The B-I-B-L-E, Part 3

If the Bible is primarily telling one, unified story, then what does it mean to say that the Bible is authoritative? How does the Bible exercise authority? And what does it mean to submit to that authority?

Battle Belongs
Phil Wickham

Awe
Jesus Culture

Jesus Over Everything
The Belonging Co

Living Hope
Phil Wickham

In order to get to this spot on this stage, it involved me submitting to certain forces outside of me, practices, and laws.

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We have learned that Jesus is at the center of the story of the Bible and is the key to understanding the purpose and meaning of the Bible. Without putting and keeping Him at the center, we will misread, misuse, and misunderstand the Bible.

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We have to understand the picture of our current culture and how that has shaped or influenced our approach to the bible without us even knowing it AND why.

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For many, this idea of the bible carrying authority over our lives is really difficult.

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Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
“How has the current highly individualistic, iconoclastic, sexually obsessed, and materialistic mindset come to triumph in the West?”

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Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
“The understanding of life which emerges [is that] each of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from the outside, by society, or by the previous generation, or religious or political authority.”

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2 Timothy 3:1-5
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

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2 Timothy 4:3,4
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

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The Bible is “Authoritative”
The Bible is a story that is anchored in the authority of God Himself and can be trusted as our authority for what we believe and how we live.

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N.T. Wright
“As we submit to scripture, as we wrestle with the bits that don’t make sense, and as we hand through to a new sense that we haven’t thought of or seen before, God breathes into our nostrils his own breath—the breath of life. And we become living beings—a church recreated in his image, more fully human, thinking, alive beings.”

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Stories have that kind of power.

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Tim Keller
“A set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing.”

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“The story you live in is the story you will live out.”

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Guardrails for Biblical Authority
1. Know whether what you are reading is prescriptive or descriptive.

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Guardrails for Biblical Authority
2. Know that many Biblical commands are not relevant to us.

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Guardrails for Biblical Authority
3. Know our moment in the story is the same as those of the early church.

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Guardrails for Biblical Authority
4. Know Jesus holds a unique place of authority in the Biblical story.

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John 8:4-5
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

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For the Bible to be an authority in your life you will need to regularly immerse yourself in the story it’s trying to tell.

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Action Steps This Week

1. Write out your “Bible Story.”

2. Listen to the BibleProject Podcasts.

– The BibleProject Podcast #1
– The BibleProject Podcast #2
– The BibleProject Podcast #3

3. Pick a book of the Bible and read it all the way through.