Take your Bible, hold it in your hand and look at it. This is the number one best seller of all time. Within the pages of our Bible are 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 41,173 verses, 774,746 words, and 3,566,480 letters. It would take about 71 hours to read it through at the rate I read to you.
The Bible was the very first book in the world to be printed with movable type when 180 copies were made by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. By the way, there are only about 50 copies of those originals left in various conditions. If you want, you could possibly buy one for about 4 million dollars.
I have held in my hand a credit card sized microfilmed copy of the entire Bible. One of those microfilmed copies was left on the moon by the Apollo 14 astronauts. In Belgium you can buy a Bible from a vending machine.
When the Pony Express riders made the 1900 mile run between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California, their weight was severely restricted. But every one of them carried a full-size Bible.
We have Luaine’s grandfather’s Scofield Reference Bible. It is special because it belonged to her grandfather. There’s a picture of him in the Bible. There’s a handwritten list of charter members of Soda Springs Mission Church outside Checotah, Oklahoma, from Sept. 4, 1921. Her grandfather’s name is there, as well as his future wife’s, Luaine’s grandmother. You know there’s a story there.
I have my grandmother Myers’ New Testament. It’s also special because it belonged to her. Grandma wrote on the inside, “Edith M. Myers. From my son, Robert Emerson Myers.” Dad gave it to her on April 20, 1962.
Look at the Bible in your hands. What you are holding, whether paperback or with leather covers . . . no matter how little or much you paid for it, it is priceless because it contains the very Word of God to lead us to salvation and to guide us in how to live life.
We Baptists call ourselves people of the Book. This simply means that wherever you find a Baptist, somewhere close by, you will also find a Bible. We are taught early on to love and respect the Bible. We teach the Bible, we preach the Bible, and we try to be obedient to the words of God we read in the Bible.
When we visit or move to another Baptist church we are fairly confident they, too, will be Bible believing, teaching, and preaching people. We Baptists may sometimes squabble among ourselves, but we join together in unity in the Bible. (Red Bible ceremony, 1st graders)
2 Timothy 3:16a. All Scripture is God-breathed…
God is the author of the book you hold in your hand. This is the bedrock of our faith. This is why the Bible is priceless. You cannot be a Baptist and not believe that the entire Bible is God’s Word. When you read the Bible, it is God speaking, and He’s speaking to you.
Jesus said that this Word is truth. He didn’t say it contained some truth. He didn’t say it was one truth among many. He said that God’s Word is the truth by which everything else is measured.
The Bible was written by over 40 human authors, but its origin is God. 2 Peter 1:21 says, 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
These human authors “spoke from God” as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. However the process worked, it did not destroy the individuality or the active cooperation of the human writers.
All Scripture is “God-breathed” means that scripture originated in God’s mind and was communicated from God’s mouth by God’s breath or Spirit. Can you read your Bible and know it is not filled with legends and myths? Is it true, is it without error? For instance, some would have us believe that Adam and Eve never really existed—that it is just a story to explain how we got here. But the Bible makes it clear they were real people.
Jesus said, Matthew 19:4, “Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female?” Another example is Noah and the ark. Was there really a flood? Did he really build an ark? Or, is all this simply legend that’s made its way into the Bible?
Again, Jesus said, Luke 17:26-27, "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. (27) People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all."
As far as Jesus was concerned, Noah and the Ark were a fact of history—Adam and Eve were real people.
Jesus affirmed every major section of the Old Testament. He preached from Moses and the prophets, especially the prophecies concerning Himself. Who are you going to believe? Some pseudo-scholar who claims the Bible is legends and myths, or Jesus?
2 Timothy 3:15a. ….and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures.
From the time Timothy was a baby he was taught the Holy Scriptures. This doesn’t mean he read them as a baby, or even that he understood .
It means that his mother and grandmother believed the Scriptures were so important that from the time Timothy was a baby in their arms they used the Scriptures to tell him that God loved him.
Paul was so impressed that he wrote, 2 Timothy 1:5, I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.
As Timothy grew, sometimes at his mother’s knees, sometimes with grandma, he was taught the Bible stories. He could recite the creation story about Adam and Eve. He knew that Noah built the Ark and why.
He learned about Joseph the Dreamer, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s den. Timothy learned to read and write from the Bible. It was his text book. It was his primer.
I hope your recognize what’s going on here. The most important people in Timothy’s life taught him from the Bible.
Children learn what is important from their parents. Young parents, thank you for bringing your children to Sunday School. Even in preschool, our S.S. teachers tell the babies that Jesus loves them. Your children are taught the same Bible stories that Timothy learned. It is our joy and privilege to teach them.
But we have them for such a short time each week. There’s only so much we can teach your children in 45 minutes a week. If the Bible is not important to you—if you don’t read the Bible to your children—if you don’t teach them the Bible stories yourself, I promise you, they will grow up thinking this book is irrelevant.
The best time to learn is as a child. Children’s minds are like sponges. This is why children learn a second language so much easier than an adult.
The most important learning they receive is from their parents . . . and the frightening thing is they quickly learn the negative as well as the positive. I read someplace that ½ of all our basic learning that we need for life happens before we ever enter school.
The best gift you can give to your child, a gift that will stay with them their entire lives and into eternity, is to teach them God’s Holy Scriptures. Let them see how important the Scriptures are to you.
2 Timothy 3:16. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.
Look back with me to the first part of the chapter. There we will learn what happens when we don’t have God’s Word in our hearts. (Read vv. 1-5) It almost sounds like Paul is writing about the United States of today.
The morality of our country is probably as low as it has ever been. Even some Christians at times don’t act very holy because they have no idea what God’s Word says about godly living.
Paul says, “Here’s what God’s Word does for true believers:
The Bible is the only place to learn about the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. It is essentially a handbook of salvation. The whole Bible unfolds God’s divine plan of salvation:
Our creation in the image of God; our fall through disobedience into sin and judgment; God’s continuing love for us in spite of our rebellion; God’s eternal plan to save us through His covenant of grace; the coming of Jesus Christ as the Savior who died for the forgiveness of our sins; that Christ was raised from death, exalted to heaven, and who sent the Holy Spirit to convict and provide victory from mortality to eternity.
None of this would be known apart from the biblical revelation. The Bible gives us a first-hand account about the life and teachings of Jesus. It instructs us about salvation through faith in Christ alone.
The Bible teaches us how to be committed followers of Jesus. Christianity is not founded upon the Bible . . . it is founded upon a living person, Jesus Christ . . . But the Bible shows us that living person, and how to know Him.
Jesus told us God’s Word is the truth. Everything else is measured by this truth. When you genuinely read the Bible and let it speak to your heart, it gives evidence that it is the truth of God.
Truth destroys all the falsehoods and errors that our world fosters on us. This is what rebuke means. It exposes false doctrines, sins, and ungodly conduct.
Scripture equips us with accurate knowledge and understanding of divine truth. Divine truth exposes falsehood and sin, erroneous belief, and ungodly conduct.
Write in the margin of your Bibles, “correction of the direction of your life.” This is the positive side of rebuking. Sometimes we just get off track. Maybe we rebel. We stop reading our Bibles, or decide church isn’t important anymore. We think we know better than God how to run our lives.
In secular Greek literature this word was used of setting upright an object that had fallen down and of helping a person back on his feet after stumbling. Scripture builds up through its divine correction.
All of a sudden God speaks to us in some way . . . perhaps through illness or tragedy . . . all of a sudden we realize our lives are going into the pits, or that our children are not growing up with any knowledge of God.
This word simply means a straightening up again, rectification. It will restore us from where we have sunk to, to an upright position.
Righteousness means, “A condition acceptable to God.” Righteous is integrity, virtue, purity of life, correct thinking and acting, uprightness before God.
Until the Lord takes us home, His Word continues to train us in righteousness. Godly leaders and teachers in the church are instruments through which Scripture provides training for God’s people. This training equips for living God-pleasing lives.
2 Timothy 3:17. …so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Verse 17 continues the thought of verse 14. God’s Word led you to salvation. It teaches you about the faith. It corrects your thinking about all the false things the world entices you with. It gives you positive direction to your life. Why? So that you will be usable to God, and so that your life will not be wasted.
Indeed, Scripture is the primary means which God uses to bring us to maturity. Psalm 119:166-168, I wait for your salvation, O Lord, and I follow your commands, 167I obey your statures for I love them greatly. 168I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you.
A little boy at the turn of the century was helping dad one night repair something out on the front porch. The dad asked the boy to run out to the barn for some nails. The little boy said, “Daddy, I’m afraid, it’s dark.” Dad handed him the lantern. The son held the lantern up, looked out at the barn and said, “Daddy, it’s still dark out there.”
“Son, hold the lantern and walk as far as the light.” So he took the lantern and walked to the barn, and the light always went ahead of him. Now, the Bible says this Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
The little boy had to believe his daddy. He had to take the lantern, and he had to walk to the barn. Now, we can believe our heavenly daddy, and walk in the light this book shines in our lives. Or, we can throw it on a shelf, and walk in darkness all our lives. What are you going to do with it?
In a world that seems to have gone mad, just as Paul encouraged Timothy, stand firm! When the pressure to conform is strong; when you feel inexperienced, weak, and timid; and when you find yourself standing alone in your Christian witness, stand firm. God’s Word has never let you down. Continue in what you have come to believe. Remain loyal to God’s word and it will lead into Christian maturity.