This teaching is a third of five in a series entitled Doubters Welcome by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truaux Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title of this teaching is, How Do I Know the Bible is True? How do I know the Bible is true? It seems to me that there are several different levels on which you might approach that question. and I suspect there are people even in a relatively small group tonight who would be at any one of the levels I'm about to talk about.

One of them, in fact, merits a whole evening on its own, and we're going to leave it until next week. Some of the people who would say, how do I know the Bible is true, are really asking, how can I accept the miraculous? How do I reconcile with a 20th century scientific worldview the claims that we find in the Bible that God apparently interrupts the normal flow of things.

How do you put together a worldview of cause and effect and at the same time a supernatural deity? That's a big enough question that I want to leave until next week and address it separately. There are three levels or three related questions that I want to come to grips with this evening.

First is, what sort of external evidence is there that would corroborate the Bible, both Old and New Testament? If you could go out and demonstrate that X number of statements in the Bible are patently false, if you could demonstrate that scientifically or archaeologically or historically, then you've got a fairly difficult job of keeping your faith intact. Christianity is not a philosophy, it's a historical religion that makes a claim that certain things happen.

What sort of external evidence is there? Secondly, what sort of internal evidence is there? What does the Bible have to say about itself?

What sort of internal consistency is there within the Scripture, or inconsistency? And thirdly, what I would call the response of faith, or you might put it this way, personal evidence. I want to take these in reverse order and elaborate on that phrase, the response or the test of faith.

If the issue is knowing and trusting God, then there is no way that we can be argued or convinced into that. Will you accept that? That if the issue is a matter of knowing God in a personal relationship, and I'm about obviously to claim that it is, If that's the issue, knowing God personally, having a personal relationship, a personal love affair, if you will, with Him, a matter of entering into a trust relationship, then I cannot, no one can convince you into that.

No one can argue you into that. That's not true just of our relationship with God. That's true of any personal relationship whatsoever.

Just think in terms of if you've never met my wife before, all right? I can stand here all evening. I could stand here for several weeks and talk about her.

I could describe her to you. And you would have a fuller and a fuller appreciation of what she's like. You would know about her, but you don't know her.

You don't have any personal relationship with her. It's two different kinds of knowing. Are you with me?

You understand what I'm saying? So I might be lying. If you've never met my wife, you don't know that I have a wife.

I mean, I'm wearing a ring and you hear about her, but you don't know that for sure. I might have made the whole thing up. And I might have lots and lots of information to give you and it all might be a hoax.

And all you have is a growing mental concept of what she's like. You don't know her personally. Isn't it interesting that we can read about certain characters in history, you can read tremendously complete narrative biographies, you have a marvelous appreciation of what that person was like.

But just meeting somebody, just in a few moments' time, knowing nothing of that person's background, there's a whole different quality of relationship that begins. All I'm illustrating is the difference between knowing about and knowing someone. We'll move it into another area.

The difference between deciding somebody is trustworthy intellectual conclusion and actually trusting that person. Those of you who are employed gainfully, I trust. If I say to you, do you believe in your business partner?

Do you believe in that person? What am I asking? I'm not saying, do you believe such a person exists?

are saying, are you prepared to entrust yourself, maybe your finances, maybe your very life, depending on what your job is. Do you trust the character of that person? The issue in Scripture is precisely that.

It's a matter of coming to a trust relationship with God and more particularly with Jesus Christ. Not just coming to an intellectual or an academic conclusion about Him. You know, that yes, there is some sort of a first cause.

Beyond all of the whole series of causes and effects, there is a first mover. Aristotle called the unmoved mover, and Bill Coffin said, whoever was moved by an unmoved mover, doesn't move me, friends. Okay.

That's not a relationship. You can come out with an intellectual conclusion, but that's not a relationship. The challenge of Scripture, and it runs all the way through, from one end to the other, is to entrust ourselves personally to God.

Just quote a couple of relevant passages. Right at the very outset of things, in God's dealing with the children of Israel, when He gave the Ten Commandments, the whole covenant relationship begins this way. I am the Lord your God.

That's who I am. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. That's what I've done.

And the very first commandment is, Have no other gods but me. What does that mean? It doesn't mean come to a conclusion about him.

It means a deliberate choice of relationship. It's the very same sort of thing that happens when a couple comes before a minister of the gospel or a justice of the peace, for that matter, and asks them, Do you take this person, leave all others, and cleave only unto her or unto him? I choose this relationship.

Have no other persons in the way of this one. Have no other gods. That's a trust relationship.

In the book of Jeremiah, one of the mightiest prophets of Israel, we find this statement. You will seek me, and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart. There's the issue.

Not, again, an academic conclusion, but a trust relationship. When you come to that point of recognizing what is really important, when you are searching for me, for a personal relationship, then you'll find me. God's promise.

Jerry Ford used to say that his most important verse in all the scripture was from the book of Proverbs. It's trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. trust in the Lord with all your heart. Jesus said in the New Testament, Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Come to me. The book of Revelation comes to the conclusion, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door to me, I will come in, and I will eat with him and he with me.

That's the issue. I want us to really see that very clearly. That's what Scripture is all about.

That is the message. Okay? A personal trust relationship, a love affair between me and God.

My response to His love. Now having said that, you see, all of the argument that we could do on all sides of the issue, all of the external arguments, pro and con, all of the examination of internal apparent conflicts or difficulties, and I don't want to deny that there are some, are really beside the point. Finally, the final issue is not the external or the internal consistency.

The final issue is my personal response to this God. And so we have to come to that point of taking Him at His word. If He's really there, If he is who the Scripture claims him to be, he and he alone can prove that to us.

Do you follow what I'm saying? It's not a matter of argument. If he's really there, if what I've just read to you is true, that when you search for me with all your heart, then you will find me.

If that's true, then the way you enter into personal relationship with him is by searching for him with all your heart, not by sitting around and arguing about it. if it's true that Jesus Christ is in some metaphorical sense knocking at the door of our lives, the only way we're going to know Him is by throwing that door open and saying, come into my life. And it might even be in the form of what's often called the agnostics prayer.

You know, I'm not really even sure. I don't know if you're there. But if you're there, please come into my life.

Make yourself known to me. I need to warn you about that. you better watch out is half of it the other half of it is you better be prepared to allow him to take over things because if he comes into your life he only comes as himself he only comes as Lord he only comes as God that's who he is some of you have heard my story it's a true story about the fellow who went out looked up at the heavens and said oh God if you're really there would you send a shooting star through the middle of the Big Dipper?

And immediately, this blazing meteor went right through the middle of the Big Dipper. And he said, Son of a gun, what a coincidence. The argument, the proof, doesn't make any difference whatsoever.

No difference. It's not a trust relationship. You see?

Okay. In that sense, the theologians usually speak of the Bible as a self-authenticating book. A self-authenticating book.

In one sense, that's the bottom line. That's where we probably logically ought to end up. But I'm putting that right at the top of things, because that is the central issue.

I don't want us to lose sight of that when we talk about the other two areas of evidence. The final proof positive is going to be only when you and I individually come to the point of saying, Oh God, if you're there, come into my life and I will follow you. And I will follow you.

I will allow you to be my Lord. I want you, if you're really there, to be my Lord. if nothing happens in response to that prayer, then all the arguments in the world don't add up to anything anyway.

But if that is true, then that's the only argument that really matters in the last analysis, is that God does, in fact, fulfill His Word and become real and enter into our lives at such a moment. More broadly than that, I think we can expand on self-authenticating. I'd put it to you this way.

the Bible is really a book of promises you can hardly read a single page of scripture without finding at least one promise on it God promising to meet our need in some particular way in virtually every instance maybe there are one or two exceptions and I'm not going to tell you where they are but one or two exceptions in virtually every instance you'll find that connected to a promise is a set of conditions. In other words, you do this, and I will do this. If you really want to know if the Bible is true, read it.

Come to the promises, fulfill the conditions, claim the promise, and expect God to act. That's self-authentic. one that we've been particularly interested in the last few weeks has to do with the whole matter of finances it's summed up in the book of Malachi God makes an extraordinary challenge we've been thinking about in terms of our stewardship bring in the full tithes put me to the test and see whether or not I will open the windows of heaven and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

That's a challenge. If you really want to be scientific about this thing, take him at his challenge. Bring in the full tithe.

You don't have to have any faith. Bring it in. Say, God, if you're real, I'm going to bring in the full tithe.

And I expect an overflowing blessing. Now watch him demonstrate himself. I read a story not too long ago about a farmer out in the Midwest who took one acre of land and decided to till it exactly strictly according to all the biblical principles, which meant letting no work on the Sabbath, letting it lie fallow every seven years and so on.

It meant tithing the produce. And the results of what came out of that one acre of land multiplied, quadrupled, went on multiplying, eventually became a fortune in contrast to the total rest of all his holdings. Here's God's promise.

You do it my way and watch me act in response. You can take any number of other things. It gives instruction, detailed instruction in the book of Proverbs about how we're to bring up our children.

Detailed. The best manual for child rearing that you will ever want to come across is in the book of Proverbs. Go through it.

Begin to apply it to your own kids and watch what happens. that's self-authenticating. I'm putting that right up front because everything else I'm going to say from here on out, if we don't come to that, we'll miss the point.

I want you to really see that. I don't want you to get off that hook. God's challenge to us as presented in the scripture is put me to the test.

Allow me to come into your life. Give me a try, if you will. And watch what happens.

the scientific method is to create a hypothetical situation give it a test and see what happens ok that's the first and I think the most important secondly the internal witness of scripture regarding itself the internal witness of scripture regarding itself the Bible is not like any other book that I know of where you begin at the beginning and just read it straight through and you come to the end the Bible is a book that has a very definite center and the way we really ought to read it is to start at the center and then move out not start at the beginning start at the center the center is clearly Christ that's the center of the whole scripture And as we've seen, we saw last time, to accept his claims about himself is to accept extremely far-reaching conclusions. If Jesus is who he claims to be, then that has implications about who God is, has implications about who we are, has implications about the responsibility that we bear to God and to his standards. It has implications about the moral order of the universe.

It has implications about what life is all about. okay so Jesus Christ is the center of things and if you raise the question what do we know about him you'd have to answer it this way what we know about Christ is what his apostles wrote about him and in particular Matthew Mark Luke John Peter Paul James Jude and whoever it was that wrote the book to the Hebrews we say the apostles those are who we mean those nine men Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul James, Jude and the author of Hebrews let me ask you this here's the pivotal question absolutely central question did those nine men right and accurate account did they write an accurate account? When I use the word accurate, I'm not at this point using it in a rigorous sense that every word is exactly true.

I'm just asking, did they write a humanly accurate account? Were they good witnesses? Did they record to the best of their ability what actually happened?

Okay. If you say no to that question, then you are forced to deal with either of two other questions. If you say they did not write an accurate human account, then we have to account for what they did write.

And I'd put it to you in terms of these two questions. A. Why did they lie? or be quite deceiving.

If it's not true, if it's not accurate, then they're either lying or they're very badly confused, very badly deceived. If they're lying, why are they lying? I alluded to that last time.

Let's just think about that for a minute. If they're lying, why are they lying? What do they stand to gain by making up this extraordinary story?

They claim, they bend over backward to claim, that they were eyewitnesses to a resurrection from the dead. And along with it, a host of other miracles. Eyewitnesses to a transfiguration.

Eyewitnesses to God himself confirming his son, Jesus, as the incarnate deity come amongst us. What did they have to gain by making up such an extraordinary tale as that? I submit to you they had nothing to gain.

If that's a lie, they had nothing to gain. They had everything to lose, and as a matter of fact, they lost everything. They were persecuted, they were cut off from their families, They were thrown out of the synagogue.

They were cut off from the political process. They were disenfranchised financially. And in virtually every case, they were martyred.

Nearly every case, they were martyred. Not one of them, not one ever broke down and said, it was all a hoax, it was all a sham, and here's why we did it. Not one.

What did they have to gain if they were lying? Peter, some of you have Bibles with you. I just want to look at one comment that Peter makes.

In the second letter that he writes, he seems to speak for the whole apostolic community. In chapter 1, he starts with verse 16. He says, For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, we heard this voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, and we have the prophetic word made more certain. You will do well to pay attention to this, he says, as a lamp shining in a dark place, and so on. John bends over backward to say, I was there.

I saw him. I was the one against whom he leaned at the Last Supper. Luke begins his Gospel by saying, Many others have sought to write an account of what Jesus did.

I was not there, but I interviewed all the eyewitnesses, and I've put together an orderly account for you, that you may know the truth of the things of which you've heard, of which you've been informed, and so on. There's really no room for saying, well, you know, it's just sort of there's some room for argument here. It evolved. It was stretched.

Maybe they didn't really intend us to think that Jesus was God come amongst us. They make it abundantly clear. Here's what we're saying.

If you say theirs was not an accurate account, then I challenge you to come up with an answer to the question why they made it up. What did they have to gain? And I say they had nothing.

The other possibility, of course, is that they weren't lying. They were deceived. They genuinely thought Jesus was who he claimed to be, but in fact he wasn't. They were, rather than being deceivers, they were deceived.

In which case, what deceived them? How in the world do you account for such a company being so hopelessly deceived? Now, we know that people can have hallucinations, can have bad trips, But have you ever in all history seen anything comparable to such a wide and diverse group of people having such a joint confusion?

And again, I submit to you there is no such thing. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, summarized in the 15th chapter the resurrection appearances of Jesus. This is after Easter and before the ascension.

And he says this, chapter 15, beginning with verse 3. It says, For I delivered to you as of first importance, absolutely central first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, to Peter, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive.

You get the implication of that. He's writing to a bunch of people. He says, go check with them.

There are more than 500 people who will personally testify to having seen a resurrection from the dead. Do you know of anything in all history where 500 people claim to have the same hallucination at the same time? I don't know of any such thing.

Many of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Metaphor for dying. Then he appeared to James.

Then to all the apostles. last of all is to one untimely born he appeared also to me. It goes on.

Okay? They're not lying but you still contend they're wrong how in the world did they get so wrong? Okay?

That's what we've got to deal with rigorously. Did the apostles write an accurate account? If you find either of these two unacceptable you don't find it acceptable that they lied and you don't find it acceptable that they were deceived, you're forced back again to saying, yes, humanly speaking, they wrote an accurate account.

So, boils down to a three-fold guarantee of the authority of the Bible. If accurate. This is what Jesus really was like.

This is what he really said. Just within the canons of human accuracy. Okay?

A three-fold substantiation of the authority of Scripture. Number one, Jesus endorsed the Old Testament. It was in the form that we now have it by about 200 years before he was born.

So he can make statements about the Old Testament as a whole. And his statements about the Old Testament as a whole are very broad and very all-encompassing. One of the most famous with which I'm sure everybody's familiar is in Matthew's Gospel, Right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5 and verse 19, 18, it says, For truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

And then he goes on to talk about the teaching of the law. Not an iota, not a dot, not a jot or a tittle, that used to be in the King James. And the best way to understand that is to put it into English.

The difference between, say, a capital F and a capital E is one little part of a letter. Not even a whole letter. Just one little part of a letter.

Jesus is saying not even one little part of a letter will pass away. That's his endorsement of the Old Testament. In Luke chapter 27.

Sorry, chapter 24. It doesn't have 27. Chapter 24.

This is Easter evening. Jesus appears to these two disciples on the road to Emmaus and begins to unfold the Scripture to them. And he said in verse 25, he said to them, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

Just call your attention to the way he uses that phrase, because if you look for it, you'll see it all throughout the Gospels. Was it not necessary? Why?

Why was it necessary? It was necessary because the Old Testament said so. And Jesus, in justifying both his own teaching and what he does, does so in terms of the Old Testament said so.

It was necessary. It was necessary that the Scripture be fulfilled. You'll see that phrase over and over again.

And then we read verse 27, And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Those are the categories of the Old Testament. Moses, the Law, the Prophets, and all the other scriptures.

Here's why I say Jesus is the center of the Bible. It's about Him. Some of it's written before Him and some of it's written after Him, but it's all written about Him.

He's taking all of it. He says, all of it is about me. He endorses all of it.

In John chapter 5, I think we referred to this last time. Verse 39, he says to the Pharisees, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. Yet it is they that bear witness to me.

But you refuse to come to me that you may have life. And down the end of the chapter, verse 46, if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

That's the first part. Jesus endorses the Old Testament in its entirety says it's all about me Moses wrote about me prophets wrote about me Psalms are about me Proverbs are about me it's all about me he gives his imprimatur to the Old Testament secondly he claims that his own words are God's words and I trust I don't have to elaborate that he claims it over and over again he claims that when he speaks he speaks with the authority of God My word is God's word. Right again in this same chapter, if you want to back up to verse 19, John 5, 19, Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of its own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise.

And he goes on to say that as he leads me, so I speak. Verse 23, in the middle of the verse, he says, He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. and so on.

Jesus' second claim is that his own words are God's words. And the third part, this is the most interesting part today, the third part of his claim is that the New Testament, yet to be written, will also have the inspiration and the authority of the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Old Testament and who is inspiring Jesus Himself even as He teaches. That's a remarkable thing.

Jesus says to His apostles, when you come to write down what I've done and what I've said in your midst, you will not have to rely only on your own faulty human memory, but the Holy Spirit, through whom God spoke in the past, will speak to you. We'll bring it back to your memory. We'll aid and abet that process.

Let's look at John chapter 14. Verse 26. Back up to verse 25.

These things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Catch the implication of that. If we're starting, not with a statement, this is inspired and this is all absolutely perfectly authoritative.

We're not going that far to begin with. We're simply saying it's a good human record. Yes, this is a good record of what Jesus actually did and said in human terms.

Then we find in the middle of the record Jesus himself promising that when they come to write down the record it won't be in fact merely a human recollection but one aided and abetted by the Holy Spirit you see that chapter 15 verse 25 and 26 again 26 and 27 I think when the counselor comes whom I shall send to you from the Father even the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father He will bear witness to me, and you also are my witnesses because you have been with me from the beginning. If any of you are historians or have studied history at great length, I think you would know that the fundamental axiom of history is this, historiography is this, that an eyewitness account has to be considered innocent until proven guilty. And conversely, a theory by someone who was not an eyewitness has to be considered guilty until proven innocent.

That's the only way you can do history. That's why when we write history books, we footnote things. And you footnote things back from one source to another until you get to an eyewitness and you can't go back any farther.

An eyewitness is there, he says, this is the way it was. the only way you can disprove an eyewitness is by getting somebody else who was also there and says no it wasn't that way now you who were not there you come up with a theory and you say well I don't believe that eyewitness account I think he was wrong and here's what I think really happened okay you may be right your theory may in fact be right but the only way we can do history is to give the benefit of the doubt to the eyewitness until or unless we find other evidence that would contradict his testimony. And whilst we'll take with great seriousness your contrary theory, we're not going to accept it until we can find corroborating evidence.

All right? You with me? So just on human terms, the best we could ask is that there were eyewitnesses there.

And Jesus says, you are my witnesses. You have been with me from the beginning. That's as good as we can ask, humanly speaking.

but in the midst of that he says the Holy Spirit whom I will send to you will also bear witness to me so it's not merely your own human recollection but it's your human recollection inspired and corrected by the Holy Spirit of God in the next chapter verses 12 through 15 he says this I have many things yet to say to you but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.

All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. So He said the Holy Spirit will help you remember what I've said, He'll help you interpret what I've said, and he'll actually supplement it. There are other things which you cannot bear now, but when he comes, he'll take what is mine and lead you into all the truth.

So in a remarkable way, you see, Jesus himself gives a three-fold endorsement of the Scripture. And that's the central internal evidence that we would look to for the veracity of Scripture. He endorses the Old Testament and says it's God's Word.

In fact, not one iota of it will change. He says that his own words are God's words, and then in this remarkable way he looks forward and promises that the New Testament, yet to be written, when it's written, will be written by the inspiration of God's Spirit. And that's precisely the view that the New Testament authors had of their own work as they came to write it.

Let's just look at a couple of references. First of all, Paul to Timothy. 2 Timothy 3, verse 16.

Paul, again speaking for the whole apostolic community, says this, All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. All Scripture is inspired by God. That word inspired has the same root as respire or respiration.

Inspiration, respiration. What it really means is it's God-breathed. And when he says all Scripture, what is he referring to?

Old Testament, right? because that's the only scripture they had at that point. He's saying exactly what Jesus said.

All scripture, all of the Old Testament, is God-breathed. As if God breathed it out. Other men wrote it down.

God spoke to men. They wrote it down, and it has the personal flavor of their own individual personalities and characteristics. But its origin is not with them.

Its origin is with God. Peter says the very same thing. in his letter.

I'm looking right past it. In verse 10, chapter 1, verse 10, 1 Peter, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation. They inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when they predicted the sufferings of Christ.

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preach the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Again, inspired by God. He goes on and elaborates the point.

There's a very interesting reference in the second letter of Peter, the last chapter. I want you to just notice this in passing. 2 Peter, verse 3.

And he makes a comment. It's just really almost an aside. Verse 15.

Count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. so also our brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. So also.

Paul made the same point when he wrote to you. Speaking of this as he does in all his letters. Speaking of the grace of God as he does in all his letters.

There are some things in them, Peter says, hard to understand. You think you've got trouble with Paul? So did Peter.

Peter who was there. Peter, who knew Jesus long before Paul had heard of him, says, I don't really have trouble with some of the things Paul says. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction.

And then this is the phrase I wanted you to notice. As they do the other scriptures. What's he saying?

He's saying that already, within the first century, Within the first generation already, the letters of Paul are being recognized as Scripture. Having exactly the same authority as does the Old Testament. Exactly what Jesus said.

When you come to write, you will write under the inspiration of that same Holy Spirit. I think I better move on. We could elaborate that at great length, but that's the essence of it.

The apostles' own attitude is that they are writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They're very sensitive to that. They know when they're speaking with His authority, and they know when they're speaking without it.

Paul makes an interesting distinction in 1 Corinthians. Now on this subject, I'm speaking with the authority of God. Now on this subject, I have no word from Him, but I give you my own opinion.

The church, when it came to make its decisions about what gets into the New Testament, the question, the watershed question, was simply, does this book, does that book, do these books under consideration come from the pen of an eyewitness? Or the confidant of the eyewitnesses, if you will, as was the case of Luke. Does it come out of the apostolic community?

if it was not an apostle it may be teaching us truth but it's not scripture because God gave a special anointing and Jesus himself gave a special promise to the apostles that they would speak under an inspiration that would make their words authoritative and trustworthy okay that was the question does this come from an apostle or from the apostolic community let me close this I have to move on to the third part I want to just read you a statement that was made by the bishops of the Anglican Communion ten years ago, the Lambeth Conference. They said this, The church is not over the scriptures, the holy scriptures, but under them. In the sense that the process of canonization, that is, deciding what gets into the New Testament, the process of canonization was not one whereby the church conferred authority on the books.

It was not that. The church didn't give authority to the books of the New Testament, but rather one whereby the church acknowledged them to possess authority. And why?

The books were recognized as giving the witness of the apostles to the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the Lord, and the interpretation by the apostles of these events. To that apostolic authority, the Church must ever bow. To that apostolic authority, the Church must ever bow.

Okay. Let's move on then finally to the external evidence. And all we can do is touch the very surface of this.

It's an enormously huge, complicated, interesting, fascinating, technical question. And all I can really do is to bring to your attention the conclusions of a few of the world's foremost scholars in the area. To really do their work would mean to really get into a lot of technical material.

William F. Albright was universally recognized as the foremost archaeologist of our generation, of the whole 20th century. He was professor at John Hopkins University. This is his statement regarding the Old Testament.

There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition. Flat blanket statement, W.F. Albright.

No doubt whatsoever, the world's foremost archaeologist, that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition. Nelson Gluck, G-L-U-E-C-K, for those of you who are taking notes, again, recognized the world over as, without any doubt, the foremost Jewish archaeologist from the 20th century, went even farther than that. Dig this statement.

No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Now, that doesn't prove that everything the Old Testament says is true. It's a negative statement.

What it says is, no archaeological discovery has ever controverted what the Old Testament claims. That's amazing. You hear people saying all the time, well, science and archaeology and history have proven that it's not true.

Here's the world's leading archaeologist out of the Jewish tradition, and his blanket statement is, not once has that happened. As a matter of fact, just the opposite. The more that archaeology uncovers, the more substantially it demonstrates the truth of the Old Testament.

Professor R.D. Wilson of Princeton. Rather lengthy passage I want to read to you.

In spite of some apparent inconsistencies and of many passages difficult to explain satisfactorily owing to an ignorance of all the facts, there is nothing in the Old Testament that makes it appear incredible or unvoracious. no one knows enough to affirm with confidence that any one of the prophetic books was not written by the man whose name it bears no one knows enough to assert that the kings and others mentioned did not do and say what is ascribed to them that's the sort of thing we read regarding the Old Testament let's turn to the New Testament for a moment Professor F.F. Bruce of the University of Manchester a fellow that Steve Knoll just finished his Ph.D.

with. So this, the evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. If you would compare the veracity and the evidence in favor of the New Testament as contrasted to any of the other classical authors, it's overwhelmingly better.

Let's flesh that out. Sir Frederick Kenyon of the British Museum says this, In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament. Okay, what's he saying?

He's saying we don't have the actual manuscript that John wrote, or that Matthew wrote, or that Peter wrote, or that we don't have that. What we have is a copy of a copy. But that's all we have of anything from the ancient world.

In no other instance is the interval between the original and the copy anywhere near so short as in the case of the New Testament. And you hear, again, you hear the kind of thing that people say, well, it got copied and copied and copied and there were all these errors that could have crept in. Just watch the comparison that he develops here.

He says, the books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century. The earliest extant manuscripts, trifling scraps accepted, are of the fourth century, say from 250 to 300 years later. Now this may sound a considerable interval, but it is nothing to that which parts most of the great classical authors from their earliest manuscripts.

We believe that we have, in all essentials, an accurate text of the seven extant plays of Sophocles. Yet the earliest substantial manuscript upon which that text is based was written more than 1,400 years after the poet's death. Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Thucydides are in the same state, while with Euripides the interval is increased to 1,600 years.

For Plato, it may be put at 1,300 years for Demosthenes as low as 1,200. Nobody, no classical scholar in the world, questions that we have what Plato wrote. And yet there's 1,300 years of copying copies.

Compare that with the New Testament. He made that statement fairly early on in his career, continued to do much research. There were many other manuscripts that came to light, and toward the end of his life, he went even further than that.

Still Sir Frederick Kenyon of the British Museum. He says this, The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be, in fact, negligible. That's from a classical scholar's point of view.

And the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us, substantially as they were written, has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established. Now let me just, we're almost at the end.

Let me just do a couple of things very quickly. Picture it this way. We've all played the game of telephone, right?

where I say something, I whisper to Gary a little message, and he whispers it to Carol, and she whispers it on, and whispers it on, whispers it on, and by the time it gets over here, you can't even recognize it, right? Totally distorted. We've all played that game.

And so we say, well, how do you know? Even if it's in comparison to other classical authors, how do you know that it hasn't gotten distorted down through the copying and on and on? Picture it this way.

This line represents John's Gospel. the original or whatever other book you want to talk about Luke's or Matthew or whatever it is that's the original what happened to it immediately it got written down copies were made of it how many? hundreds without any doubt people laboriously copying it what happened to those copies?

immediately each one of them copies and each one of them. So that if you were going to draw this whole thing, you'd have an incredibly broad Christmas tree, starting with one and multiplying and self-multiplying. Now, question.

Could there not have slipped in, in all that copy, some errors? Answer, of course. But what is the likelihood that the same error that this guy made was also made by all of these guys.

Very small. Now, this guy's error, if he made one, will probably show up in all of these manuscripts, and in turn, in these, and so on. But we compare all of these with all of these.

That's called the science of textual criticism. that's what the scholars occupy themselves with for all those years is comparing this manuscript with that one and when you find that a given manuscript or maybe even several hundred manuscripts have it one way but thousands have it the other way the probability is that the one in the minority is the one that has the mistake that's the science of textual criticism A.T. Robertson comprehensive grammar of the New Testament Greek to date, said this, there are some 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, and at least 1,000 for the other early versions.

Add over 4,000 Greek manuscripts, and we have 13,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. Besides all this, much of the New Testament can be reproduced from the quotations of the early Christian writers. So there really, from a scholarly point of view, is no substantial doubt whatsoever that what we have is in fact accurate.

This is what the apostles wrote. And what we've seen is that what they wrote centered on Jesus Christ and what he said was a three-fold guarantee. I have one more comment.

Just centering in on Luke's Gospel and the book of Acts in particular because it is the main historical backbone of the New Testament. Everything else is sort of fitted into Luke's account. Sir William Ramsey, whose name you probably have heard, again, a foremost historian and archaeologist, who, as a matter of fact, began his career as a total skeptic, very skeptic, very skeptical.

He made this comment about Luke's writing. Luke is a historian of the first rank. Not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, in other words, comparing what he says happened with what secular history says happened.

Not merely that. He says that as a matter of course, but not merely that. He is possessed of the true historic sense.

He fixes his mind on the idea and plan that rules the evolution of history and proportions the scale of his treatment to the importance of each incident. He seizes the important and critical events and shows their true nature at greater length while he touches lightly or omits entirely much that was valueless for his purpose. In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, those are the best. The best of the best. The cream of the crop.

I could multiply statements like that as long as you wanted to sit here. Those are the best of the best. That's the sort of thing the scholarly world would say from a historical and an archaeological and a textual criticism point of view about the integrity of both the Old and the New Testament.

It does not touch on the one enormous question which we'll deal with next week, and that is the question of the miraculous. Because some scholars begin with a negative presupposition, it couldn't be so. If it says there's a miracle, it couldn't be so.

We need to deal with that. Apart from that, which is a philosophical question, not a historical one, that's the sort of external evidence you have. Overwhelmingly confirmed by archaeology, confirmed by textual criticism, confirmed by history, confirmed by comparative science.

That's the external evidence. What it confirms is the internal evidence, which is Jesus' own claim about the authority of Scripture, and what that drives us to, if you follow the line of argument, is the necessity of our making some sort of a response or at least a decision. Are we going to invite this God to come into our lives?

Are we going to entrust ourselves to him? This concludes this teaching.