It's my desire here to try to identify the areas where we have differences with some good brothers. So I want to begin by saying some things. Last week we heard a couple of names. Let's say that these are brothers in Christ who share many, many of the ideas that I'm presenting to you. they would believe in the inspiration of scripture. And we'll get hopefully today to things like the clarity of scripture and the sufficiency of scripture. They agree with us. And so we need to recognize that and treat them as our brothers in the faith. Nevertheless, I think it's important for us to work through this material. And what I'm doing is I'm laying down a foundation in order to get to some texts of scripture that I think directly address the big question that we're trying to ask, what role does philosophy or things like philosophy have in Christian theology and the Christian faith? But I think, in my estimation at least, the difference of opinion is one about scripture. and about the interpretation of scripture and how we understand scripture. And so as I thought about this ever since November and read lots of material and tried to put it together in my mind, I thought, I wanna begin by emphasizing or reemphasizing or talking through all of the basic doctrines about the Bible itself as a foundation for what I want to get to, hopefully next week, I know I can't have another week into February because I won't be around, God willing, but hopefully get to that material and we'll look into the scriptures and we'll see some specific things that I hope will help us, alright? So that's why I've started in the way that I have. almost all of these things, if not all of them. And so it's not new, but it's reinforcing and perhaps helping us to see the fullness of what the Bible says. So here we are where we started last week. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Maybe you remember last week I had the phrase man of God highlighted. I think it was in green. Well, I decided that I didn't want to take the time to go through that. Although yesterday I saw a quotation on the internet of somebody who misquoted it and turned it into men of God. Man of God is very specific in its use. Seventy-one times in the Old Testament, the phrase man of God is used always, always with reference to someone who's been sent by God to do a specific task. Most frequently, it's the prophets who are called the man of God. And there's only one other time in the New Testament that it's used besides right here, what we have on the screen. And that's in 1 Timothy 6 where Paul addresses Timothy, O man of God, but you O man of God. So the phrase man of God doesn't mean, it's not the equivalent of godly man. But that's how a lot of people read it. And that's what this guy was writing yesterday. In fact, he was quoting this and he was really, it was related to our topic. And he was saying, well, see, the Bible says that it's sufficient for men of God. Well, that's not what it says. It's talking about ministers and what God has given to ministers. Now there is an application that says it's sufficient for all the rest of us, but we have to be careful with what it says. But it's not highlighted today because I didn't want to take the time any more than I just did to talk about that. Alright, now my question here is, last week we talked about inspiration. What does it mean that the scriptures are God-breathed? I want to ask the question, what is all scripture? All scripture is God-breathed, Paul says. Well, you're thinking, duh. know what all scripture is. It's the Bible. Yeah, that's right. But I want to suggest to you that there's a lot more to the word than simply saying the Bible. So let's take a look at some of the ways that the Bible itself uses the word scripture. And then I'm going to suggest some other things to you as we move forward. So defining what all scripture is in 2 Timothy 3.16. First off, it's the Old Testament as a whole. The word scripture can be used to refer to the Old Testament as a whole. Matthew 22.29, Jesus answered them, you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. Of course, that's where he's dealing with the Sadducees and the question of the resurrection. And maybe we'll be able to get to that later on because it's directly relevant. The whole passage is directly relevant to our topic. But there scripture means the Old Testament. An Old Testament passage by itself, though the word is plural, but you'll see what I mean. Matthew 21.42, Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures, okay, so the whole, but one part, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. So Jesus could use the word to pick out a verse from the Old Testament and call it scripture. Use the word with reference to it. So we can say it's the whole Old Testament. It's the verses of the Old Testament. Then we can say Old Testament and New Testament passages can be called scripture. 1 Timothy 5.18 for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. Now the first one is from Deuteronomy 25. Interestingly, the second one is from Luke chapter 10 and yet Paul is able to refer to the scripture in both terms. So both the Old Testament and the New Testament need to be included in our understanding of this word. And then fourthly, Paul's epistles. I'm sure you've read this in your devotions. Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures." That word other tells us that Peter is putting the letters of Paul into the category of scripture. So when he says all scripture is God breathed, he's thinking about all of these different categories, but there's more. We have to say more. By the way, don't feel bad. if you read something in the book of Galatians and you don't quite understand what it's about. Price, thank you for your exposition in 1 Corinthians 7 today. That was very clear and very helpful as you worked your way through it. But you're right, it's a difficult chapter and it's easy to read that and not get what it's about. Hard to understand, that's the point. Thankfully, we heard a really good exposition of it today. Now we have a better understanding of the five questions in 1 Corinthians 7. What is all scripture? Every word every phrase, every sentence, and every paragraph. I'm moving from the big, the whole Bible, to portions of the Bible, to books of the Bible, to now sections of the Bible, reading backwards a paragraph, sentence, a phrase, and a word. It's all scripture. We can refer to any of these things as scripture. Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Now in the first part of this, when Jesus uses the phrase, law and the prophets, he's referring That's a typical Jewish way of referring to the entirety of the Old Testament. And in the second half, when he uses the word law, he intends the same thing. That's another way that oftentimes the Jews spoke about the Old Testament. It doesn't mean just the Ten Commandments. It doesn't mean just the five books of Moses. The law can refer to the entirety of the canon. So in the context, you can see that. Jesus says, all of it, all of it. None of it will fail, better way to put it. None of it will fail until everything is accomplished. And so we need to argue that every word that we read in scripture, every phrase, every verse, every sentence, every section, the technical word for that is pericope, all of those things are inspired. So we come to read words, we come to read sentences, and we say, this is the work of God, the Holy Spirit, speaking to us, okay? So we have to think in those terms. Now that doesn't mean that a word that is found in the Bible is always inspired. There are lots of words in the Bible that you and I might use every day and we don't use them in an inspired sense. Sword comes to mind. Peter takes a sword and he cuts off the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant. Well, the word sword there is inspired, but I have a sword that my sister gave me about 60 years ago. It's a Spanish sword and I keep it. You know, it's a nice keepsake. It looks pretty, but it's uninspired. And if I say my sister gave me a sword, there's nothing inspired about that. Right? So we have to be careful. What we mean when we say, Every word is the word as it's found in Scripture, not just suddenly making the word special somehow. Likewise, every doctrine that is taught in Scripture. When Paul says, all Scripture is God-breathed, every doctrine that is taught in Scripture. Now let's take a look at these texts. Romans 6.17. but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. The standard of teaching, that's an interesting way. that Paul puts it here. Now he's not talking about any particular verse. He's talking about the things that are taught in those verses in the rest of the Bible. That's the standard of teaching to which the Romans were entrusted. They were given this as a means of faith. 2 Thessalonians 2.15. Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now, that's fascinating that he has two categories there to speak about the traditions that have been given to the Thessalonians. Now, the Greek word for tradition doesn't mean a custom that's developed over time. Rather, it means something that's authoritatively been passed down. So the traditions are doctrines or practices that are required of the Thessalonians. And Paul says, okay, at the end by our letter, now this is second Thessalonians, so we know that there's a first Thessalonians. Some of the traditions relate to what Paul wrote there. but also by our spoken word. Paul had been in Thessalonica. He had preached to them. He had taught them the truth of scripture. And so he's able to use this kind of language. This is not tradition in the Roman Catholic sense at all. It's that which is authoritatively given by the Spirit of God for the people of God. And so it's necessary to believe and to practice these things as they've been given to us. 1 Timothy 4.6. If you put these things before the brothers, you'll be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Once again, Paul here is not talking about any particular verse in the Bible, but rather that which is taught from the Bible. So it's the doctrines that are contained in the Bible. That's part of all scripture. And then 2 Timothy 1.13, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. There's actually several places in the pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, where Paul uses variations of this phrase. And he's not talking about verses that they've memorized, but rather the truth that is taught by the verses of Scripture. Because not all of the doctrines that we believe are found in a particular verse, a specific verse, that we can go to that verse and say, here it is. We have to put them together. And I'll talk about that in just a moment. I want to argue that every doctrine that is taught in Scripture, now I'm not talking about my doctrine. My conclusions. I'm talking about that which the scripture teaches. It's one of the reasons that I'm a confessionalist. because I don't trust myself. I don't trust the conclusions that I might draw, but I believe that God's spirit has led the church through 20 centuries to work with the text of scripture and give us expressions that help to guide us in what we believe. So that's the doctrine that we are to believe. Thomas Manton said this, famous English Puritan, some of you probably have some of his books. It is easy to rehearse the words of scripture, and therefore not the bare words, but the meaning must be regarded. What he means by rehearse is recite. It's easy to say them. You can say those things, but it's not just saying them. It's recognizing the truth that is taught by those words that is important. And that's the point that I'm trying to make here. Every doctrine is important. I'm drilling down here. All scripture is God-breathed. And this becomes really important when we come to look at the scriptures in certain passages in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And I'm going to argue when the Bible uses that which is common to the culture of its day, to the language of its day, it is giving us an example of how we are to do the same thing. And I hope that you'll be interested in what we see. So the Bible includes its own use of common ideas, legal documents or covenants. This is the first place that we're going to go. If I have time, we'll look at it later on today. But do you know that the Ten Commandments reflect Hittite suzerainty treaties? I'll explain what that means later on. They are in the form of pagan treaties as they're given to us. It's really interesting. First time I remember hearing that, 1992 in seminary class, I really struggled with it. do we have a pagan, a Gentile form in the Old Testament? But we'll see why that is. Logic, analogy, and appeal to common doctrines. I hope that we have time to get to this. In Matthew 22 where Jesus deals with the Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection, you remember they're asking that question There's a woman and her husband dies and the brother marries her and he dies and there are seven brothers and they all die. And the question is whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Because they don't believe in the resurrection so they think that they've given Jesus a conundrum that he can't answer. Well, it's interesting what Jesus does in response there. He actually goes to a text that doesn't have anything to do with the resurrection in Exodus chapter three. God is the God of the living, not of the dead. He says, I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And so something that is inferred in Exodus chapter three is brought up by Jesus. Also, he uses the doctrine of the Pharisees. as he's teaching because the Pharisees, where is it? It's in Acts 22. Paul's on trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin and he knows that he can cause trouble and so he does by saying, I'm here. to be judged by the resurrection. And all of a sudden, all the Pharisees stand up and they say, we're with Paul. And all the Sadducees stand up and say, we're against Paul. And so a ruckus develops because Paul did that. Well, Jesus uses a Pharisaic doctrine in his response to the Sadducees. But maybe we'll have time to look into that in more detail. I preached on that text in September, it was, at our opening convocation. I think you can find it online. common methods of interpretation. I hope that we have time to look at John 10. Some of you might remember, several years ago now, five years ago maybe, I preached on Psalm 82 and John 10. And I pointed out how Jesus uses a rabbinic method of interpretation to respond to the Pharisees who are around him. It's called Kalvahomor. It means from the lesser to the greater. And Jesus uses that. I don't know if we'll have time to get into that. Common Greek and Roman philosophical ideas. Wait till you see what we're going to learn from the book of Acts when we look very closely at the book of Acts, because we're going to find that Greek and Roman philosophical ideas are present and especially used by Paul. Now there are other places too. John's gospel makes reference to certain Stoic ideas, but I'm getting way ahead of myself. I hope that that's next week. We'll talk about some of these philosophical positions. But I would argue because these things when they are found in scripture need to be recognized as scripture. So when the Lord gives the Mosaic covenant to Israel and he uses Hittite forms to do it we need to think about that. We need to think about that. Why did the Lord do that? And what is that all about? Or why is it that we see in the book of Acts or in John's gospel, the use of current philosophical ideas? Why does that happen? Well, there are reasons, but I would argue that because those things are in scripture, We need to treat them as scripture and recognize that they're such. Now, I'm not arguing that that's a blank check that allows us to import these things into our understanding of the Bible. That's not at all my point. But rather, it's to say, if there's a method in scripture, and all scripture is God-breathed, let's pay attention to the method and let that method instruct us as we seek to interpret the word of God. I hope that that's clear. If it isn't, hopefully as we move forward, it will become clearer. So you can see, we start out, what is all scripture? Well, it's the whole Bible. And we go through the Old Testament, the New Testament. But now we're talking about not just the doctrine that is taught in the Bible, but even the methodology by which the truth is presented to us in the Bible. I would argue that's inspired, that that's God-breathed, that we can't ignore that. And so that's what I want to show you. in some texts in the Old and in the New Testament. Let's remember this. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. So now I want to move on and talk about some of the other categories that we need to think about. Sufficiency. What does sufficiency mean? Well, 1 Peter 1.2-4. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. And I've changed the translation a little bit from what you'll see if you look in the Bible. I can tell you why. But seeing that, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." So there Peter is teaching us. That everything that we need for life and godliness is given to us in the scripture. That's what the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture is. That we don't have to look elsewhere for what we need to know to be saved and what we need to know to live the Christian life. We don't need those things. That's very clear. Our confession makes this point. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Notice. all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, that is the only place that we go to, to find those things that are necessary for saving knowledge. were saved through the mind, faith, which is given to us, and then what follows faith is obedience. The Holy Scripture is the only. Now it goes on, although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave men unexcusable, Yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation? You see the difference there. The scriptures are sufficient for what we need for the Christian life. The light of nature, which is one of the concepts we need to talk about, is not sufficient. It does not teach us anything that we need to know about salvation in Jesus Christ. No one will ever be saved because of what they see in the world around them. I'm assuming a definition of the light of nature, but no one will be. What was the name of the guy in Florida who, Evangelism Explosion, James Kennedy. You know that name, Presbyterian, big church. He published a book years ago called The Gospel and the Stars in which he argued that the Zodiac pointed to Christ and that it was possible by looking to the stars to find the gospel. Well, we all would say, no, it isn't. No, it isn't. I find the sky amazing. It's always fascinating to look at and to see the movement of that which is in the heavens, but it doesn't tell me anything about the gospel. You know what it tells me? It tells me that God is a great creator and he's powerful. He's the ruler over all of those things, but it won't tell me that he's triune. It won't tell me that I need Jesus Christ as a savior. It'll just tell me that there's a powerful God out there, but I'm getting ahead of myself when we talk about the light of nature. the rest of paragraph one, since the scriptures are the only sufficient rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience. and the light of nature is insufficient. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare that his will unto his church and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world to commit the same wholly unto writing which maketh the holy scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased." Abraham lived before the scriptures were written. He didn't have even the five books of Moses, because they were the five books of Moses, and Moses came after him, right? Was the revelation that God gave to Abraham sufficient for him during his lifetime? We have to say yes. It was a direct revelation that was given to him. But that direct revelation was not sufficient for all time. And thus the Lord saw fit to begin to give us an inscripturated word, a written word, which we're able to recognize. Now, one of the interesting questions that I can't solve for you is, what is the oldest book of the Bible? If you say Job, I'm going to say, you could be right. If you say Genesis, I'm going to say you could be right. I think it's either the five books of Moses or it's the book of Job. When those were given, the process begins by which the written word of God comes to us. No longer is it merely a spoken or a direct revelation to someone like Abraham. Now it's written down. So that here we are today, Moses wrote his five books. Well, we can date the Exodus. to about 1,450 years before Christ. So that's 3,500 years ago when Moses wrote those books. And throughout the rest of the history of Israel and then into the New Testament era, more and more books are written until finally the apostles die and we have the whole set, what's called the canon of the New Testament, Genesis to Revelation. The books of the Bible or the Bible itself covers a period of about 1500 years, just assuming Moses is first. If Job is earlier, okay, I don't have any objection to that, but we don't have a date for Job. The writing of the Holy Scriptures is most necessary because the other ways of God revealing his will to his people are ceased. Later on in chapter 1, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture. Unto which nothing at any time is to be added whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men. Really important. It's either expressly set down. What's that mean? That means chapter and verse. If we can turn to a passage that explicitly says something, do this or believe this, it's expressly set down. But then our confession goes on and says, necessarily contained. What does that mean? Well, it means the doctrines that we draw from the Bible as a whole. Those things necessarily contain. So this is the confession. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word. and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed." So there, our confession is acknowledging that there is a place for the light of nature, general revelation, natural revelation. There's a place for that. Here, specifically, we're told that it has to do with the worship of God, and the government of the church, right? So the scriptures are sufficient, but they don't give us information for everything. The worship of God, what time should the church meet? Well, we know what day of the week we ought to meet, right? What if we decided to meet at 3 a.m.? Could we do that? Yes, we could, but it wouldn't be very wise, would it? It wouldn't make sense, nor would it make sense to meet at 11 p.m. But if churches begin at 11, or they begin at 10.30, or they begin at 9 o'clock, or our brethren in Haltom City have to begin at 1 in the afternoon, that doesn't matter. See, that's the light of nature saying that's what they can do because there's a building that's available to them at that time. So we see this principle here. When we talk about the sufficiency of scripture, we don't mean that it gives us every single detail of everything that we need. It gives us doctrines and principles. This does not mean that everything that must be believed or practiced is explicitly stated in scripture. That's a better way to put it. What do I mean? Well, some fundamental doctrines are necessarily contained in scripture. And I've got three just to mention that came to my mind. The first one is Trinitarianism. You won't find a verse in scripture that says God is one and God is three. It's necessary to work hard at a variety of scriptures and bring them together to come to the doctrine of the Trinity. Now I'm going to be bold. I'm going to make a bold statement. I think I've made it before. You may have heard it from me before. I would say this, if someone denies the doctrine of the Trinity, they cannot be considered a Christian. I didn't say if they don't understand it because I don't understand it. I can't probe to the depths of it. What I mean is if someone refuses to confess that God is one and God is three, even though there is no text in the Bible that says that, I would argue we cannot treat that person as a Christian. We need to begin by helping that person to understand what the doctrine of God is, necessarily contained. Secondly, is the hypostatic union. Big word. That's simply a theological term that is used to refer to the fact that the second person of the Holy Trinity, joined himself, assumed a human nature in the womb of a young woman named Mary. That's the hypothetic union. That's the union in which forever he is the eternal son of God and forever he is a true human just like us. With all of the characteristics of humanity, he's just like us. So theology brings those together and uses this term hypostatic union. But again, you won't find a verse in the Bible that specifically says this. We're working with a variety of verses that we have to bring together to build this doctrine. Again, I would argue somebody who denies the hypostatic union can't be considered a Christian because either you're denying the deity of Christ or Or you're denying the humanity of Christ. And both of those things are essential for us. Dr. Godfrey, president at Westminster when I was out there, had a trick question that he would put before his early church history class. And it was, how many wills did Jesus Christ have? Well, the answer is two, because he has a divine will and he has a human will. If he doesn't have a human will, he's not truly human like us. There was an ancient heresy. Some of you may have been thinking, one, if so, you're a monothelite, one will person. Let that go, please, and confess the fact that he has a true divine will and a true human will. Dithelitism is what we are. But we need to recognize that. Thirdly, the deity of the Holy Spirit. Once again, in order to demonstrate that the third person of the Holy Trinity is God, truly God, it's necessary for us to collate a variety of scriptures. Now these are just three examples of things that are necessarily contained. They are necessary for our faith. We must confess these things, but you won't find them in any specific verse anywhere. And then there are some fundamental ethical practices that are necessarily contained in the Bible. I think I have two of them here. The first one is observance of the Lord's Day Sabbath. Now you say, wait a minute, there's a commandment that says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Yeah, that's right. And a lot of people say that's the seventh day and it's gone. In order to demonstrate that Christians ought to keep the Sabbath the first day of the week, it's necessary to look at a variety of texts in the New Testament. Jesus' words about being the Lord of the Sabbath and the practices early on in the book of Acts where they met on the first day of the week. You can see a pattern there in 1 Corinthians 16 and in Revelation 1.10 and in Hebrews 3 and 4, all of that together. gives us a warrant for changing the day and observing this day. But the objections that you frequently run into with some people is, show me a text that says that the first day of the week is to be kept as a Sabbath. Well, there isn't a text, but it's necessarily contained throughout the New Testament. And then another one, this one maybe will be a little bit more obvious, is opposition to abortion. I hope that you are completely committed to the end of abortion. but there's no text in the Bible. Now you could draw a conclusion from thou shalt not kill. You can draw a conclusion there, but it doesn't say anything. In fact, the Old Testament early part of the New Testament speaks about the murder of babies. So that's an ethical practice that we must stand against. I want to say for, when I say for, I mean for the opposition to abortion. These things are necessarily contained. They're not spelled out in so many words in any text of the Bible, but they are essential to our faith. They're essential to what we believe and what we practice. So when we talk about the sufficiency of scripture, we don't mean that everything that must be believed or practiced is explicitly chapter and verse stated in the Bible. But we have to work hard to collate things. Trinitarianism, observance of the Lord's Day, et cetera. Let's move on to clarity. Probably more frequently called perspicuity, they mean the same thing. Paragraph seven of chapter one of our confession, all things in scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. Yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other that not only the learned, by that they mean those who can read, but the unlearned in a due use of ordinary means may attain to a sufficient understanding of them. You have to remember that in the 17th century, It's hard to estimate, but probably only about half the population was able to read. And most of those people would be men. It's estimated about 20% of women could read. and the rest would be men. So half the population couldn't read. But the confession is saying, whether you're able to read or not, that which is true in scripture and must be believed is adequately presented. So not everything is plain in itself, nor like clear unto all, but everything that's necessary for salvation can be found clearly somewhere or other in the Bible. That's what clarity is about. Now, we must define this carefully, because several things need to be said. First, the scriptures are not clear to unbelievers. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. How many times have I talked to people on airplanes, at school, in a variety of circumstances, and tried to explain to them what the Bible teaches, and they don't get it. My own older brother is just like that. He just doesn't get it. Because the scripture is not plain to them. They don't have the spirit to open their eyes. The scriptures contain obscurities and mysteries. I chose Matthew 13, 10 through 17, and this is just part of it. The disciples came and said to Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables? He responds, this is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. So his parables at that point, Matthew 13 is the longest chapter that deals with parables in the Gospels. At that point he's speaking these things so people don't understand. Then the third point, the scriptures are not clear in every part, Song of Solomon. Is it a love story or is it an analogy of Christ in the church? You'll find in the history of interpretation a lot of arguments and a lot of differences of opinion as to what the Song of Solomon is really all about. I don't think it's ever quoted in the New Testament, interestingly enough. The scriptures contain parts that are difficult to understand. We've already seen this verse. Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him. As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures." Now think about this. Who was Peter? What position did he hold having been appointed by Christ? Don't say Pope. He was an apostle, right? And what does Paul claim for himself at the beginning of his epistles? An apostle sent by Jesus Christ. So you have one apostle, walked around with Jesus for three years, spent time speaking to him, knew him personally. And he says, sometimes when I read Paul's letters, it's hard for me to understand what he's saying. So once more I say, don't feel bad if you don't quite understand everything that's going on. and all Israel will be saved. Okay. There's all kinds of discussions about that text from Romans chapter 11. It's hard to understand. And so when we talk about clarity, we're not denying these facts. There are places where in the scriptures that are difficult to understand. The scriptures require interpretation. They require ministers, commentaries, prayerful reading. Nehemiah 8.8, they read from the book. This is after the exiles returned to Jerusalem. You remember the scene, it was raining like mad and they read the law. They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense, that is they interpreted it so that the people understood the reading. Well, that's what the gospel ministry is about. If Christian growth was simply about reading the Bible, we could all go home and do it by ourselves and it's that simple. But that's not the case. We need sermons like we heard today that help us to understand 1 Corinthians 7. Psalm 119.105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 119.130, the unfolding of your words gives light and imparts understanding to the simple. We do want to emphasize this truth. people can read the Bible and understand it. But there will be parts that they don't get and that are difficult. John 5.39, the first part can be translated three different ways. The form in the Greek is the same. You search the scriptures, or do you search the scriptures, or search the scriptures. It can be a command, it can be a question, it can be a statement. The form is the same. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me." Jesus is talking to the Pharisees there, but he's telling us something important about the scriptures. They do bear witness of him. Old and New Testament. John 20, verse 30, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Certainty. When we speak about certainty or inerrancy, what we mean is that the scriptures do not err. That is, everything described in the Bible is true as it happened. John 17.17, your word is truth. Proverbs 30.5, every word of God proves true. The scriptures have no errors in them. Infallibility means they cannot err. That's a stronger word than inerrancy. They cannot err, and that's because they are God-breathed. John 10.35, the scripture cannot be broken. Titus 1.2, God never lies. Right? So that's a really quick treatment of that. The next thing that I want to do is talk about sola scriptura. And I'm going to argue that it's misunderstood by most people who use the phrase. It's most commonly translated as scripture alone. I don't know how many times I've seen that or heard it. I've said it myself. Scripture alone. Let's talk about Latin. For the last three minutes, we're going to have a Latin lesson. Latin is what's called an inflected language. An inflected language means that the nouns and the verbs change their form. By changing their form, they give you an indication of what they function as in the sentence. Now, English generally doesn't do this. My phone is in my hand. Phone is the subject of the sentence. Larry, would you mind holding my phone? It's no longer the subject of the sentence, is it? It's the direct object of the sentence and yet it doesn't change. But in Latin, in Greek, and many other languages, You would tell whether it's the subject or the object or other things in the sentence by the ending that is given to it. So that's what we mean when we say it's an inflected language. We still have remnants of this in English. I or we. I wouldn't use I to speak about all of us here. I would say we. Or you and you. Now in modern English it's a difficulty. In old English you had thee and ye. Thee was singular and ye was plural. When we sing hymns out of the Trinity hymnal and they use the thee and the ye, you can distinguish between an individual or a group. I think that's superior to you, because we can't tell what you means in most situations. So English has remnants of being inflected, but Latin has much more of this, and it has seven what are called cases for nouns. The nominative, which is the subject, vocative, which is direct address. If I say Larry, It would have a certain form that's different from the rest that would help me, you know, you would know that I'm talking to you in that point. Accusative is typically the direct object of the sentence. I'm holding my phone. Genitive, we usually translate with the word of before it. I don't know how to illustrate this quickly, but something of, me, dative is to, ablative, locative, let's get to the end, is in, in something, ablative, sola scriptura is ablative. That's the case it is. So it doesn't simply mean scripture alone. It means by scripture alone. Now that's significant. And next week, God willing, we'll see why it's significant. I'll tell you very briefly. It's significant because what it's saying is that scripture is the ultimate standard by which everything else is judged. It's not intended to say we can only look at the words of the Bible and nothing else. It is that the Bible is supreme. It stands over all others, and it's the means by which we judge what else is going on. It's really important, and the A at the end here, these two A's, are what tell us that it's in the ablative. I think in the next, I've got the five solas here, and this is how they're all translated. Not just faith alone, but not just grace alone, by grace alone, by faith alone, by Christ alone, to God alone be glory, by scripture alone. Now that's a nuanced translation, but it becomes important as we move forward. To say that you believe in Sola Scriptura is not saying, yeah, we need a verse of the Bible to prove this. Rather it's saying the Bible is the standard by which we judge whatever else may be used. And that's where we're going to see the Hittite treaties and the use of Greek philosophy in the book of Acts. We're going to see those things and why they fit with scripture.