So this morning, we're going to be continuing in our series, God Breathe. This is our third week in the series. The last two weeks, we looked at evidence, the external evidence, the internal evidence, the experiential evidence concerning the Bible being a unique, supernatural book. There really is no other book or religious writing like the Bible. It's number one, by far, and there really is no number two. No other book stacks up. No other book has had the kind of impact that the Bible has had. No other book changes lives like the Bible. One book, inspired, God-breathed, written by Him. This week, we'll be transitioning from the evidence for the Bible to the subject of how we got our Bible. Because most of us have little to no idea. We would all love to believe that one day, the Bible descended from on high, right from heaven, on a cloud, accompanied by the voice of God saying, this is my book, don't screw it up. Right? Did it happen like that? No. All right? And if you did think that it happened like that, it didn't. I'm sorry to share that with you this morning. But how did it happen? See, we should know that. And so we're going to go after that this morning. And to do that, we're going to start at our theme verse for the series, which is 2 Timothy chapter 3. So if you have your Bibles this morning, go ahead and open to 2 Timothy chapter 3. Verse 16 is our theme verse, probably the classic biblical passage on the authorship of Scripture. But we're going to start this morning one verse before that. 2 Timothy 3, not 2. That's wrong. It'll be 15, 15 and 16 this morning. But before we do that, let's pray. Father, we come to you this morning, again, we seek truth. God, we seek confidence that what we have in our hands, we can build a foundation upon. God, everything we believe as a church, God, what we say as a church and teach as a church, what we believe as Christians and followers of Jesus, all of that, God, comes from this book. And so, Father, build the foundation for us this morning and lead us into your truth. According to your will, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. The Apostle Paul was writing to his disciple Timothy in this passage, and in that he said these words. He says, hey Timothy, from a child you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And then he says the familiar words that we've been studying. All scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. that the man of God or the woman of God, the person, may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now I want us to notice in verse 15 where he starts by saying, from a child you have known the sacred writings, and I need to use that as an opportunity to plug the significance of children's ministry and family discipleship within the church body. Don't ever think that a decision to follow Jesus is one that only a student or an adult can make. We have precious children here, now, learning about who Jesus is. They're back in our classrooms. And you know what? I thank God for the people who have dedicated themselves, volunteers, who are taking the time, pouring their lives, teaching our children God's word. What an important ministry. These people should be honored among God's people. And even more than that, I would encourage you at home, we are the primary disciplers of our children. It's not my job, it's not the church's job, we can come alongside you in that, but it's the parent's job. It's the family's job. We are to be the example. We are to be the primary disciples of our children. Take the time at home to teach God's word to your children, that they might turn their eyes to it and their hearts to it, that they might know it and understand its value. And Timothy was a powerful force for God, but he was just one example of someone who had heard and had known the scriptures from the time that he was a child. Now, what did he know about the scriptures? Well, look at the text. He knew from childhood that the scriptures were able to make you what? Wise, wise unto salvation. I praise God that I'm a second generation Christian in my family line, but I did have a great, great grandmother who was this little old Italian lady, and she knew the Lord, and she prayed hard for her family. When I think of prayer warrior, I think of somebody like my great, great grandmother. She was an evangelist. Not like a formal evangelist, but she just loved to share the good news of Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen. And she would pray for her family, and she would pray for her future generations that they might be wise to the way of salvation. And because of her, one whole branch of my family tree are born-again Christians. And my side of the tree has taken a little bit longer to come around, but that did not stop God from answering her prayers. My parents weren't saved until they were in their 30s, but their salvation led to the salvation of me and my sisters. And we now all have families. Kids who are growing up to know and to love the Lord, who from childhood know the scriptures which are able to make you wise to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that a great testimony? Guys, don't ever stop praying for your kids. Things might not transform right away, but God is never finished in his pursuit of us. Now, let me ask you this one question, loved ones. Are you wise to the ways of salvation? Are you? See, scripture says in the book of Proverbs, there is a way that seems right to a man, right to humanity, but its end is the way of death. Instead, what we have here in this book revealed by God is a message. Acts 16, 31. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Can you look to a time in your life when you have accepted or received the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ? Now if you're not sure that you have made that choice, you can make that choice this morning by taking the word of God, which I'm sharing with you, and by believing its message. making the choice to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior of our lives. And if you're not sure, loved one, if you're not sure, please make that choice today. These are God's words. God wrote a book, a book that is able to make us wise to the way of salvation. And then notice what it says. All scripture is God-breathed. Now, it's interesting that in verse 15, the word that's used to describe scripture is the Greek, heros grammata, which means sacred writings. It was a reference to the Old Testament. What Timothy had known since he was a child was all of the God-inspired writings of the Old Testament. But now here in verse 16, he uses a different word. It's the word graphe. when he says, all scripture. In other words, what he's doing is he's drawing this contrast. He was saying it's not just the sacred writings, Timothy, not just the Old Testament, but listen, all scripture is God-breathed. There are some new writings now in the early church that are referred to as the grafe, the writings. They were immediately or very quickly recognized also as God's word, on par with and of a parallel authority to the Old Testament. And so when he says all scriptures God breathed, he's making a truth statement about what we have here in God's Word. Old and New Testaments, all of it. All of it. That it's not, as some people have said, not just the part that speaks to you that's from God, no. That it's not just the part that agrees with human wisdom, no. All of it. Not just the part that brings us comfort, but the part that convicts us as well. Not just the parts that we love to hear, but the parts that are hard to hear. All of it, all scripture is God breathed or given by inspiration of God. And in that word, God breathed, what we have is we have this imagery of a sailboat. Now, I don't do a lot of sailing, but I understand the concept. The boat can only go where the wind takes it. And in the same sense, the human author who is writing down the words could only write down the words that the almighty God wanted him to write, because as wind acts in a sail, so the spirit of God acted in the heart of the author. The scriptures are God breathed, God whooped, Whoa, that was a strong wind. Did you see that? I'll just drink that one down a little bit. Where was I? All right, God blew, right? And wrote the scriptures, right? Through the pens and the hearts of the human authors, God wrote a book. More specifically, the Holy Spirit chose the words that were to be written down. Now, there's been a lot of confusion over the years about exactly what we mean by that. When we say that one of our core values here at Pittsburgh Community Church is biblical fidelity, what exactly do we believe about the Bible? Charles Ryrie, a famous professor and theologian from Dallas Theological Seminary for many years, said this. He said, just to illustrate how times have changed, not many years ago, all one had to say to affirm his belief in the Scriptures was that he believed that the Bible was God's Word. That's all you had to say. But people began to attack the Scriptures and it became necessary to add the word, inspired Word of God. Later, you had to include the verbally inspired Word of God. Then, to mean the same thing, he had to say the plenary, verbally inspired Word of God. More recently, it became necessary to say the plenary, verbally inspired, infallible Word of God. And today, one has to say the plenary, verbally inspired, infallible, inerrant in the original manuscripts Word of God. And as people have continued to attack and to attack and to attack the Word of God, listen, there are so many people, as well as whole schools of thought and whole denominations of churches that carry the Christian label, who want to say that the Bible is God's word, but when you press them, they don't mean that at all. They mean part of it, they mean some of it, they mean the part that speaks to you. We don't mean that. We mean the whole book, all of it. Because so many have given themselves to attacking God's word, we have to be real precise about what we mean. And so here's what we mean. Plenary means cover to cover. Verbal inspiration means God chose the words, not just the concepts. Let me show you a verse in this. Look at John 14, verse 25 and 26. Go ahead and turn there with me, John 14, 25 and 26. It says this. I'm not anti-writing in your Bible, by the way. It might be really good for you to do that here in these verses, right? But Jesus says, these things I've spoken to you while being present with you. And then verse 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit from whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all, circle that word, all things, right? He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you, all of it. All of it. Isn't that a great promise? So he says, hey guys, just hang on. When it comes time to get all this stuff down on paper, the Holy Spirit is gonna be in you, he's gonna be with you, and he's going to help you remember everything that I have said and taught. In fact, John 16 even expands on that. Notice John 16, verse 12. Jesus said, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. In other words, there's a whole lot of things that Jesus wanted to teach the disciples, but they couldn't even handle it. And so what happened in all that teaching? Well, here it is, verse 13. However, when he, the Spirit of truth comes, the Holy Spirit, when he comes, he will guide you into all, circle that, all truth, For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you the things that are to come, all of it. Notice that the disciples, they were promised insight from the Holy Spirit. Notice the guidance that the Holy Spirit would give them as the scriptures were to be written. God has been incredibly invested in the writing of his book. The Holy Spirit shows the words. And so now you say, okay, so the Holy Spirit shows the words, but the Holy Spirit part, that's not where my struggle is. My struggle comes when you start to get down into the human part, right? As long as it's with God, okay, fine, I'm tracking with you, right? But when people get involved, sinful, fallible human beings, when the human authors start writing it down, I mean, how do we know that they got it right? That's a fair question. And we briefly visited this verse last week, but I think it's helpful to go back there. 2 Peter 1, verse 20. 2 Peter's in the back of your Bible. Go ahead and turn there right now. Revelation, Jude, John, Peter, all right? 2 Peter 1, verse 20 reveals this great truth for us. It says, knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of men, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. See, I believe the answer is all right there. Notice that the scripture did not come by the will of man. It was God's will to reveal himself through his word. He could have done it a million different ways, any way that he wanted to. He chose this way, and in that, he chose human authors to communicate and to write down his message. And that's a really phenomenal thing, especially when you think about the fact that he wrote through the personalities of these human authors. It's fantastic. All right, but then notice the next part. It says, Scripture did not come by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke. All right, we need to know that it wasn't just any Joe off the street that was penning the words to Scripture. It was the central characters of scripture are the main authors of scripture, Moses and David and the prophets and the apostles, holy men of God. God chose the kind of men that he could really communicate through, men who loved him, pure vessels, clear channels, men with direct feed capability, a listening ear, men with a lifetime of experience of knowing and downloading God's heart to men. He chose very, very special, holy men. And that should give us confidence as we read this book. And so we've looked at the God part, and we've looked at the man part. Now let's look at the book part. And this is where we're gonna spend the rest of our time this morning. 1,500 years, 40 different authors, 66 books. How did they get all those little books together into one big book? So if you're taking notes, Grab your pen, sharpen your pencil. I trust this will be helpful. Giving us a foundation which we can stand confidently on as we share what we believe about God's word. Think back to a time when the canon of scripture was being pulled together. The word canon means measuring rod or instrument of measurement. And so when we talk about the canon of scripture, the 66 books that we have right here, we're talking about the books that measured up. And listen, we need to understand, there were lots of other books, more books than the 66 books that we have in our Bible. There were lots of other writings around. But there were very godly people who measured those books to discern and to determine which ones of them measured up. And so in doing that, they separated these books into four categories. So we'll look at the four categories, and then we'll look at the criteria for each of those categories. So four categories for the religious writings of the day. Number one, the Hamilogomena. All right, you can spell that however you want. I put it up on the board for you. All right, Hamilogomena. It means one word or agreement. Undisputed. These were the books that were accepted immediately and recognized as God's Word. There was no doubt and everyone agreed about the homilogomena. Here's the second one. You can guess what this one means. Antilogomena. These were the books that were initially disputed or doubted. It just took more time to kind of get some assurance around them. They weren't sure if they were really God's word. And so they talked a little bit, and they debated about it, and they looked at them to know. We need to know that of the 66 books in the Bible, five of the Old Testament and seven of the New Testament were initially doubted, initially put in the second camp, the antilegomena. But all of them, hear me, all of them were eventually accepted. just took a little more time. In the Old Testament, I'll just lay them out for you, the Song of Solomon. They thought it was too sensuous. Ecclesiastes, they thought it was too cynical. Proverbs, because they were unsure of authorship entirely. Ezekiel, because of its complexity and issues with the Old Testament law. Esther, because it doesn't ever mention the name of God. But as they studied all of these books, and as they meditated upon them, they saw the incredible sovereignty of God woven through all of these books, and they were received. And then in the New Testament it was Hebrews because it was anonymous, James, second Peter, second and third John because of authorship, Jude because it quotes from a secular author, and Revelation again because of authorship. Now again, all of those books, the Antilogomena disputed at first, ultimately all of them were received and confirmed as God's word. So you have the homilogomena, anthilogomena, third pile, the apocrypha. You may have heard of these 14 to 15 additional books, not scripture, called the apocrypha. The word apocrypha means hidden or hard to understand. All throughout the early church, we need to understand these were never, never confirmed as God's Word, never. Sometimes, as books were bound, the 66 books of the Bible would be put together, and then sometimes the Apocrypha would be put at the end of it, kind of as an added set of books, but it was never written about as God's Word. It was never considered as God's Word. Jesus never quoted from it. The apostles never quoted from it. Listen, the Apocryphal books were never considered God's Word until 1,500 years later. when the Roman Catholic Church was under great pressure about some of its heretical teachings during the Reformation, teachings like praying for the dead and salvation by works, that at the Council of Trent in 1516, it was then that they said, hey, we need those books too. These are God's word too. Not until 1500 years later. Books originally rejected because they contradict the teaching of God's word. And then lastly, the fourth pile, the pseudepigrapha. Pseudepigrapha. These are the 18 more additional books that were always rejected. No one thought that they were part of scripture. They were just religious writings of the time. They had all kinds of fanciful, magical things in them. Things like Jesus is a little boy doing tricks for his friends. Things that people, when they read them, they're just like, not God's word. They divided them into these four categories. Immediately received, disputed then received, not received except by the Roman Catholic Church 1,500 years later, never received. All right, and this begs the question, okay, four piles. How did they decide which book goes in each pile? You see, because the early church, I mean, all they really had to do was eliminate the inferior writings and identify the inspired writings. That's it. Piece of cake. Right? Who would want that job? Not me. Right? So how did they do that? Well, I'm going to lay it out for us so that we no longer have to wonder. And this went on just after Christ. And listen, I want to be clear. Most of this was settled by 125 AD. The Bible was completely written by 95 A.D., and within 20 to 30 years, most of it was settled. It was not confirmed until the Council of Hippo in the 300s, okay? But we need to understand that most of the world was together on this almost immediately. All right, so here are the five tests that they used to determine and confirm the inspired writings. Each writing had to stand alone, had to get through these five hoops, pass these five tests. And so we're going to call them the five proofs of inspiration. Jot these down. Five A words so that you can remember them. All right. Test of proof number one. Authority. Authority. It was said of Jesus that he taught as one who had authority. They would ask themselves, can this be said of this writing? Does it speak with the authority of God as people read it? Does it ring with the truth of God? Does it command our attention and response? See, over 4,000 times the writers of scripture say without embarrassment about their writing, thus says the Lord. Because listen, when a man has heard from God, he speaks as one who has authority. And if the writing didn't have that kind of authority to it, it was rejected. Test of proof number one, authority. Test of proof number two, authorship. Was this written by a man of God? See, almost all of the books that were initially disputed were only disputed on the basis of authorship. People saying, if we just know for sure that the apostle Paul wrote this or the apostle John wrote this, then we'll include this because we know him to have been a man who is connected with God. Authorship was very, very important. Then third category, authenticity. Authenticity. Does this book tell the truth about God's salvation? Is it consistent with the rest of the scripture? Did you know that's why there are no contradictions in the Bible? We like to think that we are the smartest people that ever lived, true or false? You do. True. All right? True. All right? But believe it or not, there were some very intelligent people who lived 2,000 years ago. They didn't even watch TV. And listen, when they got together, some of them, they invested their whole lives into pouring over these writings and comparing them, every line, every word, with the rest of Scripture. And by the time they plugged it into God's Word and were able to say, this is God's book, when they confirmed it together, believe me, they had compared it to the rest of it. And I'm sure that they would laugh if somebody showed up and said to them, I found a contradiction in the Bible. They'd be like, okay, buddy, sure you did. Authenticity, does it square with the rest of Scripture? And again, this is why the apocryphal books were rejected, because they didn't square with the rest of Scripture. They taught inconsistent things. Number four, alive and active. Was it alive and active? Hebrews 4.12 says, the word of God is living and active, or alive and powerful. One of the things that they wanted to know was, was this letter or this book, did it change people's lives? What were the testimonies of life change from those who had encountered the text? And to the people of the church, they said, hey, tell us what happened in your church when you read this letter from Paul. What happened in your church when you read this letter from John and as the testimonies came back of the lives that had been transformed, one of the most important confirming tests was the power or the activity or the aliveness of the scripture. If it was changing lives, then it was supernatural, it was of God. And if it wasn't, then it was just of man. And then number five, Lastly, I think a very important additional proof was acceptance by the early church, acceptance by the early church. How did the people of God feel about it? Scripture says we've all been given the mind of Christ, right? One mind. How do we feel about it? Look over here. It wasn't like today. They didn't just come to church and grab the book out of the pew in front of them and open it up. No, no, no. Somebody copied it. Just one copy. Sent it on a messenger. They brought it to the church. They would all get it, and they would receive it, and they would study it, and they all had to get together around it because there's only one copy. And so one of the things was, as the churches all over the world at that time, as they read it and as they received it, did they accept it? Did they receive it? Did they confirm it together and say, yes, this is from God? As you might guess, there were some writings that went around that were circulated that would come to a church and the church would go, that's not God. God would never say that. That doesn't align with what it says over here. Turn with me quickly to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Thank you for hanging in there with me this morning. I know there's a lot of content, but this is exactly... God is speaking to this exact proof right here. So Paul was speaking of how the early church would accept the Word of God. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13. He says this, he says, we thank God without ceasing, because when you receive the word which you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. How the early church received, accepted what was brought to them was an important test in confirming the word of God. Well, there you have it. Authority, authorship, authenticity, alive and active, acceptance. Five tests of inspiration. Where do we get our Bibles from? God wrote a book. The Holy Spirit chose the words. The apostles wrote it down. And then the early church used that test that we just went over to confirm. They pulled it together, they rooted out the writings that were just pretenders, and God blessed the entire process. So all that said, let me close with some application for us this morning. Five quick questions about God's Word. And I think these are appropriate in view of the fact that God wrote a book. Number one, do you own a copy of God's Word? Do you? If you don't, come talk to me. I will give you one. We want God's Word, which is able to make us wise unto salvation in the hands of every person. Number two, are you reading it daily? Did you know that it only takes 18 hours to read the entire New Testament out loud? Are you reading it daily? Are you in it? Number three, are you memorizing it? Are you? Psalm 119 verse 11, I have hidden, does that say 10? It does say 10, it's 11. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Are you hiding God's word in your heart this morning? Are you memorizing it? Number four, are you obeying it? Jesus says, whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. God wrote a book. Are we living out what it says? And then lastly, are you letting it guide your life? Are you letting the truth that is in these pages help you make the decisions that you need to make? Are you letting it frame your thinking? Psalm 119, 105, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. And we're gonna unpack that a little bit more in a couple weeks. Beloved, God wrote a book and it's not a secret. And now we know how we got it. So will we let it guide our lives?