2 Peter 1:16-21
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”[a] 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Sermon
Even as a pastor... I don’t know, maybe especially as a pastor, I’m constantly finding areas in my life where the Bible doesn’t have very consistent influence.
For example, this last week I was talking with a friend. He was telling me about this project he did for a church one time. The pastor assured him as he started this project, and it was a pretty big project, that when he was done the whole city would be able to make use of his work. He wasn’t just doing it for the church. He was doing it for the town.
As he finished up the project, the church leadership came to him. They said, nope, we aren’t going to let other people use this. This is just for our church.
I thought, man, that’s too bad. Isn’t that sad? I’m sure the pastor didn’t mean to lie or deceive. For whatever reason, he just wasn’t able to act with integrity and honesty.
When I worked on this lesson from 2 Peter, I thought, woah, what about me? How consistently does the Bible influence my life? I thought about this time I told people, sure we can do this project for the city. We can include others. And it didn’t work out. I think about the times when I’ve said, yes, the church is about forgiveness, but then I refused to forgive this young lady who sinned against me. I think about my own failure to let my whole life be a life of repentance even as I’m asking other people to repent, and then someone says to me, “where is your empathy?”
This is pervasive.
If you think the Bible consistently influences your life, I want you just to really think about it for a minute. I’m pretty sure that we are all really selective about the times we let someone else influence and the times we listen to ourselves. I’ve got an acquaintance, not one of you, not near here.
He is really aware of his forgiveness. When the Bible speaks about his forgiveness, he takes that seriously. Takes that to heart.
But when the Bible says, “be subject to the elders and clothe yourselves with humility” he says, no way. He admits that most of the time he makes people earn his respect before he gives them respect.
What’s going on here, and I'm going to summarize what author Tim Keller says. He says basically “The root idea of modernity is the overturning of all authority outside of the self. In the 18th century European ‘Enlightenment’ thinkers insisted that the modern person must question all tradition, revelation, and external authority by subjecting them to the supreme court of his or her own reason and intuition. We are our own moral authority.”
What he is saying is, in the modern age, we’ve set up life so that we get to pick and choose when we listen to any external authority or influence and when we don’t. We’ve set it up so that when it is convenient for us to say, Oh sure, the Bible is the number 1 influence on my life, we’ll say it. But when it isn’t convenient, we’ll say, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” We can do both. No one questions it. That’s just the way it is.
Don’t think this happens, or happens to us? Just watch what happens in Bible study where there is a formal authority figure. If we’re sitting around with friends or relatives at a birthday party and we start arguing about some moral issue, let’s say we’re talking about marijuana. Some people will get really quiet because they aren’t talkers and don’t have anything to say. Some people will get really animated. In that environment, there is no universal authority or influence. Everyone can basically say whatever they want. In a Bible study with a formal authority figure, it’s very different.
This has been a tough thing to figure out as a pastor. Just this last week, I asked one of those bad teacher questions, the factual kind that only has one answer. I won’t tell you what it was. Doesn’t matter.
There were some good answers, some not so great.
There was at least one time that I said a pretty short “no”. You should have seen the room deflate. If I say a flat “no” to people, you can just watch the whole room deflate. It’s like you pushed a pin into a balloon. Why is that? It’s because we all say, I’m in charge of my self. I get to decide what is right and wrong for me. Who are you to tell me? If someone says, you’re wrong, you’ve got to defend yourself or you’re crushed.
You lose all your identity. Your sense of self. Your sense of worth. Now it doesn’t have to be that way.
I remember one Bible study with a group of people who saw the world much more black and white. They weren’t really shaped by the rejection of external authority. They were a group of people who said, I submit my whole life to the Bible. I’m going to let God and his Word speak to me. And no matter how wrong it is or how bad it makes me feel, I’m going to get at it. It was this Bible study with about 10 people. And it was intense. It was probably one of the deepest biblical discussions I’ve ever had.
There was nothing about “you make me feel like less of a person”. Or “you’re taking away my authority over my life.” It was completely, “I will let God influence every step of my life. I will let the Bible influence everything I do.”
Those people weren’t perfect. I’m not saying they were. But it was a really cool experience for me. Peter invites you and I to the same thing as we get ready for Lent. What consistently influences your life? Is it you? Or could it be something else?
Discover
What could consistently influence your life?
Part 1 External evidence for the Bible
The first thing Peter tells us to help the Bible properly influence our lives is he says, “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
He is getting at what we would call the historical nature of the text, something we even might call the genre of the Bible. This is the external evidence for the Bible There were some people who called the information about Jesus and the Old Testament “cleverly devised stories”. That grew out of the complicated religious time they were living in.
What we know is that culturally, there were a lot of religions at Peter’s time. On top of that different ethnicities had different expectations. Jews demanded signs. People had to do miracles to demonstrate their religion.
One example is a book we call the “Greek Magical Papyri”. There is this huge book, you can buy it if you are interested, with hundreds of incantations and stories of miracles. There were stories about Jesus going around too. One of my favorites is a story about Jesus and birds. The story goes that Jesus was playing by the seaside on the Sabbath. He made 12 clay birds. The other kids reported that he was working on the Sabbath. As his dad came to yell at him, he breathed on them and they flew away. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas)
People were really good at telling stories to prove their religion. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with that. If you come to me and say, “hey Nathaniel, why do you accept the Bible? Why should I accept the Bible?” I’m going to offer you some different evidence. Some of what I’m going to say will be stories.
I’m going to tell you that maybe you heard the Bible we have is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and along the way, the meaning has changed and gotten all messed up. I’m going to say, that isn’t true. For more than the last 500 years, every translation – that's what this English Bible is – goes back to the earliest Hebrew and Greek texts we have. They go back to the earliest. And yes, there are some problems with the earliest manuscripts. Just like if you look at the meetings notes from the meetings of this church – the council and the voters – you are going to find some typos, some copy paste errors, some word order problems or other things, you will find the same in the Bible. In the end, out of all those problems, only about 40 make any difference in the meaning. That’s it. 40. They weren’t in the original editions. Maybe someday we’ll figure them out. There are definitely a lot fewer than 500 years ago. 500 years ago we maybe had 100. That isn’t really a story. That’s just a piece of external evidence. We’ve got consistent manuscripts. One reason for the Bible to influence your life is consistent manuscripts.
I’m also going to tell you a story. I’m going to say, one time there was a prominent Christian pastor and scholar on a panel with a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam. These are the three great religions of the world. They agree they have a lot in common. They all accept one god. They rely on texts. They all said, there is one big difference. The big difference is Jesus. Who is he, what did he do. The Bible has unique content – Jesus. One reason for the Bible to influence your life is unique content – Jesus.
Everyone uses stories to support their religion. That just is. Peter says, at some point, you need more. You have to look at the whole Bible differently. Peter says "we did not follow cleverly devised stories”. When he says, “follow”, you think, how do you follow a message?
At some point you’ve got to stop saying, I’m going to prove this piece of it or that piece of it. You and I can discuss pieces of evidence and I can tell you stories all day long. If you say to me, pastor, I really have a problem with this whole judging sin thing. I don’t want to tell people they are sinners. I will say to you, Imagine you go to the doctor. The doctor finds you have cancer. Don’t you want to the doctor to tell you? Shouldn’t the doctor say you have cancer? I’ll tell you that story.
We can go on. At some point, we have to realize what Peter says, “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Who is we? He is talking about the people who actually literally saw Jesus himself, saw what he did, heard what he said. He gives one example: the transfiguration, which, is one of the more supernatural events in the history of Jesus’ life. He’s talking about those people who actually saw Jesus and therefore, they are the sources of what he said and did. They’re the New Testament authors.
He is saying, the Bible is an incredibly unique religious book. The Bible is the only religious book that gives you first-hand, eyewitness testimony over almost 2,000 years that says, “this happened for you”. Every other religion is going to say to you, let this text personally influence you and change your life. Let it rule over you. Islam says submit. Buddhism says suffer.
They all say, if you do that enough, suffer enough, submit enough, eventually God will save you. The Bible says, “look, hear this, listen to this. Jesus saved you. It’s done. End of story.” The Bible is an actual historical account of our salvation.
When you get that, your skepticism and questing starts to melt away. As a pastor, I’ve been baffled by two things. Everyone, even long time Christians, has questions. At the same time, the questions of Christians amplify grace. Christians can stand around and say, wow, isn’t that suffering terrible. It’s awful. What a tragedy. And they say, thank God protects us from that tragedy.
I don’t think I’ve heard of a better example of this than a Frenchman named Emile Cailliet. He grew up an agnostic right before WW1. He graduated from college without having seen a Bible. He served in WW1. He was overwhelmed by the human condition, the awfulness of humanity.
He got shot. He lay there in the hospital recovering. He longed for, in his words, “a book that understand him.” He was a thinker, a philosopher. He wanted something that helped him make sense of his life. See who he was and who he could be.
He didn’t know of any such book, so he started writing down passages from useful books that he read. He read a quote, then would write it down for later. He was really excited to read it all some day. He expected it would lead him through fear and other stages and finally to supreme joy.
One day he sits down to read. Disappointment washes over him with every page. He recognizes all the passages and he remembers when he wrote them, but they no longer apply to him. It’s not a book that understands him. It’s a book that tells his story. Then he realized, “the whole thing would not work, simply because it was of my own making.”
His wife walks by. She just met a pastor. He gave her a French Bible. She gives it to him. He reads it. He is no longer filled with all these little questions of, “how many angels were at the resurrection” or “why do I have to tell people they are sinning.” He realizes this is the only possible book that could tell him a story “not of his own making”.
That’s exactly what happened. He says, “As I looked through the Gospels, the One who spoke and acted in them became alive to me... This is the book that would understand me.”
What happened? As he got past all of those questions and the Bible stood all by itself before him, Peter’s words were true for him. Peter said, “prophets spoke from God.” Suddenly this whole thing came together saying, “here is where you’re coming from, here is who you are, and here is where you could go.” Wouldn’t you like to go there?
Don’t you see? If you understand that no prophecy came from the prophets own thoughts, but men spoke from God, suddenly there was one consistent influence to make sense of his life.
Don’t you wonder what it could be like if you could say, this is the book that understands me? If it is was the one consistent influence of your life?
I know a lot of us read our Bibles. A lot of us don’t. Do you think we can read it each of the 40 days of Lent. If you’re not a reader, there are ways to listen. You can even watch. To encourage you, let me give you this. If you want, each one of you can ask a question or make a comment to me this week. I won’t think of it as boasting or anything. Just say, I was reading this and I had this question.
What could it be if the Bible was the consistent influence over your life?