A Disciple is Biblical

Way back in 1957, when people were wearing bobby sox and driving cars with fins, Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited America. The Cold War was at its height and relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were strained to the breaking point.

During his visit, Khrushchev made a very provocative statement. Referring to the Cold War struggle between communism and capitalism, he said to his American hosts “We will bury you. I can prophesy that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.”

Well, Khrushchev is dead now. And the world that he so confidently predicted didn’t quite turn out that way. Today, in 1995, there is no more Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall has been torn down and the Iron Curtain is just a fading memory. The Communist Party throughout Eastern Europe has collapsed, and in many countries has been outlawed altogether.

And millions of former Communist Party members—the disciples of Marx and Lenin—have come to the painful realization that the cause to which they had given their allegiance and the ideas that they so zealously embraced could not, in the end, change their lives for the better.

And that is true of any human ideology. Any human document, however great—whether it is the Communist Manifesto or the American Constitution, or the great religious writings of mankind—can only convey information. It cannot produce transformation. It cannot change the hearts of the people.

We have seen that here in America. We live under a political system which holds that every man and woman is equal before God and therefore has certain inalienable rights. These principles are written into the very founding documents of our nation. We say the Pledge of Allegiance, which ends “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

And yet today, after more than 200 years of living under such noble ideals, we find our nation riven with hatred, racism, crime, and social decay. It is because those lofty principles—as great as they are—cannot change the heart of man.

All the legislation, all the education, all the information in the world cannot bring transformation. Because the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And there is only one thing that can change the human heart, and that is the Word of God—the Bible.

The reason that the Bible can do this is that the Bible is a book that has special POWER. If you’ll turn with me to 2 Timothy 3, you’ll see what I mean.

Paul is writing to Timothy here and he says in v.14…

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Timothy was a young man whose mother and grandmother were godly women. They taught him the Scriptures from childhood. And what were those Scriptures able to do? They were able to make Timothy wise for salvation. They led him to put his faith and trust in the person of Jesus Christ.

Understand that the Scriptures that Timothy learned as a child consisted only of the Old Testament. The New Testament hadn’t been written yet.

This is what Timothy learned at his mother’s knee. He learned about Moses and Joshua, he heard the stories about David and Samson and Abraham. He knew all about how the Israelites escaped from Egypt with God’s help, and how they settled in the Promised Land. How they turned away from God and were exiled from that land, but how God in His goodness and mercy brought a remnant of them back.

But the most important thing Timothy learned from the OT Scriptures was that there was a Messiah coming—one who could save people from their sin and make them right in the sight of God. In fact, he learned that the whole Bible points to the Messiah.

Timothy learned that all the sacrifices spoken of in the Law of Moses couldn’t really cover sin, because they were merely shadows of the sacrifice of the Messiah—who, by laying down his own life as our substitute, would make atonement for our sins.

He learned that the Feast of the Passover, the greatest Jewish holiday of them all, pointed to the Messiah—the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

And Timothy learned that this Messiah wasn’t just for the Jewish people. He was for Gentiles too. It must have been encouraging for him to know that, because Timothy was the son of a Gentile father.

Then one day, when Timothy was just a teenager, a man named Paul showed up in Lystra, Timothy’s home town. Paul was a very learned man. He was a rabbi who had studied the Scriptures intensively. But Paul preached something new—in fact, he called it the Good News.

He preached that the Messiah had come. Paul taught the people about a man named Jesus of Nazareth, who had lived a sinless life, had done amazing miracles, had died on a cross, and had risen from the dead.

Paul taught the people how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the many OT prophecies about the Messiah, how Jesus’ ministry had obviously been anointed by the power of God, and how Paul, himself, had had his life totally transformed by meeting him.

And, as Paul spoke, Timothy recognized that what he was saying was true. He believed the Good News. And so Timothy put his faith in Jesus Christ. He became a believer, a Christian.

You can’t put your faith in Jesus Christ unless you know what the Bible says about Him. That is why the Bible alone is able to make us wise unto salvation.

Salvation doesn’t come through having a religious experience. Salvation doesn’t come by doing good works. Salvation doesn’t come by seeing a vision of God. Salvation comes when you understand and respond to what the Bible says about the Savior. This is why the Scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

The Bible is a book that has special POWER. That is because it is a book written by a special PERSON.

Look at what Paul says about the Bible at the beginning of verse 16:

All Scripture is God-breathed

The word that is used here means the “breath of God”, in that it came out of God’s mouth; it originated with Him. So that means that the Bible is not a document of human origin; it is the breath of God.

Now God used human authors to write the Bible—men like Paul and Moses and David—but the thoughts and ideas that they recorded came from God. How did that work? Well, the Bible tells us how in 2 Peter 1:20–21:

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The idea behind being “carried along by the Holy Spirit” is the idea of a sailing ship being carried along by the wind. All sailing ships have individual characteristics, but the wind provides the force by which they all move.

In the same way, the individual human authors of Scripture were free to express their own personalities as they wrote, but it was the Spirit of God who moved them to write what they did.

And throughout the Bible, you keep running into expressions like “This is the Word of God”, or “Thus saith the Lord”. In fact, you’ll find that the Bible claims to be the Word of God over 3,800 times from Genesis to Revelation.

Now you might be sitting there thinking “Well, why should I believe that the Bible is the Word of God just because it says it is?” After all, couldn’t anyone write a book that claims to be the Word of God?

And when you think about it, there are many other books that make a similar claim—the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Urantia Book, the Upanishads. There are a lot of books “out there” that claim to be the word of God. So what makes the Bible so special?

Well, to begin with, the Bible is a book that is actually a collection of books—66 in all. It was written by various human authors over a period of about 1,600 years:

• Moses: a political leader with an Egyptian university education—1400 BC

• Peter: a rough-hewn Galilean fisherman—60 AD

• Amos: a herdsman—750 BC

• Joshua: a military general

• Nehemiah: a cupbearer to a Persian king

• Daniel: a Babylonian prime minister

• Luke: a Greek doctor

• Solomon: a Hebrew king

• Matthew: a tax-collector who worked for the Romans

• Paul: a Jewish Rabbi

They wrote their parts of the Bible in different locations:

• Moses in a desert wilderness on the Sinai Peninsula

• Jeremiah in a dungeon in Israel

• Daniel in a palace in Mesopotamia

• Luke while traveling in Asia and Europe

• John on a remote island in the Mediterranean

• Paul in Rome

They wrote at different times:

• David at a time of war

• Solomon at a time of peace

• Moses at a time of wandering

• Nehemiah at a time of rebuilding

• Ezekiel at a time of exile

They wrote in various moods:

• heights of joy

• depths of despair

They wrote the Bible on 3 different continents: Asia, Africa, Europe

They wrote it in 3 different languages: Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic

They wrote over a period of 1,600 years.

Have you ever heard of another book like that?

And in spite of all that diversity, the Bible is a unified book, with a unified theme, and a unified message. It doesn’t contradict itself.

Suppose you were to take 10 political commentators and tell them each to write an essay on who they think is going to win the Presidential election next year and why. You’d give them a week to do it, then you’d collect their essays and publish them together in a book. How many contradictions do you think that book would contain?

The Bible doesn’t contain any contradictions. At least, I haven’t been able to find any, and I’ve been studying it for many years now.

And the Bible is historically reliable. There has never been an archaeological discovery that has contradicted any detail of the Bible. Although there have been many instances where scholars have felt that the Bible was incorrect, later discoveries have always shown the Bible to have been historically accurate and the scholars to be the ones who were wrong!

These are just some of the reasons why I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. When it says “this is the Word of the Lord”, that is no empty boast. The Bible has the credentials to back up that claim.

The Bible is a book that has special power - it is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The Bible is a book that was written by a special person —it is the Word of God. And finally,

The Bible is a book that has a special purpose.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The purpose of the Bible is to equip us for living. It does that by teaching us what to do and how to live.

And when our feet stray from the path, or even when we start thinking wrong thoughts and feeling wrong desires, it rebukes us.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living 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.

But the Word of God doesn’t just judge us—it corrects us by helping us to get back on track. And it trains us in righteousness by showing us how to stay on the path.

The Bible has all the answers to life. Whatever your situation, the Bible has a relevant message for you. It’s no wonder, then, that Paul said to Timothy in chapter 4

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

Preach the Word, because the Word of God is the only resource that can bring transformation to people’s lives. It’s the only resource that can show you how to live life the way it was meant to be lived, and give you the power to do it.

Have you been spending time in the Bible lately? Many Christians spend more time reading the newspaper than reading the Bible.

I read recently of a U.S. Army major who used to teach at the artillery training school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma back in the 1960’s. This officer noticed that in the early 1960’s, the attitude of the students was so lax that the instructors had a problem just getting the men to stay awake and listen.

But then in the later 1960’s, this major noticed a distinct transformation in the students’ attitude. Even though the class lectures and curriculum hadn’t changed, the soldiers were alert, they paid close attention, and they took copious notes.

What was the reason for the difference? In the late 1960’s, the United States had become involved in the Viet Nam War. Those trainees knew that in a matter of weeks they would be facing the enemy. So they hung on their instructor’s every word.

One reason that the Bible is ignored by many of us is that we don’t see ourselves as being in the front lines of a war that is going on. We aren’t having any meaningful conversations with non-Christians about spiritual things, we aren’t trying to disciple new believers and help them grow in their faith, and we aren’t wrestling with those difficult internal issues of godliness and spiritual growth.

So the Bible is just theory. And it’s pretty hard to get excited about theory.

But if you really begin to get serious about following Jesus, he’ll take you into the front lines of the spiritual conflict—in fact, he’ll take you behind enemy lines! And that’s where you’ll begin to appreciate the Word of God.

The Bible is a book with special power because it was written by a special person to accomplish a special purpose. What impact are you letting it have in your life?