The Breath of God

When you pick up your copy of the Bible and read it, what happens?

What changes in you? The impact of scripture on a life, did it reform, did it radically alter the lifestyle? This was one of the ancient tests of authenticating scripture. The test of usefulness and spiritual growth.

And I have often thought, what would it be like for us to try to determine now? Has the Word of God truly revolutionized our lives? Has it made us that distinctive and different from the world? Since the Bible is the very Word of God, spending time in it should have life-changing effects. God uses His Word in the life of the believer to conform us to the image of His Son. In our 21st century American culture, we have Bibles everywhere. Has that caused us to lose our sense of awe for the scriptures? When you open that drawer in your hotel room or pick up the study Bible from your bookshelf, how can you regain the sense that what you hold is more than just a revelation?

It's a miracle. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davies is going to help settle this issue for you. The lesson is called The Breath of God. Well, just how did God deliver to mankind His words?

I'm so glad you finally asked me that question so we can move forward. Well, I want to give you a couple of passages for you to turn to and mark in the margin the next reference. And so when you're asked, you can go to these different passages and defend your faith. You cannot create faith, by the way, in an unbeliever. You and I cannot create faith. Only God can do that, but we can defend our faith and give an answer or reason for the hope that's within us.

Let's start with 2 Peter 1. As soon as you find that, turn to Acts 27 because I'll be there in about 10 seconds. 2 Peter 1 21 says that men were moved by the Holy Spirit as they spoke from God. That phrase moved by the Holy Spirit or born along translates the Greek verb for Ammonoi. It means to be swept along by the power, some power outside of yourself. You are moved along.

Look at the way it's illustrated. The same verb appears twice in Acts chapter 27, where Paul is in a storm at sea and he's about to be shipwrecked. Verse 14. But before very long, they're rushed down from the land of violent wind called your parakelo. And when the ship was caught in it and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and let ourselves here it is be driven along.

Verse 17. After they had hoisted it up, they used supporting cables and undergirding the ship and fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Sirtis, they let down the sea anchor. And in this way, let themselves here it is again be driven along. In other words, the ship was moved along.

It was swept about by this wind. So also the human authors then are moved along, swept along by the controlling divine author. So you have human authors, but behind the 40 human authors, you have the movement of the divine author, the breath of God, the wind of God.

In fact, it's very interesting that wind is used to express the act of inspiration. Another passage you ought to look at is 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, where God's controlling and moving in the hearts of human authors of scripture is likened to the movement of the wind. In 2 Timothy 3 16, we read that all scripture is inspired.

The word inspired is a compound original word thea for God and nustas for wind. All scripture is the wind that can be translated breath. All of the scripture is the breath of God. That is it comes as it were from the very mouth of God as its source.

That's a pretty bold statement to make. It's the same idea Paul used in Romans 3 2. He tells the Jews that they had been given stewardship of the oracles that is the image of something coming right from the mouth of God. Well, the question remains, how did they under the controlling power of the Holy Spirit record receive the breath of God? Three ways.

Number one, through ordinary developments. Turn to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, where Luke, for example, is writing to his friend, a high official many believe named Theophilus.

His name means a lover of God, so he probably is a believer, maybe a Christian name he adopted. Luke told him in his opening comments that he had done careful research of the life of Jesus Christ. So here through ordinary developments, Luke is now writing, notice what he says, in as much as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, that is the apostolic community. Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. In other words, what Luke is saying is that he had researched, he had journaled, he had interviewed, he had digested, he had dissected, he had compared to other scriptures, all of the events, and then he timeline them out in consecutive order from the eyewitnesses.

So he wrote it all down. Well, in other passages, we're then told that as Luke through ordinary developments wrote down this careful treatise of the account of Christ, that behind him was, as it were, the wind of God in his sails, governing his quill and producing inerrant text. Secondly, the Bible was received through ordinary descriptions. You know, many people think that, well, if it's the word of God that means that everybody sort of went into a trance or everybody began dictating.

No, not at all. God moved among these human authors. This is a book we refer to as having dual authorship, which is part of the mystery of it. These human authors were controlled and he controlled the product of their quills, yet giving them at the same time, incredible freedom to be who they were. Somebody who was writing scripture didn't suddenly start talking or writing differently than they talked. They didn't start using different words. They didn't start writing in French if they knew Greek. It was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. God used the ordinary descriptions from their lives so much so that Paul, with his brilliant attorney mind, having been trained in the law, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, he writes with complicated grammar and extensive vocabulary.

And you know, as well as I do, that one word in Romans is a volume. Amen? Okay. I'm not making it up.

All right. Well, he is compared to a guy like Mark. Mark is a young, uneducated man who writes with broken grammar and the Spirit of God didn't clean it up. He writes with his limited vocabulary. In fact, Mark repeats over and over again the word immediately. He's always in a hurry, immediately, immediately.

It's a very fast paced book to read. And they recorded very human elements. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, Timothy, when you come to me, bring the coat. I left it at Troas. I'm so glad that was included that Paul forgot something. You know, it gives hope to us all. If he were writing today, he might have said, bring my glasses.

I forgot them at Troas. At the same time, none of the Bible's contributing authors in their writing ever wrote. Now, I think I'm right on this one, but you be the judge of it.

Or something like, you probably won't agree with what I'm about to write, but I hope you can come to agree with some of it. No, they wrote with this sense. And over time, that sense is obvious that there was the moving of God's Spirit. So much so that Peter would say, we were moved along by the breath of God. Thirdly, they received the word through divine dictation.

There was dictation involved. There were times when God spoke to man, because man wouldn't have any clue as to any of the things they're about to record. In fact, Moses didn't wake up one morning and say, you know, I really ought to write out an account of what happened at the beginning of the world. Let's see, in the beginning, I figured God created it all. No, he wasn't there. So God delivered the truth to him. He couldn't have conceived of it without the record of God being given to him. Furthermore, Moses never said, you know, I need, I need some rules for these people because I'll never get the nation under control.

I could use 10 good ones. Let's see. No. Isaiah could never have sat down centuries before the fact and ever, ever thought of writing alone. Therefore, the Lord himself will give a sign, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and will name him God with us.

I think there were times when they wrote and scratched their head. Virgins do not conceive. God does not become a baby. God spoke through the Old Testament. The Old Testament prophets in Deuteronomy 18.

I will raise up. God said a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And we do know, by the way, that prophets did scratch their heads. Peter tells us that the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries. They tried to figure it out, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that follow.

First Peter 1 12. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves. They were writing these passages not for themselves, he says, but for you in the new covenant in these things, which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you. They wrote it. It wasn't for them.

It was for you. They couldn't figure it out. And they studied it and researched it and couldn't quite put the pieces together. The mystery of inspiration, this dual authorship is a mystery of God collaborating with humanity to produce inerrant text so much so that it can be called the breath of God. By the way, the same mystery of collaboration occurs in another incident, right? God collaborated with a woman named Mary, conceiving in her womb the Son of God. Can you understand the incarnation?

No. Nor can you understand inspiration. We can only discuss it.

We have a hard time understanding either one. Now I have been asked a number of questions, never intending to spend this much time here. I trust it's been helpful to you, but I've been asked a number of questions about this topic and I have decided that I'm not going to answer them all.

We got to get out of verse two, eventually. In fact, I have a wonderful book in my hand by one of my favorite authors, a pastor in Chicago named Erwin Lutzer. This book is entitled Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible. And I've pulled this off my shelf again as I've studied and he goes through and gives historical reasons and logical reasons and prophetic reasons and Christological reasons and personal reasons, providential reasons. A wonderful book, easy to read, as you can tell by my introduction of it. And you get it and read it if you want to go deeper. There are other books that you can get that will take you even further. However, I do want to address a couple more issues this morning and then we'll leave the subject. One of them is the issue of the canon of Scripture.

Now, unless you think I'm talking about firearms all of a sudden, let me explain here. The word canon is a word that refers to the Word of God. It's actually a metaphor.

It's a play on words, in fact. It comes from the Greek word canon, simply transliterated, and it means a rod or a measuring line. The Greek term came from a Hebrew root idea of a reed. In fact, in Bible lands, a reed was a term of measurement. So you would get two reeds of this and three reeds of that, where now you go into your cupboard and you pull out that thing that says one cup. And you know if you fill it up with flour just to that right point, you've got one cup. That's your measuring cup.

This is your measuring standard that has been defined. Well, a reed became the measuring standard for things in biblical days. And the word canon comes from that idea. Basically the term canon was used to refer to the completed list of Scriptures. Athanasius, the godly bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, referred to the 27 books that you hold in your lap of the New Testament as the canon of Scripture. Before him was a man named Melita, the bishop of Sardis, who was actually writing around 8170, and he listed all but one of the books of the Old Testament.

No apocryphal or dubious writings are found in these early lists. In fact, it isn't until a thousand years into church life at the Council of Trent that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the apocrypha to be part of the canon. So we're into church life now a thousand years when they declared that. However, it's significant for the historian to understand or the Bible student to know from history that the Council of Trent was a knee-jerk reaction to the response of people, to the teachings of a, I guess you could call him a reformed monk, a converted monk named Martin Luther and the rise of this movement of protest called the protesting movement or the Protestant movement. And so they gathered this council together and they said or alleged that all the apocrypha was also to be a part of the canon. Wayne Grudem wrote insightfully in his systematic theology, he says by affirming the apocrypha as a part of the canon, the Council of Trent merely affirmed writings that supported their doctrines such as prayers for the dead, penance and justification by faith plus works. More importantly, the leaders then could hold that the church has the authority to constitute what is scripture. In other words, a thousand years into the church life, they turned around and said, this is scripture and we have authority to define scripture. Where the protesting movement said, no, no, no, scripture has authority over the church.

There is a grand difference in all of that. He went on to use an analogy of what this council did. Grudem said a police officer in his investigation can recognize counterfeit money as counterfeit and he can recognize genuine currency as genuine, but he cannot make counterfeit money genuine. Nor if he called the council of policemen together, can they buy some edict, make counterfeit money genuine. So today, when we talk about the canon of scripture, we're actually saying the 66 books of the Bible is a completed record of divine revelation. And I would add that we are under its authority. We are not over its authority, neither church or council or leader. How did the early believers identify what was indeed scripture?

Let me give you three or four ways. Number one, through the providence of God's preservation. God promised that his word would stand. So you just keep seeing these letters circulating and growing in popularity.

We know that Paul actually wrote more letters. He refers to another letter that was evidently lost. Does that mean that maybe a hundred years from now they're going to find this letter and we're going to discover some things we should have been doing that were told in that letter? No, because the Bible says it is complete in and of itself. It says it's sufficient to equip every believer unto every good work. So there's no need to fear some discovery of true scripture. God preserved everything for us that we needed.

This is the providence of God's preservation. Number one. Number two, through the record of authorship. That is, was it a prophet? Was it an apostle or a member of the apostolic community?

These were the ones who wrote the words of God. And you can simply go to the writings and discover the content and determine for yourself and you can go to other spurious writings and see a vast difference. Therefore, therein lies the third test, and that is the test of content. The test of content. Does it contradict or agree with the other body of evidence? And you'd say, well, how difficult is it? Let me assure you, for those of you that have read apocryphal writings, it's very easy.

I'll give you a couple of illustrations. For instance, The Shepherd of Hermes, which was claimed to be sacred writing. It taught the necessity of penance. You cannot have immediate forgiveness. You must do penance. It also taught this interesting doctrine that it was possible to have the forgiveness of some sin immediately after baptism. Whatever you sinned immediately after baptism was immediately covered.

So I sort of got out of that that you'd want to save up the really big one for right after you got baptized and then it would be automatically forgiven. Well, the Gospel of Thomas was held by many to belong to the canon. But you just read that. Just go to the last passage. It ends with this rather strange conversation that certainly doesn't agree with other passages of scripture. Simon Peter said to them, Let Mary go away from us, for women are not worthy of life.

If you didn't like Peter before, you don't like him now. Jesus said, No, I shall lead her so that I may make her a man, that she too may become a living spirit resembling all men. For every woman who makes herself a man will enter the kingdom of heaven. Let's vote.

How many are in? I think that's pretty obvious, isn't it? Spurious writing, someone teaching strange doctrine.

I don't know what Thomas's problem was, but he had one. Number four, through the test of usefulness and spiritual growth. And this is an interesting test. It was used in the early days. The impact of scripture on a life. Did it reform? Did it radically alter the lifestyle? This was one of the ancient tests of authenticating scripture. And I have often thought, what would it be like for us to try to determine now? Has the word of God truly revolutionized our lives?

Has it made us that distinctive and different from the world? Well, this was one of the tests of authenticating the word, what it did in a person's life. I love this debate that Dennis Prager was having with an atheistic professor from Oxford University. His name was Jonathan Glover, and they were debating on the authenticity of scripture.

Prager posed this question. He said, Now, if you, Professor Glover, were stranded at midnight in a desolate Los Angeles area, and if, as you stepped out of your broken down car with fear and trembling, you were suddenly to hear the weight of pounding footsteps behind you and you saw 10 burly young men who had just stepped out of a tenement house coming toward you, would it or would it not make a difference to you to know they were just leaving a Bible study? Would it make you feel any better if you saw one of them carrying a Bible?

It would me. Praise God, brother. Well, isn't that an interesting test the world knows? And even that unbelieving professor knows that young men who've just finished studying the Bible are most likely not to hurt that man, but to help him. All other books have been given to us for information.

This book has been given to us for transformation. Are you authenticating the Word of God in your life with the way that you live? One final question. What does the Word of God do?

Let's explore that just a bit further here. What does the Word of God do then in three areas? Number one, in the life of the church. Well, for starters, the Word of God ought to make all the difference, and it does in being a dead church and a living church. Have you ever walked into a church and you felt immediately it was dead, you could feel it?

I have. For having a service, the lights are on, but it's dead. It's a morgue with a steeple and a program. Well, in Revelation, the Lord rebuked a well-known church that had left obedience to the Scriptures by saying, You happen to have a reputation in your life, but I want you to know you're dead. You're dead.

Has nothing to do with size, has nothing to do with programming, has nothing to do with the songs they sing. It is the absence of the Holy Spirit who says, He like a train follows the tracks of biblical truth. Jesus Christ rebuked another church in Revelation 3 and Laodicea. He told them they were blind. This church was an active, growing, it would seem effective church, but he said to them, You are wretched and miserable and poor and blind. Imagine getting a letter from God that told you were those things.

You're blind. It's even more meaningful to understand that Laodicea in this time was a city where the church was located. This city was famous for producing a medicine called the Tephra Phrygia.

It was exported in tablet form. It was ground down, added to water and mixed, and then a paste was made and put upon weak and ailing eyes. The Phrygian powder was held to be a wonderful remedy. It was to the church in this city that Christ said to them, I advise you to buy from me. I salve to anoint your own eyes that you may see.

What's the solution for both of these churches? The difference between living and dying, the difference between seeing and being blind was this written warning, the sacred words of God and their abandonment of them or their obedience of them. What does the word do in the world? Secondly, well, it's the instrument for bringing believers, unbelievers to saving faith. Paul wrote in Romans 10, 17 faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? By the word of Christ. The apostle Peter wrote, you have been born again through the living and enduring word of God. First Peter 1, 23. What does the word do in the believer's life?

You know, the list could be long. We'll give you one thing. The Bible is the complete sufficient resource for living a holy life. In second Timothy three, we're told that all scriptures inspired and profitable that the believer might be thoroughly equipped.

The word equipped wonderful word refers back in those days to a wagon that was stocked for a journey or to a boat that was stocked with supplies for a journey. He says, you're not missing a book. You're not missing a letter. You're not missing a prophecy. You have it all.

You have everything you need as you journey through life. Just make sure you stock the wagon of your heart with the word and you're ready to live. The question is, what are we doing with it? It isn't just that we don't understand the Bible or know enough of it by reading enough of it. It's what we understand that's the problem.

We don't do what we know to do. We all, according to this book, have been entrusted with the sacred breath of God, the inspired letter from God. What are you going to do with it today? What are you going to do about it tomorrow?

Will it collect dust? You see, it's one thing, ladies and gentlemen, for us as a body of believers to say, we believe the Bible. It's another thing to say we behave the Bible. May our belief and our behavior be one in the same for the glory of God and in obedience to the very breath of God, which is his holy word. May that be true of you today. You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey.

If you're new to our broadcast, welcome. Each day, Stephen takes us to God's word to help us understand what it says and means and to help us apply that truth to our lives. With today's lesson, Stephen concludes a three-part series called How We Got Our Bible. We have it available several ways. I also want to mention that it's a real blessing to our ministry when you share it with others who need to hear it as well.

Maybe you have a friend or family member who struggles to believe the Bible. This series might help. So here's how we make it available. How We Got Our Bible is posted to our website and to our smartphone app.

You can go to either of those anytime and listen whenever you want. Our website is wisdomonline.org and the Wisdom International app is in the iTunes and Google Play stores. In our online store, we also make this resource available as a set of CDs that you can add to your collection of biblical resources. Finally, you can download the audio files as well as copies of Stephen's actual manuscripts. And remember, please share all these links and resources with others in your life. When we come back tomorrow, Stephen's going to begin preparing our hearts to celebrate Christmas with some lessons specific to this season. Join us for that right here on Wisdom for the Heart. Thank you.