dr. Renton Rathbun, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Bob Jones University. How many of you have seen God is Not Dead, the movie?
Okay, wow. So if you guys have seen it, you know that it's about a young man who is a Christian young man, and he's going into a secular college, and he goes into the classroom and the secular professor is there, and the secular professor is like, you know, who in here is a Christian? And he's like, I'm a Christian. He's like, I'm going to get you. And then for the rest of the time, they're like fighting back and forth, and it's very violent. They end up getting out these light swords, and he cuts off his hand and finds out the professor is his father.
It is an amazing movie if you haven't seen it. I was under the impression that that's what life would be like at a secular college. When I was getting my degree in philosophy, I had a professor who started out identifying with the religious kids in the room, me being one of them, and it kind of let my guard down. As we were going through the class, he began to kind of pick away at Scripture. Eventually he demonstrated in his own way how there was a verse in 1 Chronicles and a verse in 2 Samuel that were an absolute contradiction. How can you believe the Bible is inerrant with that? Now you're probably thinking, part of the story is me coming up with this great argument as to why those verses are not contradictory.
Turns out they weren't, but I didn't figure that out. Instead, what I did was I began to doubt, and that darkness of doubt started to fill my gut. Maybe some of you have had that feeling as well where you are wondering if the Bible really is powerful enough to believe it. The seminary I went to was named Westminster Theological Seminary, and there was a professor there that was kicked out just before I came there. His name was Peter Enns, and for those of you taking Bible doctrines, of course, not Paul Enns, it's Peter, so don't worry because Peter Enns is going to be bad news, but Paul I'm sure is fine. Peter Enns was a professor at Westminster, and he came out with this book entitled Inspiration and Incarnation. So you've got to be careful when you publish because then you are telling everyone what you actually believe, and this book, the basic idea was just like Christ was fully human and fully God, so the Bible is just as human as it is divine. And based on that, he came out with these five ideas about how to approach the Bible. So in Peter Enns' defense, this is what he was doing. He saw that the liberals out there were saying, well, the Bible is not inspired by God because if it was inspired by God, it would be infallible, it would be inerrant, and they know it's not infallible, they know it's not inerrant, and so how could it be inspired?
And then you had the conservatives that are saying, no, it's inspired and inerrant and infallible, and Peter Enns said, well, how can I bring everybody together? So this is what he came up with in this book. First premise was that the Bible writers absorbed a mythical worldview unconsciously. In other words, when the people, those that wrote the Old Testament, I don't know, he probably didn't believe that Moses wrote Genesis, but whoever wrote Genesis in his view, were in a worldview where there were a lot of myths, like God created man from dust, and that he created it in six days, you know, those kind of myths that kind of stuck in the storyline, and so they were enveloped in that worldview, so when they wrote, they really, you know, they're writing through this mythical worldview that they kind of believed was true. Point number two, they reproduced those worldviews in their writings believing them to be reliable descriptions of the real world and events occurring in the past, so they really thought creation and the flood was real. They thought it was. Turns out it's a myth, but they really thought it was.
This is what he's saying. Therefore, this is what he thinks, the Old Testament mythical accounts do not always contain actual history. They really are myths.
They're not real. Number five, God used these myths to convey truth. In other words, as he looks at the liberals, he says, no, the Bible is not inerrant. It's not infallible. There's plenty of problems in it because it's written by humans, but he's saying to the conservatives, but it's still inspired.
God inspired these men to write down myths that weren't true. He was really proud of this book. He really thought he had accomplished something that would bring everybody together.
It didn't. He lost his job, and that was good. He needed to go somewhere else, but as he left, he was upset, as you would guess. He was hoping this idea would be accepted with open arms, and when it wasn't, he was upset. He wrote lots of blog posts and became quite the blogger before he found a job over at Eastern University, but in one of his blog posts entitled, I Love You, Bible, Just Not That Way, one of his statements is, so I do love the Bible, but not as the fourth person of the Trinity. I'm telling you all this about his book because what we have is someone that has looked at the Bible and those that view the Bible as infallible, inerrant word of God, inspired by God, as looking at the Bible as something that it's not. We kind of are looking at it according to his view. We're looking at it as if it's more powerful than it really is. It's not meant for that because he believes there's a lot of mistakes and problems in it, and so he looks at us and says, you're making the Bible itself a divine being that now you must believe the way you believe God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now, he's just kind of making fun of us, but there is some truth, or what he thinks is true in what he's saying, that we, those that believe the Bible is infallible and inerrant, word of God inspired, are trying to put power in the Bible that's not there, and then we are looked upon as those that kind of look at our Bible as a lucky charm, so we try to apply it to things it doesn't apply to, like math, or science, or psychiatry, or whatever else you kids are studying these days.
Okay. But what we find is that he is seeing our Bible as somewhat having some power in that it can persuade people, but not the kind of power that we believe, so is the Bible really powerful? Does it really contain power? I mean, have you wondered that?
Have you struggled with your faith? Have you wondered if all of this, that all these old people are doing, trying to get you to believe this stuff, is this all just people believing in stuff, and it's not really real? And when you die, nothing happens. Or maybe someone else is right. I mean, how do we know? And you're filled with doubt, and we don't think the Bible is powerful, because when someone says, have you been reading your Bible, we roll our eyes. When someone says, have you been praying over something, we roll our eyes. Say, well yes, I've been praying over it. And we get frustrated with the Sunday school answers, right? We have those Sunday school answers, and those Sunday school answers are Jesus, read your Bible, and pray, right? And so my question to you, is Peter Enns right? Have we been wrong about this for 2,000 years? Peter Enns?
Figured it out? Is there no power in this book? Are we expecting too much power out of it when it really doesn't have power, when it's just a bunch of words that when you read it, you don't feel like it's done anything for you?
Is the Bible powerful? Look at 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2, I'm going to start reading verse 10, but I want you to know what kind of the context is. Paul is talking to a group of Christians who are really immature. As he describes them, they kind of sound like first year seminary students. He starts talking about how they're arguing over what theologian they think is best, and who has the right way of doing things, and all that sort of thing. But in chapter 2, what he's talking about is what persuades us to believe. When I taught at secular colleges and universities, my students would get frustrated with me because every time they would offer a way to believe in something cognitively, I would show how philosophically it never works out, and they're like, well then how does anyone believe anything? And especially when I pulled out the Bible and read that to them, they're like, well how would anyone believe that? And I would tell them, I'd say, well it would take an act of God.
And it does, it turns out. I want you to look in chapter 2 where Paul is talking about this mystery, these things that are so mysterious and so powerful that no eye has seen them, no ear has heard them, neither have they even entered into the heart of man. The things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? So it's kind of saying, how does anyone know what someone's thinking except for their own spirit searches out what you're thinking and you try to make sense of it. Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
The question is, is the Bible a book that sits by itself or is it a book that is inspired by the breath of God and is made known to us through the power of the Holy Spirit? Now this is a very important idea because when we look at scripture, scripture tells us that those that do not have the Spirit will look at it and will be confounded by it. They won't get it. And it doesn't mean they won't understand it. There's lots of theologians out there that don't believe in God or believe in the Bible that have done really amazing things.
But when it comes right down to it, they don't believe. What causes someone to believe and to understand the depths and the breadth of God's word, revealing its power. Martin Luther was very interesting this way. You know, Martin Luther believed strongly in scripture, scripture alone, sole scriptura. And he believed that scripture alone is able to be powerful for us. He believed that scripture works the same way it worked in Genesis. In Genesis you have God speaking reality into being. He says, let there be light and there was light. And Luther said if this Bible is God's word to us, this is his breath, as 2 Timothy 3.16 tells us. This is the breath of God. Then when God says something in scripture, it is speaking it into reality.
It is real. And that kind of dedication to God's word is what Luther was trying to get across during the Reformation. God's word is powerful. It's as powerful as God's speech to us. Now the question is, how does it become powerful in us that we might believe? And what 1 Corinthians 2 is saying, that it is powerful in us when the Holy Spirit, who is able to search the mind of God, comes and is able to reveal these things to us through his power as we read God's word. But some of you might be thinking, okay, we've finally gotten to the boring part of chapel where he is saying things we already know. We know the Bible is powerful. Yes, the Holy Spirit works through the Bible. We got that point. If I forgot it, I remember it now.
Now I'm bored again. But if you think about it, does this match your experience? If the Bible is so powerful, why is it that some people don't believe? If the Bible is so powerful, why don't those who ridicule God's word instantly die? Why don't those who are suffering instantly find relief when they read the Bible? After all, isn't the Bible the fourth person of the Trinity?
When we look at a biblical worldview, we say a biblical worldview because I think there is something extremely powerful in the term biblical worldview because I believe that the Bible is powerful through the work of the Holy Spirit and in the breath that comes to us through its word. Now we live in a post-enlightenment world. Post-enlightenment world means that if it ain't science, how can it really affect anything? I mean, isn't it true that some of our favorite apologetic stuff, if that's your thing, is stuff where someone has found something out in a desert somewhere and it turns out the Bible said that there was a city there and then they found like steps underneath the sand and is like wow, the Bible was right. And it would be our greatest dream to find some kind of gopher wood on some mountaintop somewhere so that we could say the Bible was right. And that would be powerful to us.
The gopher wood on a mountain, that would be powerful. Didn't we have something? I mean, how many remember Ravi Zacharias? One of the most powerful speakers on apologetics ever. I think his apologetic method was terrible, but he was a powerful speaker and people were really relying on some of those very powerful arguments to make them believe that the Bible is true because they found his speech and his arguments incredibly powerful.
And now we don't even know if he believed them, because we find in his life incredible sin that was found out after his death. Where is the power of this Bible? And 1 Corinthians 2 is telling us the power is in both its breath as it is God's word and it becomes power in us through the Holy Spirit that reveals its meaning to us in a powerful way even when we read it and it does not instantly relieve our suffering. It remains powerful.
Even when others ridicule it and nothing seems to happen to them. You know, we are in a battle of power. Some of you may have really watched the elections last night because we want to see where the balance of power is going to be. Are we going to go more bankrupt? Are we going to try and clean up things? How is it all going to work out? Because of the power.
Who's going to be in power? Some of you may not care about that sort of thing. Some of you may not find the Bible terribly powerful, but when you turn on your computer screen and no one's in the room, you find that powerful. The images that you are looking at, you might find powerful.
The feeling you get when you see those images you might think are powerful. For some of you, you are depending on the relationships you have here at Bob Jones University to be the power in your life. Some of you are miserable because you have not found the perfect friendship yet.
Some of you are miserable because you have not found the relationship, the romantic relationship you're seeking so that you can finally be happy. Because that's where the power is and when someone says there's power in scripture, it almost annoys you to hear it. But when we have God's breath to us in written form and promises of the Holy Spirit that will work as we read it in our hearts, there is power but it's not going to be the American type of power. We keep wanting the Bible to be an American thing.
Where we learn what power is from our experience and our American experience and our 21st century experience and that's what power is and that's not what power is. I feel that we are losing as Christians and as a church, in our churches we are losing the idea of how powerful God's word is. When I was a student here, Dr. Bob the Third would open up many of our chapels with, he would say the most sobering reality in the world today is, and then we would respond with, people are dying and going to hell today. Is there power when someone rejects God's word?
How long is eternity? What kind of power comes down upon those people that have rejected God's word? Have we missed out on the power of God's word because we keep trying to make it do something that America has taught us instead of seeing what it can do in our hearts and stick with it and work at it and not do this alone? I want to talk as I finish, I want to talk to those of you in this room who really are Christians. I want to talk to you believers for a minute. Some of you are struggling right now because you keep trying to live your Christian life all alone.
You have friends that are friendly, you have someone maybe to sit with at lunch and supper, but you don't have friends that are checking your heart and holding you accountable and loving you the way you ought to be loved. You have made your church a place that entertains you instead of trying to get mentors that will hold you accountable and help you walk this walk. Scripture is clear that the Christian walk is not to be done alone.
God loves his church and Titus 2 is real. Your walk requires good people in the church helping you. You are going to leave this place and if you are in the habit of treating your church like it's a place for entertainment or finding the friendships that you think you need instead of a place where you can find mentors that will hold you accountable.
You don't have that discipline in your life. When you leave here, you're not going to know how to use your church the proper way. Some of you are unnecessarily frustrated when you can find people that will hold you accountable and walk with you. Don't be satisfied with friends that visit.
Look for friends that will look in your heart and hold you to God's word and walk with someone. I want to talk to those of you who don't get all this, who doesn't understand the tediousness of having to go to a chapel and why all the professors seem to want to talk about world view and all that sort of thing and it's boring and you can't stand it. I want you to understand that the power that's coming against you right now may not be something you feel now.
It may not be something you can even see. But every time you hear God's word presented, God's wrath is building and building and building against you. Every time you hear God's word, it is like waters that are continually piling up higher and higher and it is nothing but the graciousness of God that holds it back. Every time you hear it, more judgment is piled against you.
And even though it doesn't look powerful, you will see one day the kind of power that will come down upon you because one of the most sobering realities of the world today is that people are dying and going to hell today. My prayer for you is to think on God's word as powerful. To seek out someone to help explain this to you because this might be the last time you're surrounded by people that love you and I know there are people that have been mean to you, I know there are people on this campus that have maybe disappointed you, but that doesn't mean everyone's that way.
Seek out someone that will have answers for you. And listen. Please. We love you. We love all of you here. And if we want to see a real excitement and a kind of atmosphere that you long for here, it's going to be in you and the way you treat each other and love your God. You are the ones.
And I am excited to see what you're going to do. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for these people. Lord, we pray for your spirit to come into our lives and our hearts and break them that we might be softened towards you and follow you. Know the power of your word and the power of your spirit. Lord, we ask these things in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Renton Rathbun, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Bob Jones University, which is part of the study series entitled Truth For Life. Listen again tomorrow as we conclude this series on The Daily Platform.
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