The Foundation of Everything

Every important answer to every important question hinges on one foundational issue: can you trust the Bible? Today we'll examine why this question matters more than you think.

2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."

You may be thinking, "Wait a second, I thought the most important question is 'What must I do to be saved?'" And I would say, well, the authority upon which you ground that answer is based on whether or not you know the Bible to be true.
Think about it—if you can't trust the Bible, then you can't trust anything about Jesus. You can't trust His claims to be God. You can't trust the resurrection account. You can't trust the promise of forgiveness. Everything crumbles if the foundation crumbles.

This is why when students go off to college and encounter professors like Bart Ehrman—the leading textual critic who graduated from Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College before dedicating his career to attacking Scripture—they need to be prepared. First day of Religion 101, the professor asks, "Who here believes in the Bible?" Your daughter raises her hand feeling bold. The professor gets excited and then systematically dismantles her faith: "Your parents also thought Lunchables were a balanced meal. They gave you Sunny D instead of orange juice. Your parents were wrong about a lot of things, weren't they? Do you think they could possibly be wrong about this one?"

Then he points to other students who grew up Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist—all believing different sacred texts because their parents taught them to. "You basically believe whatever your parents told you to believe," he says. "And I'm here to tell you about all the errors and contradictions and the reason you can't trust the Bible."

This happens over and over again. And here's my question: if you don't know the answer to how we got our Bible and why you can trust it, why would your children?
In the church today, people know more about Lord of the Rings fanfiction than they do about how the Bible came to be. They know more about fantasy football than about the living, breathing Word of God. That's a problem. A massive problem.

Here's what you need to understand: when Paul wrote to Timothy, "All Scripture is God-breathed," he wasn't just talking about the Old Testament. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes the Gospel of Luke and calls it Scripture. In 2 Peter 3, Peter refers to Paul's writings as Scripture. The apostles knew they were writing the very words of God when the quill hit the parchment—not when some council voted on it hundreds of years later.

The truth is, the theological trajectory of the New Testament was set within 50 years of Jesus's death. By the middle of the second century, at least 22 of the 27 books of the New Testament were universally recognized as divine. There wasn't some massive debate or vote. The early church simply recognized what they had always known to be true.

You need settled confidence in this. Not arrogant confidence, not blind confidence, but settled confidence based on overwhelming evidence. Because everything—and I mean everything—hinges on whether what's in your hand is from God.

When I preach, my authority is derived authority. It's extended to me by God because I'm preaching God's word. There's no authority in preaching if you're not grounded here. I stay tethered to the Word of God because when I veer from here, then it's just TED talks and stories. When I preach, my primary aim is to say, "Thus says the Lord," and that Word brings itself to bear upon the conscience and soul of those in the pew.

Stay dialed in.