The Truth about the Bible

Good morning Chapel family.  

On January 26, 2020, retired basketball star Kobe Bryant got into a helicopter with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, two teenagers from her basketball team, some of the children’s parents, and an assistant coach. The pilot, Ara Zobayan, had a close relationship with Kobe—he had flown him and his children many times. It was a cloudy day, but the pilot assured his passengers they would be fine. They were not. Tragically, the helicopter crashed into the rocky hills of southern California, and all nine people on board lost their lives. Experts say that the pilot should’ve known better than to fly in such cloudy conditions. But even with the clouds, he should have been able to navigate successfully using his instruments. So…what happened? 

There was a New York Times article published a year later, where they shared the findings of the NTSB investigation. They said when the pilot encountered the clouds, he tried to go higher to get into more clear skies. But he became so disoriented that when he told air traffic controllers he was climbing, he was actually turning left and beginning a rapid descent. I’m going to quote the article here: “Once disoriented, the pilot seemingly did not refer to his instruments, did not understand them or did not trust them, investigators said.” The instrument panel was working! It was accurately showing the altitude and which way was up and which way was down. The instruments were reflecting truth. But the pilot didn’t use them. Instead he went with his gut. And the result was devastating.  

And guys, I’m telling you: this is the perfect illustration of how so many people approach life in 2025. We have a source of unchanging truth that has been with us for thousands of years. It accurately shows us who we are; who God is; what’s right; what’s wrong; what life is about. Just like a good instrument panel, it accurately reflects the truth. In fact, Jesus said the Word of God is truth. And yet, just like that pilot with his instrument panel, so many people don’t refer to it or understand it, or trust it. They go with their gut: “This is my truth; you live your truth.” And the results are obvious: rampant anxiety; depression; confusion; and sometimes horrendous crashes. 

So for the next ten weeks, we’re going to talk about truth. We’re going to walk through the ten items on The Chapel’s doctrinal statement. And I want to be clear about this: this isn’t just what The Chapel believes; these are ten core truths held by Christians for 2,000 years. So if you’re a Christian, use this as an opportunity to drive your roots deeper into your faith. If you’re not a Christian, you’re going to be exposed to this faith in a systematic way, and I invite you: open your mind to the possibility that this is the truth that you’ve been looking for.  

You might have noticed in the lobby, there are books for sale. The book is called Christian Beliefs, by Wayne Grudem; it’s a great companion book for what we’re going to cover in this series.  

So before we dive in, let’s pray. PRAY 

The first item on our Doctrinal Statement is about the Bible. Before I read what it says, just a few basics: the word “Bible” comes from the Greek word for “book.” So “Holy Bible” simply means “holy book.” It was written in three languages: Hebrew, Greek, and a little bit of Aramaic. It was written over a period of about 1500 years by more than 40 different authors on three continents—Asia, Africa and Europe. The Bible contains 66 separate books. The Old Testament has 39 of them; it starts with the creation of the universe, and traces the history of Israel up until about 450 BC. And then there was a quiet period of about 450 years, while people waited for the coming of the Messiah, and no new Scripture was written. The New Testament has 27 books; it starts with the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which record the life and death and resurrection of Jesus; that’s followed by instructions to various Christians and Christian churches about how to live in light of who Jesus is. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and there’s not a close second. And in the past four years or so, as people become more and more disillusioned with the answers they’re finding in secular culture, Bible sales are rising considerably around the world, including right here in the U.S. 

Obviously everything in our doctrinal statement is based on the Bible, so it makes sense to start with what we believe about the Bible.  

Here’s the first item in our Doctrinal Statement: We believe in the verbal inspiration of all the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments, and that they are the final authority in faith and life. Let me read that one more time: We believe in the verbal inspiration of all the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments, and that they are the final authority in faith and life. Let’s look at this under two points: The Inspiration of the Bible, and The Authority of the Bible. 

So, first: The Inspiration of the Bible. The word “inspiration” doesn’t mean what you might think it means. “I saw the most beautiful sunrise, and I was inspired to write this song.” That’s not the way the word is being used here—like, a bunch of people had some inspiring thoughts, and they wrote the Bible. So what does it mean?  

Look with me at 2 Timothy 3:16—All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. That phrase “God-breathed” is so precise—the Greek word is theopneustos—it’s the word for “God” and the word for “breath,” put together. In other words, when the Bible was being written, God was breathing it out through the human writers. So for example, when Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, it doesn’t mean that God dictated the words to him, and Luke just passively wrote down what God said—because when you read it, you can see Luke’s unique personality and experiences in the way he writes. But God supervised that process so closely that what wound up on the page was exactly what God wanted to be written. Does that make sense? That’s why our statement says we believe in the “verbal inspiration” of the Scriptures. Every word was inspired by God. 

Peter also talked about this—look at 2 Peter 1:21— For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So every time one of those 40 different authors was writing, the origin of their thought came from God, and the specifics of how they wrote it came from God: as they wrote, they were being carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

Now: obviously, there are people who don’t believe this is true. And I want to look at two of the most common objections. First, there are people who say, “Okay, even if it was originally inspired by God, it has obviously changed over the centuries.” Remember the “telephone” game we used to play at kids’ parties? One kid whispers a message the kid next to him, and then that kid whispers it to the next kid, and by the time it gets to the end of the line, what happens? The message completely changes! And a lot of people assume that’s what happened with the Bible. They say, “Because of human error; maybe for political reasons, the Bible we have today is way different from the original.” 

This is such a big topic, so let me just focus on the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Is it true that what we read in the Gospels is different today than when it was first written down? 

Well, when you’re studying ancient history, the way you learn about it is from manuscripts. So events would occur, and historians would write down what happened. In the years that followed, there were scribes who made hand copies of those historical records. Can you imagine a more exciting job than that? Sitting in a room, lit by an oil lamp, copying words onto a scroll? Now, over time, the originals would deteriorate, and all you would have were copies—and we call those copies manuscripts. So when it comes to manuscripts, two questions to ask: how many do we have still surviving today, and what’s the gap in time between when the original was written and the earliest manuscript we have. Make sense? How many, and how early? 

So, for comparison, let’s talk about a famous Roman history book. Around 115 AD, a Roman historian named Tacitus wrote a 30-volume work called the Annals of Roman History. If you look in history books, you’ll see all kinds of references to the Annals of Tacitus. You know how many manuscripts we have surviving today? Of that great work? Two. Two manuscripts. You know what the earliest copy is? 850 AD. And the other one is dated around 1100AD. So at least 700 years after the original was written. That’s a big gap. And yet, if you were in a college history class, and you were asked to write a report about the Roman Empire, and you said, “I don’t think the writings of Tacitus are reliable—we only have two surviving manuscripts, and there’s an 700-year gap between the original and the copies,” the professor might not appreciate that. 

You know how many manuscripts we have containing either entire books of the Gospels or portions of Gospels? More than a thousand. You know what the earliest one is? Not 900AD; not 800; …We have a portion of the Gospel of John that archaeologists have dated to about 135 AD! That’s about 45 years after John wrote the original! And we have copies of all four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—in their complete form—just like they are in our Bibles—from 250 AD.  

So the whole “telephone game” theory is just not accurate. Because the number of New Testament manuscripts is so high, and the dates are so close to the originals, that they are more trustworthy than any other ancient document. The probability that they changed is so small compared to just about any other document in history. 

So that’s the Gospels. Real quickly—let me just say 30 seconds about the Dead Sea Scrolls. You might remember they found the Dead Sea Scrolls back in the 1940s? Way back in cave in West Bank, they found these scrolls—with large sections of the Old Testament, and they dated back to the first century BC! That was a thousand years older than any of the Old Testament manuscripts we had up to that point! So this was a major discovery. So they painstakingly compared what they found in those scrolls to what they had previously; you know what they found? No significant differences. And it gave us huge confidence that the Hebrew scribes did their job really well, and the Old Testament we have is accurate. 

Look: even if you have trouble believing certain things in the Bible, here’s what you should be confident of: the Bible you hold in your hand is the same Bible that was written thousands of years ago. That’s powerful. 

Here’s the second objection: Contradictions.There’s a widespread belief that the Bible contradicts itself. If you spend any time on atheist web sites, it’s just a given: the Bible is full of contradictions. Is that true? Well, again, for the sake of time, let’s focus on the Gospels. Four different reporters; reporting on many of the same events in the life of Christ. Sometimes the stories don’t seem to match up. So…what do you do with that?  

Let me illustrate it like this: last May, Norma Jean and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary. We got married in Richmond, Indiana; and we were both there. We were both eyewitnesses to that same event. But…if you asked both of us to describe that day, you would not get the same story. Norma Jean might say, “Our wedding took place in the backyard of my parents’ home on Lantern Trail.” I would say, “Our wedding took place at the Old North Chapel on 11th Street.” Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Well, no. Because the wedding ceremony itself was at the Old North Chapel, but the reception was in her parents’ backyard. So who’s telling the truth? Both of us are.  

She might tell you, “Dave sang to me at our wedding.” I would say, “Two of my college friends and I sang at the wedding—it was a trio.” Who’s telling the truth? Both of us! It’s true that I sang to her, but she just didn’t mention the fact that there were other people singing at the same time. She only had eyes for me. 

But do you see the point? Whenever you have different witnesses reporting on the same event, you expect to get some apparent contradictions. In fact, in court, if the stories of two witnesses match up too neatly, you suspect collusion. Right? But if they’re not colluding, you naturally get different details that come out. And that’s exactly what you find in the Gospels.  

For example: In Matthew chapter 20, it says Jesus came upon two blind men, and he healed them. And then in Luke chapter 18 you find the same event described by Luke, but he only mentions one blind guy. People say, “That’s a contradiction.” No! One writer simply mentions more details than the other one does. 

Matthew says that when Judas realized he had betrayed Jesus, he went out and hung himself. Luke says that Judas fell in a field, and his guts spilled out! Obviously, these guys didn’t get together and make sure their stories matched up—right? So how could they both be true?? I don’t think it’s that big of a stretch. The rope broke. Or the branch broke.  

When I read the Gospels, I see four different versions of the same story. A central theme. Different details brought out. And when I combine that with how soon after the events they were written, and the large number and early dates of the manuscripts we have, and we don’t have time to talk about this, but when I look at how a bunch of timid fishermen suddenly became fearless leaders of the early church, all of that leads me to the conclusion that what they wrote about actually happened. And I have the same confidence in the rest of the Bible.  

Before I move to the last point, let me say one more thing. Even if you accept what I just said about the historical reliability of the Bible, that doesn’t mean you necessarily believe it was inspired by God. Right? You might say, “Okay—there was a guy named Moses; there was this prophet named Isaiah; there was a man named Jesus who obviously affected the world. But I’m not buying the claim that the Bible has supernatural origins. I don’t buy this ‘inspiration’ thing.”  

1 Corinthians 2:14 says this: The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. In other words, if you’re not a believer in Christ, you don’t have the Holy Spirit in you. And without the Holy Spirit, you don’t have the supernatural software to properly receive what you read in Scripture. So some of what you read will look like foolishness. But when you give your life to Christ, and you receive the Holy Spirit, it’s like scales fall off your eyes, and the Scriptures begin to resonate as true. 

This happened in a pretty dramatic way in the life of my wife, Norma Jean. When she started college at Purdue University, she was not a believer. She had tried reading the Bible a few times, and it just seemed like nonsense to her—it never made sense. Freshman year she joined a sorority, and she got invited by some girls in her sorority to a Bible Study. She was intrigued enough to try it. She heard the gospel clearly, and gave her life to Christ. And then she started reading the Bible. And the way she describes it is that the lights turned on. Suddenly, these words that never made any sense—not only did they make sense—they came alive, and she realized they were speaking to her. 

So I can give you all kinds of logical reasons to believe in the inspiration of the Bible—and the reasons are important—but ultimately, you need the Spirit of God. 

When you have the Spirit, and you realize Scripture is God-breathed, the final point is pretty obvious. Let’s talk about The Authority of the Bible. Wayne Grudem said it like this: “The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.” This comes back to the helicopter pilot and the instrument panel: if we view the Bible as the truth from God about the things that matter most, that means it has the authority to tell us what to do with your lives.  

Tim Keller once talked about an episode of the old TV show Beverly Hills 90210, where one of the main characters is wondering if she should sleep with her boyfriend. So she goes to her pastor, and she asks him if she should go to bed with her boyfriend. She’s looking for spiritual counsel. And the pastor says, “Only your heart can tell you that. You have to listen to your heart.” And so she goes and does what her heart tells her! 

That’s a great picture of our culture, isn’t it? Culture says, “Nobody can impose their values on you. The only one who can tell you what’s right for you is you. Listen to your heart.” 

And Keller says, imagine if that character had said to the pastor, ‘Do you realize that Osama Bin Laden listened to his heart? Do you realize that serial killers have been listening to their hearts for years? Is that really the answer?’ And at that point the pastor would have said, ‘Well, no, I guess not really.’ And she would say, ‘Are you telling me, then, that there is some standard above my heart, that I’m answerable to?’ And at that point, the pastor would have to start doing his job. 

See, there is an instrument panel. There is an objective source of truth, that doesn’t change. And it does have the authority to tell us what to do with our lives. When you realize that, and when you realize that the God who breathed out these words is a good and loving God, who loves you personally and sent his Son to save you, you will develop a desire to submit your life to God’s Word. As you do that, you’ll start to recognize the life-changing power of Scripture. This is why we are so committed to preaching the Bible at The Chapel. Because when the Word of God is faithfully preached it does what no other message can do. 

Hebrews 4:12 says For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 

Jeremiah 23:29: “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” The Word of God is that powerful.  

And therefore, James 1:22—22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. 

The path to blessing in life is to listen to and obey the Word of God. Align your life with his truth. In the way you treat people and the way you treat your body and the way you handle money and the way you respond to painful things—the Bible talks about all of that. Align your life with God’s Word and you will be blessed.  

I need to give you one warning though. When you’re reading the Bible—and especially when you’re reading the Old Testament, make sure you interpret it in light of Christ—otherwise you’ll get into trouble. For example, if you’re reading about the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, right before Moses goes up the mountain, in Exodus 19:12, God says to Moses Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. Imagine that’s your devotional reading for the morning. If you don’t know anything else about the Bible, how are you going to feel about God? Terrified. Right? “If I even come near God, he’s going to strike me dead.” But here’s the good news: Jesus has come. He covered our sins at the cross, and he broke down the barrier that separates us from God. God is still the same God—he’s still holy and perfect. But now we read in Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Big difference, right? Before Jesus—keep your distance! Now, after Jesus—approach God with confidence.  

So always interpret the Bible in light of Christ and what he’s done. He is the interpretive key. Before Jesus, God’s people had to avoid certain foods; Jesus came along and said, “Now, all foods are clean.” Before Jesus, God’s people had to observe certain religious holidays, but Jesus came and fulfilled the purpose for those holidays, so now we just follow him. Before Jesus, God’s people had to bring a sacrifice to the temple—now, Jesus says, “I am the temple and I am the final sacrifice”—so we just have to trust in him. So here’s the point: when I say the Bible has authority, I mean when it’s rightly interpreted. And that means always interpret it in the light of Jesus and what he’s done.   

In fact, I’ll take it one step further: if you read the Bible and it doesn’t lead you closer to Jesus, you’re reading it wrong. In John 5:39 Jesus says this to the Pharisees: 39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life. These religious leaders were devout students of the Bible, and the main point of the Bible was standing right in front of them…and they didn’t even recognize him. Don’t miss the main point. The Bible isn’t a book about morality or rules or advice; it’s ultimately a book about Jesus. 

When I get up in the morning and I open up the Bible—and I’m not talking about Dave the pastor preparing a sermon; this is Dave the person, preparing for life—when I open up the Bible, and I say, “Lord, take this God-breathed message, and speak to me,” I’m telling you, I encounter the living Christ. I don’t worship and follow a Book; I worship and follow Jesus. And every time I open the Scriptures, I meet him and I reconnect with him. He’s the one who’s chipping away at my pride and my jealousy and my anger; he’s the one who’s making me a man of patience and compassion and forgiveness and generosity and courage. And when I walk away from my time in the Word, he’s the one who empowers me to live it what I just read. And he will do the same for you. 

We’re living in a culture that thinks you can define truth for yourself. But God has already defined it, and it’s in his Word. May he give us the grace to read it and cherish it and live it.  

PRAY