“Paul said, ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God’”
II Timothy 3:16
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
A little over a hundred and seventy years ago, back in 1848, a carpenter by the name of James Marshall planned to build a lumber mill near a stream in Coloma, California. That’s when he discovered gold. And in just a few short years, thousands of prospectors, investors, and businessmen all started to move there. By 1860, California’s population swelled to nearly four hundred thousand.
But along with all those people came the need for communication--mail. But the question was, how could it get there? After all, Sacramento was two thousand miles away!
That’s when three men--William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell--had an idea: the Pony Express. Why not set up a mail route from St. Joseph, Missouri all the way to Sacramento, California using riders and their horses, each running at full gallop for ten miles at a time. That way, mail could be delivered as quickly as ten to fourteen days, what was, at the time, considered impossible.
And it nearly was impossible. Each rider had to be young and thin, weigh less than 125 pounds, and be willing to risk death daily. The horses’ hooves were shod with lightweight shoes or no shoes at all, and the mail that was sent had to be very light and very thin.
And it was expensive! To mail an average letter, weighing only a half an ounce, cost, in today’s money, $140.
Yet for all the concern that the Pony Express had for moving mail fast and staying light, every single one of its 183 riders was equipped with the very same thing--two pistols and a Bible, a complete, full-sized, special edition, leather-bound Bible, what the owners considered absolutely essential for journey on the trail. And inside its cover were the words: “I do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God.”
It’s easy to say that the Bible is the most important book as well as the most controversial book in all of history. No book has ever been more loved or respected than the Bible. And no book has ever been more despised or hated than the Bible.
And while some might think it’s little more than a collection of myths, stories, and legends that can’t be trusted and would best be ignored, for us, it’s the Book of books, the very Word of God. We absolutely can’t live without it.
And in his second letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul had something to say about it. Listen to the words of our text, II Timothy chapter 3, beginning at verse 10: “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra--which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 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” (II Timothy 3:10-17).
If you’ve been with us for the past couple of weeks, you should know that Paul wrote this letter to his spiritual son, a young pastor named Timothy, while he was in prison, waiting to die. It’s the last letter he would ever write. That’s why he said in chapter 4, verse 6: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” And in verse 9, “Do your best to come to me soon.”
And as he encouraged Timothy to stay strong in the faith and endure to the end, he reminded him of his own faith and life and love, of the persecutions and sufferings he endured for the sake of the gospel, and of the power of the very Word of God. So he wrote in verse 16: “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.”
Imagine, for a moment, of what our life would be like without the Bible. Imagine if you woke up one morning, and there was no such thing. What would life be like?
One author put it like this: “Shakespeare would be unreadable. Newton would make no sense. Everyday speech would be stammering, and halting, and faltering. A change would come over the whole temper and tone of our nation. Life would become hectic and hurried and vulgar. All restraints would suddenly be thrown off, leaving us to instinct and appetite. Values would be blurred. Life would become meaningless, tragic, tedious, and make no sense, and have no goal and no direction.”
Think of art. If it were not for the Bible, Michelangelo wouldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel, Rubens never would have thought of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, and Raphael, The Transfiguration of Christ. Botticelli would never have painted The Adoration of the Magi and da Vinci wouldn’t have given us The Last Supper. Antonio Ciseri wouldn’t have painted Ecce Homo and Caravaggio couldn’t have given us The Crucifixion of St. Peter.
Think of music. Take, for example, Bach’s Passion of St. Matthew, what’s been called, “The supreme cultural achievement of all Western Civilization.” Of that work, even renowned skeptic Friedrich Nietzche couldn’t help but say, “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as the gospel.” Think of Beethoven’s greatest work, his Mass in D Minor. Listen closely, and you’ll hear the words, “O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” Even Bono of Irish band U2 wrote a song based on Psalm 40, a song he sang at the end of every concert.
And think of some of the words and phrases we use in our everyday language. If you’ve ever turned on a light switch and said, “Let there be light,” you can thank the book of Genesis. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” comes from Exodus. “Nothing but skin and bones,” comes from Job. “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” comes from Proverbs. “No rest for the wicked,” comes from Isaiah. “Can a leopard change his spots?” comes from Jeremiah. And ”the handwriting is on the wall,” comes from Daniel.
Now I don’t mean to “put words in your mouth,” (that’s II Samuel), or to suggest you “put your house in order,” (that’s II Kings), but if you’re ever at your “wits end,” (that’s Psalms), or have trouble staying on the “straight and narrow,” (that’s Matthew), at least know that “it’s better to give than to receive,” (that’s Acts), that there’s “nothing new under the sun,” (that’s Ecclesiastes), and “the truth will set you free,” (that’s John). Whatever you do, don’t “fall from grace,” (that’s Galatians), for Christ will come “in the twinkling of an eye,” (that’s I Corinthians).
So what is the Bible? It’s one book, God’s Book, divided into sixty-six smaller books from Genesis to Revelation. The Old Testament was written before the birth of Christ. The New Testament tells what happened after He came.
As someone once put it, “The Old Testament is the preparation, the Gospels are the manifestation, the Book of Acts is the propagation, the Epistles give the explanation, and the book of Revelation is the consummation.”
It’s the most popular book of all time. Of the more than seven thousand living languages in the world today, 698 have the full Bible, while 3,312 have at least part. English has 450 translations all on its own! Six billion Bibles are already in print, and according to the Gideons, Wycliffe International, and the International Bible Society, 168,000 more are either sold or given away every day. No other book in human history even comes close.
Phillips Brooks, the one who wrote, O Little Town of Bethlehem, said, “The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through it, he sees worlds beyond.” Abraham Lincoln said, “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given man...if it were not for the Bible, we could not know right from wrong.” And Theodore Roosevelt said, “A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”
Even more, the Bible is a unity, a harmony. There’s no other book like it.
Think of it like this--find ten people with similar backgrounds, who speak the same language, and are all from the same culture. Then separate them and ask them to write their opinion on just one controversial subject, say the meaning of life. Then, when they’re done, compare what they said.
Would they agree? Probably not.
But the Bible wasn’t written by merely ten authors. There were forty. And neither was it written in one generation, but over a period of 1,500 years.
And the authors were vastly different from one another--different in culture, in education, in language, and in home. Joshua was a military general. Daniel was a Prime Minister. Amos pruned sycamore-fig trees. Paul made tents. Peter was a fisherman.
And they wrote in vastly different places. Moses wrote in the wilderness. Paul wrote in prison. And John wrote in exile on the island of Patmos. And their languages were as different as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
And their topics ranged anywhere from heaven to hell, men and women, angels and demons, how the universe began, and how it all will someday end. And all the authors agree.
And think of the copies. Before the printing press was ever invented, there were 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad, forty-nine writings of Aristotle, and seven of Plato. But of the New Testament alone, we have nearly six thousand manuscripts, with 2 ½ million pages of Biblical text.
And long before science ever figured it out, Isaiah told us the earth was round, Jeremiah said the number of stars was vast, and Solomon said both air and water circulate all around the world. And while the ancient Egyptians believed the earth rested on five pillars, the Greeks believed Atlas held it on his shoulders, the Hindus believed it was held by an elephant standing on a tortoise, which was standing on a serpent, that was swimming in a cosmic sea, and the Koran teaches the sun sets in a puddle of mud, the Bible says in Job chapter 26, “God hangs the earth upon nothing.”
And what is its message? In fifty words, it goes like this: “God made. Adam bit. Noah arked. Abraham split. Joseph ruled. Jacob fooled. Bush talked. Moses balked. Pharaoh plagued. People walked. Sea divided. Tablets guided. Promise landed. Saul freaked. David peeked. Prophets warned. Jesus born. God walked. Love talked. Anger crucified. Hope died. Love rose. Spirit flamed. Word spread. God remains.”
And who is the Bible all about? It’s all about Jesus. That’s what He said to the Pharisees: “You study the Scriptures diligently, because you think that in them you have eternal life. But these are the very Scriptures that testify about Me.”
In 1879, Lieutenant George De Long set out with his crew of thirty-two men on the USS Jeannette, in hopes of claiming the North Pole for the United States, a voyage based on maps that told of an open, polar, ice-free sea, teeming with marine life, “whose waters,” it said, “could be smoothly sailed, much as one might sail across the Caribbean or the Mediterranean Sea.”
Unfortunately, every previous expedition had already run into a whole lot of ice. So did those mapmakers abandon the theory of an open Polar Sea? Not a chance. Instead, they said there must be just a small circle of ice. All you had to do was to find a gap in that ice, then you could enjoy smooth sailing all the way to the North Pole.
Guess what happened. They never did find a gap in the ice, because there was no gap in the ice. Instead, just as soon as their ship got trapped, some of the crew escaped and made it Siberia. The rest died of starvation. Years later, De Long’s snow-covered body was found, with one of his arms reaching up toward the sky. The wrong map cost him his life.
But we have a map, a good map, a trusted map, a God-given map, that can lead us from birth to death to our heavenly home.
As Paul wrote to Timothy, “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.”
We thank You, dear Father, for Your Word and for the good news that it brings. Help us to, more and more, find our hope and strength in You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen