Your Next Step Ministries

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In an increasingly godless society, it is imperative that we proclaim a
message of a Kingdom that is greater than the American Dream. Tuesday night YNSI’s Biblical Leadership course began. We laid the foundation by outlining the trustworthiness of the Bible as our foundation for reaching this culture for Christ. Here is a copy of week one’s lecture. It is not too late for you to join us for this class.

Why I Trust the Bible

I love Dinesh D’Souza’s approach to understanding the Bible. In “What’s So
Great About Christianity”, he calls himself a “biblical contextualist.” By
this he means that the context determines our interpretation. Literal
passages about the resurrection should be taken literally, poetry should be read as poetry, history as history, etc.

A. Authority
The Bible Is The Word Of God
1. The Written Word…Scriptures
2. The Living Word…Jesus
3. The Spoken Word…”Thus Says The Lord”

These three are always in harmony.

What the Bible says of itself
1. God Breathed! 2Timothy 3:15-17 

2. Lasts Forever! 2 Peter 1:16-21

3. Divine Origin! 1 Peter 1:22-25

4. Keeps From Sin! Psalm 119

5. It’s all about Jesus! John 5:39

B. How did we get the New Testament
Peter calls Paul’s Writings Scripture.
2 Peter 3:14-18 

Athanasius in an Easter Letter written in 367 AD recognized 27 New Testament Books! These were seen as being different than other writing that were circulated at the time and were accepted by the church as authoritative. Authority was recognized not imposed on these texts.

C. Challenges
Satan’s approach was to use doubt when approaching the Word of God. Two examples are: Genesis 3:2 Matthew 4:1-11

“Did God Say”
“If You are the Son of God”

Three theologians who led the church down the path of doubting divine
revelation include…

1. Julius Wellhausen
May 17, 1844 - January 7, 1918
He approached Scripture from the standpoint of doubt. He developed the
Documentary Hypothesis or JEDP
Yahwist, Jahwist, J, the Elohist, E,
Deuteronomist, D,The Priestly, P

Jesus’ answer to Wellhausen can be found in John 1:17. In this verse Jesus
credits Moses as the author of the law, the first five books of the Bible.
Wellhausen claimed to know more than Jesus and said there were at least four writers of the Pentateuch.

2. Rudolph Bultman
August 20, 1884 - July 30, 1976
He also approached Scripture from the standpoint of doubt. He is famous for
his view on Demythologizing the Scriptures. That is extrapolating a life
lesson from the miracles while denying that anything miraculous actually
occurred.

3. Karl Barth
May 10, 1886 - December 10, 1968
He also approached Scripture from the standpoint of doubt.

Barth had a live-in for 35 years with whom he vacationed without his family.
Her name was Charlotte Von Kirschbaum. He developed what critics called, Neo-Orthodoxy holding to the principles of love and meaning but rejecting divine revelation. I believe his theology to be the most dangerous of the three because he uses biblical language without biblical content. In other words he uses the same vocabulary as evangelicals but has a different dictionary.

D. Difficulties and Solutions
1. Gender Equality
1 Timothy 2:12, Galatians 3:28,
1 Corinthians 11:16-29

2. Creation verses Evolution
See Kenneth Ham and Norman Geisler

3. Divorce and Leadership
1 Timothy 3:2

4. Conflicts within the Bible
Mark 9:1-2, Matthew 17:1, Luke 9:28
Here two gospel writers mention 6 days and one says 8 days. A careful
reading shows that the 6 day guys say “after 6 days” and the other says
“about 8 days”. An easy harmonizing approach in the case above would be 7
days which is after 6 and about 8, no conflict is present.

5. Miracles
One’s lack of experience is often elevated as proof of the non-existence of miracles. See “God in the Dock” by C.S. Lewis and Jack Deere?s “Surprised by the Power of the Spirit” and “Surprised by the Voice of God” as excellent rebuttals to those who doubt miracles.

E. Explanations
Phenomenology
Joshua 10:13 
Here Joshua explains a phenomena that he witnessed saying “the sun stood still”. He simply described what he saw in the same way that we use the examples of sunrise and sunset. Contextualization resolves non-scientific language that describes historic events. This leads us back to D’Sousa, what is the context?

“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the
LORD is sure, making wise the simple;” (Psalm 19:7 ESV)

Take Your Next Step,

Doug

PS Our next class is Tuesday, January 31 at Seacoast Vineyard Church at
6:30-8:30 PM. Also if you would like to hear the sermon I did on Daniel and the Kingdom of God, you can listen to it by going to http://www.seacoastvineyard.com/