Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Learning to Reach youh World podcast, season two. My name is Patrick Bicknell, and we are so excited to be talking about how we can help you effectively share the gospel to your world. And we just want to start each episode with that. What is the gospel?
The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. That Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. We want to help you take that news to the world. We are very excited for this season.
We're going to be talking about our worldviews. How does knowing our worldview, the biblical worldview, help us to be effective in sharing the gospel? And very quickly, what is a worldview? Simply put, it's the lens through which you see. See your world.
And every person has a worldview. And the Christian worldview is viewing the world through the lens of the Bible. We're going to be diving into some different topics of our worldview within this podcast, and the first one that we're going to be starting with today is the Bible, the authority of Scripture. How do we know the Bible is reliable? Why do we start there?
And so joining with me is Josh. He is our resident scholar, resident theologian, lead pastor, Father Josh Combs. Definitely just doing that to make him uncomfortable. So, Josh, thank you. So if you want to dive into it, explain to us what is the Bible?
Why do we start there when we're talking about worldview and the lens through which we see the world? Wow. Well, thank you, Patrick, for having me on this podcast. This is really nice.
The scripture is what shapes and molds our worldview, but why? Obviously, you know, here we are in my study, and we have thousands of books. So is the Bible just another book? Or is the Bible just another ancient book? Or is the Bible just another religious text?
So for Christians, we. We read it, we memorize it, we sing about it, we get Bible verse, bumper stickers or tattoos or signs in our house. So we revere the Bible, but why? Like, where? Where did it come from?
And I think for a Christian, and you said scholar and theologian, which I am far, far, far from. But why do we hold to the Bible? Why does the Bible matter? And I think that is a fundamental question as we talk about worldview and then talk about all these other subjects that we have planned for this season. So what is the Bible?
The Bible as we know it is a collection of writings, books and letters written 1500 BC or BCE or however we're Supposed to say these days, up to the Latest, probably around 96 AD or the common era. Different authors, 40 ish, different authors, different time periods, different cultures, three different languages. The Old Testament primarily written in Hebrew, portions of it in Aramaic and then the New Testament in Greek, a different Greek than what they speak in Greece today, but related but different. So that's roughly what we have as evangelical Protestant Christians. We look at 66 books.
Some of those books were combined into one before one book. And now we have first and second Chronicles or first and second Kings and so forth. So we have 66 different books written by 40 plus authors. Around 40 authors. And that's our, our time period.
Well, when we look at history, we think about that was 2,000 years ago that the, you know, roughly 2,000 years ago that the last book of the Bible was completed, Revelation, did it change? And I think from a worldview standpoint, a Christian has to have some awareness. I don't think a Christian to be faithful, has to know how to speak Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic or Ugaritic or some of these other things. I don't think that's like a requirement. But how did the Bible get here?
Because as First Peter talks about, we have to always be ready to give an answer of the hope that is within us, but to do so with gentleness and respect. If we don't know the answer to why is the Bible different than the Quran? Why is the Bible different than some other religious text? Why is the, it's a Protestant Bible different than the Catholic Bible? Are there books that were forgotten?
And I think we have to have a rough understanding of that otherwise we really can be thrown off our game. We really can be stopped dead in our tracks. And I think it impacts our faith as well. Because then we start to doubt, is the Scripture reliable? I think a lot of people struggle with that too.
Absolutely struggle with the fact that the Bible is our rule of life. Yes. Well, yeah. And then you're talking that was two, 2,000 years ago or up to three, 500 years ago, times were different than. So to me, like when I think about the Bible, first of all, from a historical standpoint, is it reliable?
Did it change? Like things like did the disciples decide after Jesus had died, did they decide we're going to say he rose from the dead? Or did they decide after that that he did some miracles? Or did they decide in the, you know, the first hundred years of Christianity that Jesus claimed to be God? Were all those things just manipulated and systematically put in?
I think that's A question we have to be able to answer. And of course, the answer is no. One of the greatest discoveries, I think, for the world and for Christianity was the Dead Sea Scrolls. So starting in 1946, 1947, for years in the city of Qumran, I think, south of Jerusalem, I've been there. I'm trying to see it.
On a map near the Dead Sea, a shepherd was throwing rocks into some caves to try to scare out some of his sheep if they were in there. And the sound that he heard intrigued him. So he went in and he found all these jars, and inside of them were these texts. I won't get into all the paper, leather, all that stuff. These texts that were preserved, I think they started burning some of them.
Yeah, I've heard about that. Yeah. Using his kindling for fire, for what was lost, we have no idea. But what was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I've seen some of them in museums, was a confirmation that the Bible had been preserved. That what we were reading in English in the mid 20th century is what the writers wrote hundreds at that point, thousands of years ago, that Jesus had, in the Scripture, said, I am God in the flesh.
He was attested by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul's writings to have been crucified and risen from the dead. So we started to realize, like, the Bible had not been altered. Yeah, not only with the original audience, like you said, did Peter, John, did they make up these events, but the people who copied what they said had been preserved. So. So it wasn't a game of telephone that got changed over 2000 years.
It's been relatively the same. It's. Yeah, it's been the same. And so, you know, that's, I think, a promise from God that he would preserve his Word for us. But I think also it goes to the internal.
Right? So we have that historical preservation of the Scripture, but then also, what does the Bible say about itself? So Paul, once a. You know, we would call him APostle Paul or St. Paul, was once an enemy of Christianity, becomes the greatest preacher, you know, the greatest evangelist of Christianity, of Christ, that the world had ever known. He writes in a letter that all scripture is inspired.
So meaning it is. It is. God breathed. So when we talk about what we believe about the scripture, that's shaped by what the scripture says about itself or what the Bible says about itself. So the Bible says that it is inspired, and it literally means God breathed.
So we would say those authors, Moses, for example, the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, we would Say God, the Holy Spirit breathed through him. Peter says these men who wrote the scripture were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So who they were in their time was still present in the writing of it. So there's a bit of a mystery and a miracle there. But then the Holy Spirit breeds through them.
We believe that the scripture is inspired. So it is God's word. It's alive. Hebrews 4:12 talks about the word of God is sharp. It is alive.
That's what the Bible says about itself. The Bible speaks of being the truth. So in, we would say inerrancy. So back to your kind of question about culture. Okay.
Was obviously, culture was different 2,000 years ago. And, you know, culture was different 3,500 years ago. So Egyptian culture that Moses was raised in is very different than our culture. I mean, people are people. Still the same problems in a lot of way, but dynamics were different, cultural difference, etc.
But we believe that the Bible claims to be truth, Thy word is truth. And we say in the King James version of the Bible. So inerrancy, what the Bible says is true is true for all time. So inspiration, inerrancy. And then, as you talked about at the very beginning, the authority of the Bible.
We look at the Bible and say, this is our rule for practice, for life. This is. This tells us the way to go. This is the wisdom of God. We often call it scripture, the Bible, we call it God's word.
So this is what God has said, and it's reliable because we look at those original authors.
This is where I look at it. I'll be really silly. This is what comes to my mind. This is how, you know, I'm not a scholar. Do you remember in the Lion King, the animated movie where he's singing, I just can't wait to be king?
And Zazu is at the bottom of this kind of inverted triangle of all these animals. And then he gets squished. It's always a humorous part to me. And I think it's also played by one of my favorite actors. But he says, you know, madam, would you get off?
Like, he's just stuck, smushed under this hippo or rhino or something like that. Right. Terrible illustration. But that's what I think about in my mind when I think about this inverted pyramid, what everything rests on, it rests upon Christ. So if Jesus, who claims to be God, descended from heaven to earth in the flesh, well, what's the proof of that?
Well, the proof is not in the cross. The proof is in the resurrection. The proof is in his triumph over death. The proof is in the miracles. I think pieces of the proof are there.
So it all rests on him. Well, what does Jesus do at the end of Luke? Jesus affirms the writings of Moses and the prophets. Okay, so if Jesus is true, if Jesus is who he says he is and not a liar, then he affirms Moses. Okay, then that means the books of Moses are legitimate.
That means the books of Moses are authoritative. That means that they're inspired. He affirms the prophets. He affirms stories like Noah that we might be prone to question, like, was there an actual worldwide flood? Well, Jesus affirms that there was.
And if we believe Jesus. Right. It's a bit of logic here. If we believe Jesus is who he says he is. And my goodness, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul seem to say he rose from the dead.
Okay, that's multiple eyewitnesses. I got to believe that. Okay, so Noah must have happened. I don't understand how that catastrophe fully happened, but I believe what it says, because Jesus stories like Jonah did. Was there a guy who really got swallowed by a big fish and then spit back up and then went on to preach.
That's. That's a bit of a. I don't know if I would believe that if I saw that online or I don't know if I'd believe that story. But Jesus affirms the reality of that story, of that account. I don't want to even use the word story because it might imply it's fiction, but Jesus affirms that. Okay, so if Jesus.
That inverted pyramid, if Jesus is affirming the Old Testament, then, okay, what do we do with the New Testament? Well, so many quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament, but also you have every person who's writing, and they're either an apostle or a close associate of an apostle or close associate of Jesus, like Jude, half brother of Jesus. James, half brother of Jesus, Then the others directly connected to Jesus as apostles, as his disciples. So you're like, okay, everything that we know about the 66 books that we call the Bible rests upon our faith in Christ of Jesus. And I think with that, in First Corinthians 15, a really unique way to put that in accordance with the scriptures, he was buried and raised on the third day.
Right. So even Paul, using the example of Jesus, goes back to scripture to say, this isn't some new thing. This is. This has always been the plan. Right.
His foundation is the scriptures in that. Yeah, it is the scripture. And then he, you know, that was part of it. That was the foundation of it. But then.
I'm sorry, I'm turning there real quick. Then he starts to appeal to the testimony of his appearances, the testimony of the apostles. Then in verse six, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. Then he appeared to James, then to the apostles. And then Paul gives his personal testimony, last of all, basically, to me.
And so he appeals to eyewitness accounts. He appeals to the. It says, many of whom are alive. Are alive. If you want to confirm it, you go talk to them.
So it's an ancient document, but we would say it is inspired by God. It is inerrant, meaning what it says is true, is true for all time, and it is the authority, and it rests upon our personal faith in Jesus. And we can be confident that based upon the. The history, that the writing has been accurately preserved. Archaeology continues to support its accuracy.
Things like, was Pilate really in Judea, you know, Governor there at the time of Christ? Well, they doubted it for years and years until they found a stone that confirmed Pontius Pilate was there. And they're like, okay, well, the Bible was accurate. Again, those stories have been happening for a long time where the Bible is validated, affirmed by archeology. You have the compatibility of the Bible, which I think speaks to inerrancy, or excuse me, not inerrancy, but inspiration.
That. How can. Across continents, right? Two continents, primarily. This is some of Europe, mostly Asia, Africa, I guess you have the inspiration.
Yeah. Three kinds. Geez. So you have that. How can there be a consistency of story?
So you have the internal consistency of the Bible, lack of contradiction. That's impossible. And most people say, well, that's because they smoothed out the edges over 2,000 years. Well, then the Dead Sea scroll says, yeah, they didn't. It was just there.
So we would, in faith of Jesus, believe that that was. So having this understanding of what the Bible is, why it's authoritative, we went through an errancy just talking about the historical reliability of scripture. Let's focus on that confidence for a minute. When we're having conversations with people sharing our faith, we're talking about this podcast, reaching our world, sharing the Gospel. How can confidence in what we talked about, the Scriptures, the authority of scripture, the reliability of Scripture, how can that strengthen our conversations as we share our faith?
Well, a couple things come to mind as you. You say that, and I told you not to tell me the questions ahead. So these are all wonderful surprises. It's our resident scholar. Oh, My gosh, I'm going to punch you after this.
First of all, we can be confident that it is true.
So I was thinking about, as we were talking prior to this, I was thinking about Jesus interaction with Pilate where Pilate says, what is truth? Well, Jesus in John 14 it says I am the way, the truth. People are looking for something that is true because there is so much skepticism in our world. I think with the ever, the ever coming AI revolution, people are, people are in some ways encouraged not to even believe their own eyes. Is this video real?
Is this fake? Is this audio? Like, I think there is a. I listened to a guy maybe a couple years ago and he talked about the collapse of truth, the collapse of reality. I think people are looking for something true. I also think people are looking for something.
I'll say it this way, is that is otherworldly. This, this is Ecclesiastes talks about. And we'll talk about this in another episode. But God has hardwired eternity into our hearts. So they're looking for something transcendent above themselves.
Like that's what, you know, we were designed as. We'll talk about I think in the next episode or one relationship with God. We're, this is God speaking to them. So we can be confident that it's truth, that it has a certain appeal in some ways to the human heart, but also it's divine. It's from God.
So we can just rest in that. We can, we can rest that it is true. We don't have to fully understand every bit of the Bible, like all of us in this room, like put our collective knowledge together of the Bible. We're still not, we still don't understand every mystery or nuance or story or application of the Bible. It's divine.
Well, how can we, who are so limited in our capacity grasp something that is beyond limit the divine? So I think it should encourage Christians, it should encourage us in our evangelistic efforts, our gospel efforts that we are giving truth and that this is, this is the answer to what people have been longing for. This is something of substance. It's like being on a steady diet of cotton candy for your whole life and then finally sitting down and having a, you know, a wonderful home cooked meal like, wow, this is a medium rare steak. Yeah, medium rare.
Medium rare. But I like how you said that. It's, it's not only truth. There's a lot of truth in the world. Right?
But it's a divine truth. So it takes our confidence to another level as we're Christians Sharing our faith. You know, I think I really like how you did that with truth. Yes. And that is important.
The world is looking for it, but it's also a divine truth that transcends creation. Right. It's, it's the answer for the world. What makes sense of the world. It, it makes sense of everything.
And it is from God. It's not, you know, back to the inspiration God breathing through those writers of the scripture. It is, it's powerful. I mean, that's Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
And the point of the verse is that it pierces into someone's heart. So from an evangelistic effort, we can be confident that, that the word of God as we cast that seed, as the Bible uses that imagery. Jesus talks about that we can rely on that. It's the power. And we can rely on it piercing into people's hearts like it is described as a sword.
So that's what I would say. We should encourage people. So then with that, because we're talking a lot about how the Bible's true, all these things we believe as Christians, however, in the world, other worldviews, they're going to view the Bible as we heard for outdated, oppressive, you know, why should we believe something that is different from our culture, whatever it may be? I feel like more and more that opposition is coming. So as we engage in reaching our world, evangelizing.
Right. How can we navigate these differences of opinions? How do, how do we walk through these sort of things? What are some, some tips you might have for the listeners? No, it's, it's great.
It's a fascinating man. I love books and books. I've noticed in bookstores lately they have what's called a banned bookshelf. So the idea being like, hey, these books are banned in some country or something like, you know, maybe like, oh man, I'm going to read something that's banned. Catcher in the Rye or you know, some weird thing like that.
And I'm always like, where's the Bible? Like put the Bible on there. Because there have been wars fought over the, the Bible and people have lost their life for having a page, a single page of the Bible.
So, you know, to your question about how can we navigate that, to me back to the verse from the apostle Peter, gentleness and respect. What is someone's opposition to the Bible? I think we need to listen. I think part of the podcast here that maybe the Lord's helping for me is it's not Just about talking. And we do have to do that, right?
Preach the gospel is important. Go into all the world, preach the gospel. But I think we also have to listen to someone's specific hurt. Maybe there was a Christian who abused them, maybe there was a professing Christian. Maybe there was a pastor who was incredibly manipulated, who stole from them.
Maybe they had a relative who was a pastor or a Christian and just was cruel. So to me, I look at that and go, I think it's important for us to figure out what is a person's opposition to the Bible. Bible, is it historical? Well, then go through the history of it. I think Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
I think his point, it's very accessible. It's not like the super high level academic book where you're like, oh, gosh, I have no idea what he's talking about. He goes through a lot of what we talked about. A little bit more in depth with that. The Case of Christ, I think the historical reliability section, where he just compares manuscripts for people we don't even question as being real.
Aristotle, Plato is nowhere close to Beowulf. Like, we barely have anything from that. The Iliad and the Odyssey. Like you're talking about. Like, it's so I, to me, that stuff is super helpful, I think.
But maybe their opposition isn't to the historical accuracy of the Bible. Maybe they'll just say, well, yeah, that's what it said, but it is encapsulated in a different time. And I think we have. Okay, so you accept that the Bible is saying these things? Yes.
And you disagree with it? Well, why do you disagree with it? I think sometimes we also have to look and go, the Bible is the wisdom of God to help us flourish in life, to live a, you know, a life of peace in the world. So many people, if, if God is the creator, then God has ordered the world a certain way. And if he has spoke to us through His Word and we're going to live in defiance of that, then we're always going to be frustrated.
We're always going to be frustrated in the world. The world will never make sense, will be perpetually stuck trying to break the world into the mold, you know, just force it into the mold that we want it to be. And that's just an exhausting effort. And I think there are a lot of people that are exhausted by that. The world, you know, the Bible says this is sin.
Well, that's what I want to do. Okay, well, that's going to eat you up. That's Going to destroy you. You think it's going to bring you joy, but it's not going to. So I would say it's figuring out what a person's opposition to the Bible is.
But I know many people that have gotten born again by just reading the Bible. So I don't think we can ever underestimate the power of just buying someone a Bible. And typically, I would say start in the Gospel of John. I told someone this last week there's not really a bad place to start, but I don't know if that's entirely true. You jump in Revelation or Ezekiel.
Ezekiel. That might not be the best place to start. Leviticus. Numbers. Leviticus, exactly.
So to me, it's understanding what the Bible is, and I think it's understanding who you're talking to, what their specific opposition to the Bible is. And I like how you said that. Buy them a Bible, read it with them. Because like you said, I think a lot of times, yes, there's intellectual problems people have with it, and you can work through those. But a lot of the issues are the emotional side.
Right. Someone hurt me that was a Christian. They used the Bible to condemn my life and us. Simply showing that love can go such a long way to breaking down those walls. Truth and love.
Yeah. I do want to go back to just before we end something you said, a promise from God that He would preserve His Word. You know, I think that is a confidence that we can have when we talk about the Scripture, the Bible. Like, this isn't something we have to. To defend ourselves.
Like the Lord is that he's going to preserve His Word. You know, we have all the tools here, so just really, really awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us. Well, next episode, we're going to be talking about who is God going to be continuing to look at our lens through which we see the world through the lens of the Bible. Gonna keep diving into these different things.
And again, our goal and desire for this podcast is to help you get tools to share the gospel with your world. And so I'm excited to continue to dive into that. Thank you for listening to the Learning to Reach youh world podcast, Season 2 Christian Worldview. We're grateful for the opportunity to share real, practical truth that will help you preach the gospel in your world if you don't know Christ. We invite you to listen to the gospel message we share at the beginning of each episode.
It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. If you have questions, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at questionsTheRverchurch CC and we'll do our best to answer them. If you would like to get connected or hear more about the River Church, you can text the word river Church to 97,000. Thank you for listening.
We hope you will tune back in soon. Sam.
