The Clarity of Scripture

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay, I want to know who has been to the Tulsa Aquarium. A lot of people. I haven't. Katie and I want to go. We've been to the Georgia Aquarium. You can put your hands down. Thank you for letting so a lot of people have. I think we all at least know what an aquarium is. Or maybe we've been to a different one. But in our experience, when we went to the Georgia Aquarium, we loved it. We marveled at it. This was before we even had Annie. It was just the two of us, and we loved looking at all of the amazing sea creatures that they had there. But if we were to have gone to look at the blue whales that they had at the Georgia Aquarium or not. Blue whales. Whale sharks. That's what I mean to say. The whale sharks they had at the Georgia Aquarium. What if the acrylic glass wasn't clear? You wouldn't be able to see it, right? It would be ridiculous. Nobody would go. It actually makes no sense to even conceive of that. You wouldn't be able to see anything. But even though it is clear, you still don't necessarily see everything. Some things might be warped or some things they like to hide in the habitats they have in those tanks. But you can learn about those fish. You know, you can see what they do, how they move around and interact with other creatures. You can read about them often to learn. This is in a way, though imperfectly. This is, in a way, how the Bible works. It is clear we can see into it, we can understand, and we can learn about it, though we don't exhaustively know every single thing. Just by looking into the tank and seeing the fish, we can learn and continue to learn and go deeper and deeper to a seemingly bottomless, endless amount of information. That's sort of how the Bible works. It is clear. We learn, though the God that it reveals is incomprehensible. There is more to him than any human or any collection of humans could ever fully understand. Nonetheless, even though we can't quite grasp everything, the clarity of scripture, which is our topic today, is important. It's important for us to know, to affirm, and it's important for us to know so that we can be thankful to God that he has made his word clear for us, that we can approach him. We can open this book and understand it. Now we are doing this, what we call systematic theology, which is, again, just categories studying who God is. Does anyone want to tell us what is theology? Kayden? [00:02:57] Speaker B: Studying. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Studying God. Yeah. So we are studying God and I, even more particularly than that, we want to remember that our definition of theology should be studying God with the aim to live like Christ. Because if we study God and we don't change, our lives aren't changed and we don't live like Christ and we aren't properly studying him. And so you're right. And then some. Let's go over. What are some of the topics we've covered so far in this study of theology? Necessity. Necessity, right. Did you. Is that what you were going to say? Good man? Necessity came along with sufficiency. So we need scripture and everything. What we have in it is sufficient for us to live godly lives and to know Christ. Here's a hint. They're all about scripture. So far, we've been studying the doctrine of scripture. What are other important truths about scripture? I haven't been in here, but I would guess the inerrancy. That's right. Inerrancy, or a word we also use that week, was truthfulness. Truthfulness. It is without any mixture of error. Right. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Inspiration. [00:04:26] Speaker A: Inspiration. Very good. That's right. I think there's one more. Yeah. Authority. That's right. And so now we are studying clarity. The main idea of this lesson is that scripture is written to in such a way. So scripture is. That's the first blank. Written in such a way that it can be understood by God's people. It can be understood by God's people so that we'll unpack it more. But there are some key things in this one, that it's written in a way that it can be understood, but more than that, understood by God's people. It's not necessarily claiming that every person on earth will be able to understand it in the same way, but that for some reason, and we'll get into the reason, God's people have a special privilege and ability to understand scripture that regular man does not. But let's begin by opening the scripture. Let's go to deuteronomy, chapter 29. Deuteronomy 29. And once you get there, can someone read verse 29? No. Well, we have a volunteer already, actually. Thank you. [00:06:14] Speaker C: That we may do all the words of his lord. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. I hope we notice that there are some things that are secret, some that are revealed. But because they are revealed, there is a belonging to us. The US in this is Moses is speaking to Israel. This is God's people. Israel. It belongs to them. And so let's start there. As we begin, I'll give us the first point, which is clarity. It's point number one, clarity and deuteronomy 29 29 is a helpful verse for us, a good one to remember and put away. What does this verse tell us about the things of God? Some we know and some we don't. That's right. So if some things are unknown or we see the word secret, what makes the Bible clear? How can the Bible be clear if some of these things about God are secret? The question was, if some things about God are secret, how can we call the Bible clear? I understand. It actually is a bit of a tricky question for this early morning. Do you want to answer? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect answer. Mia, that's great. She said, there are some things about God that are beyond our ability to understand. So it is true that there are things about God that we don't understand that are not completely revealed. But what is revealed in scripture is clear. That's how we can say that, because scripture is the things that are revealed. So when we read the word, the things that are revealed, that is scripture. And it also included the prophecies given to prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, as well as revelations to Moses through the burning bush, for example, or on Mount Sinai. Those were all revelations that were for God's people, things that he told us. So what does it take to understand scripture? There are two things. You need to be able to read it and comprehend it. You need to be able to read it and comprehend it. Now, there were times where this was passed down orally, and so at that time, you need to be able to hear it and comprehend it. We have it written, and so we need to be able to hear and read and comprehend. It's actually that simple. It's not a crazy formula or anything. You just need to be able to read and comprehend what you're reading and to fully understand and have the clarity of scripture enacted. You need to have God's spirit within you. You need to be reading by faith, as the spirit helps us understand where we previously would not have been able to understand. But let's go to our second point. Is there clarity? So that was just kind of a summary. Now we want to look into the scriptures and ask, is there really clarity here? Can we actually understand? So we are going to read a passage of scripture and see if we can clearly understand it. So let's flip to the new testament, acts, chapter eight, and let's see. Can we get three volunteers to read? Let's split this up a little bit. You'll read probably, like five or six verses. Raise your hand if you want to read. Ezra, Anya and Andre okay, Andre, can you read verses of acts 826 through 30? And then Ezra, you can do 31 through 35. And on you, you can do 36 through 40. Is that good? All right. [00:10:59] Speaker D: Now, an angel of the Lord sits at the rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert. A desert place. And he arose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a court official, Candice, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasures, yet to come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot. Chariot. And he was reading to the prophet Isaiah. And the spirit said to Philip, go over and join the chariot. So Philip 30 is Azerbaijan? [00:11:48] Speaker C: I'm not sure. [00:11:49] Speaker D: Okay. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah, the prophet, and asked, do you understand what you are reading? [00:11:58] Speaker C: And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? He asked Philip to come up and sit with me. The place in the scripture which he read was he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before a shearer is silent. So he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, his justice was taken away. And who will declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth? So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of some other mandev? [00:12:31] Speaker B: Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized? When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away. And the eunuch did not see him again. But he went on his way, rejoicing, appeared at Azotus and traveled about preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. [00:13:03] Speaker A: All right, thank you all for reading. So let's just study this briefly. Who are some of the main people, the characters, the actors? The people in the story? Philip. Yeah, yeah. Isaiah. The writings of Isaiah, at least. Yeah. The eunuch, the ethiopian guy. The ethiopian eunuch. The official. Yeah. Was there any others in there? Could probably say the angel of the Lord. Okay. What did these people do? What did Philip do in this story? [00:13:47] Speaker B: Explain the scriptures. [00:13:50] Speaker A: Explain the scriptures. That's right. Anything else that Philip did? He ran. He also baptized the ethiopian. He obeyed the voice of the lord, told him to do something, and he did it. What did the ethiopian man do in the story? He asked for help. What was he doing? What did he need help with? Reading the scriptures. He was reading from Isaiah and he didn't understand, so he asked for help. Good. The holy spirit was in this story. What did he do? Mm hmm. I'm sorry. Yeah, he took Philip away. He, like, it seems like he transported him or took him somewhere, probably miraculously. Anything else? I think that's good. So we understand what happened, right? Do you understand? Like, you know, give me. Do you understand what happened in the story? Just basically as a narrative? We understand. Philip was told to go. He found the Ethiopian. The Ethiopian was reading scripture, didn't understand. He asked him if he could help. He helped him. The Ethiopian. What was he believed and was baptized. That's kind of what happened. But so the issue of the story, which we kind of covered in this was that he didn't understand Isaiah. And then the story which we also just covered, the climax that's resolved when Philip explains. So when he explains, what does Philip explain? What is this passage about in Isaiah? So you could look at verses 35, 34 and 35. What did he say? What is the passage about? Do we have any hints? Huh? [00:16:11] Speaker C: He said it was about Jesus, how he was led to the slaughter. [00:16:14] Speaker D: He was. [00:16:14] Speaker C: The lamb refused to. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So Ethiopian. He's having trouble understanding this. And Philip tells him that, look, you. If you know Christ, which Philip did, you can read this passage. And to the Ethiopian, it's confusing. Who is this about? And he says it is about Jesus. He helps the Ethiopian understand. And we can also understand through this story what it's about because it is clear enough to follow. And we also see that another issue. He wants to be baptized. And he is, in fact, baptized, and he worships the Lord. So I hope that you all see that what we just did, it's simple, but it's possible because the scripture is clear. Now, if you open up randomly, it's not always that easy. Some parts of scripture are more challenging, but it is clear. It can be understood. So there is clarity. So that will be our third point. There is clarity. Is there clarity? Yes, we just saw it. There is clarity. And now we'll see some scriptural proofs that there is clarity in scripture. It is clearly to be understood. So we're going to flip back to deuteronomy real quick. Deuteronomy, chapter 30. So just right after where we just were a minute ago, and I'll read these. Deuteronomy, 30, 11, 14. So read along with me for this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you. Neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it. But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it. What is Moses saying here? In other words, let me ask this question more directly. What does it mean that the word is near you? Mia? I'm sorry. What does it mean that the word is near you? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. The word's inside you. It's in your heart. Yeah. Katie, do you have a different answer, too? God is near you. Yeah. That's God revealing himself in his word. So who he is is so closely paralleled with the word. That's right. Yeah. [00:19:29] Speaker C: That it's like within your spiritual reach. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Within your spiritual reach. Yeah. I think these are all implications of it. It's one that the word is near you in that we read in other places that the word is written on the heart through the spirit. Now, to the people, even that Moses is speaking to, that is a future reality that he is pointing them to, where they will have it written on their hearts. But in another sense, it is on their hearts and mouths. Because earlier in deuteronomy, he's telling them, these laws that I'm writing to you and giving to you, you must remember them, repeat them to yourselves. Teach them to your children, keep them on your mouths at all times. It is super important. But in a future way, we see more clearly that the word is given to christians by having it written on their heart. If you even look at the next chapter in verse ten, we see this. Moses commanded them at the end of. So, yeah, 31 ten. Moses commanded them at the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the feast of booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, men, women and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God. And be careful to do all of the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land that you're going over the Jordan to possess. So we see that Moses expects them to be able to know the law and do it. And that's why he tells them to read it every seven years to all the people. All the people can understand and should be read the law. Even the little ones, even the young people and the children should be hearing the word of the Lord readdez that they may remember it and understand it and pass it on to even their children. So let's look at what the New Testament says. Let's go to one corinthians, first corinthians, chapter ten. And I'll read this passage, too. We're going to just start at the beginning of one corinthians ten, if you'll look along with me. Paul writes to the corinthians, for I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock, the rock, was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us, that we may not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. So what is Paul talking about to the Corinthians? What's he referring to? Old Testament. Yeah. Do you have something else? Yeah. The Israelites, these were things that happened kind of where we just were in deuteronomy and numbers and Leviticus and Exodus. We see these stories that he is referencing in each verse happen, and he's reminding the people. So why was he talking about those things to the Corinthians? This is in Corinth in the first century. Why is he talking to them about ancient Israel? Yeah. Don't do those things. And that's because ancient Israel provides something for these more modern people, these Christians. What happened to them is instructive. We can learn from it. He wanted them to learn from the written word and the fact that he is calling up these stories, line by line means he believed they would know what he's referencing. They would understand what happened and why those things were bad. He's saying, look, they grumbled and the destroyer destroyed them. He's expecting them to understand why the grumbling was a problem. They understand the word and Paul expects that. But now let's look at two Peter for some more. Second Peter, chapter three, verse 15 and 16. Can someone read that for us? Second Peter, 315 and 16. Who's there? Levi. Thank you, Levi. [00:25:48] Speaker D: And count the patience of our lord as salvation. Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to wisdom given, as he does in all his letters. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Thank you. So what does Peter say about Paul's letters? People twist them. That's right. What else? He writes with God's wisdom. Also right. Anything else? It's scripture. That's also absolutely true. There's one more thing that's in here that is almost a little surprising. Some of them are hard to understand. They are hard to understand. What does that mean? For clarity? We believe that the scripture is clear. Peter says it's hard to understand. How should we understand this? How should we think about it? It's difficult. But what I believe we should take from this, and what I want you guys to hear is that we can understand the Bible. We can. That doesn't mean it's always easy. I think sometimes we get tripped up there and we start to think the Bible can't be understood. Because I am struggling to find the meaning. Sometimes it's hard. It's not guaranteed to be easy. Some parts are harder than others. Even Peter is saying that it is scripture. Right. What Paul wrote is scripture. But some of it is hard to understand. And the ignorant and the unstable twist it to their own destruction. And so we must do what we can to learn and go deeper and ask for help where we can so that we can understand the scripture without twisting it. So when we don't understand, don't jump to conclusions and twists, but look for help in trusted, reliable places. Because if we don't do that, then we'll make errors and we'll be confused. Which brings us to our fourth point. Clarity over confusion. Clarity over confusion. So we want to seek clarity. We don't want to be confused like the ignorant readers of Paul. So here are some common mistakes that people sometimes accidentally make. Some people intentionally make these errors, but we should avoid them. Some people say that contemporary readers. So that would be modern people like us. We cannot understand the Bible because it is an outdated book that presents an antiquated worldview. That's an out of date worldview. What is the mistake with this view? Why is this view wrong? So, to summarize, people say modern people can't understand the Bible because it's out of date. Why is this view wrong? Mia? Yeah, yeah. God's word, right at the beginning, you said that so well, God's word is not stuck in a time period, continues to be relevant. It continues to be useful to us, beneficial to us, and it ignores that the Bible in so many places assumes that it will continue to be understandable. Remember, Moses told the people to read this every seven years? He didn't say to update it every so often to make it more understandable. He said, read it as it is. And Paul in the New Testament references those stories as they were. He didn't update them. They assumed it would continue to be read and studied and understood. And so that's not what the Bible presents itself as. So that's an unfair reading of it. Another mistake or error people make is they say, some people would rather leave the responsibility for interpretation the Bible to a certain cast of people. So a certain group. This could be the roman catholic clergy, or it could be pastors and ministers, or it could be Bible scholars. So people might say, well, I'm just a regular Christian. Interpreting all that stuff is not for me. That's for my pastor, that's for my professor. Or if you're a Catholic, you might say, that's for my priest or a bishop. What's the problem with this? Why is this an issue? Me again? Or Kaden? You won't understand it yourself. Can we think of any other issues that we've maybe touched on the other weeks that we've been studying scripture? Oh, yes. [00:31:49] Speaker B: They could change it up. [00:31:50] Speaker A: They could change it up. That's right. And you wouldn't have any idea. At the end of this month, we are hitting another anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and the beginnings of that. And one of the key issues was the authority of the church, changing and adding to what christians believed and elevating it to the same authority as the word, the traditions of the church became as important as the word of God itself. And when that happens, when they inserted things, you cannot question it. And if you merely give that up to them and you let the scholars do all the work and the people are never in the word, there's no check on that. At the time, most of the people in the churches didn't speak the language that the Bible was translated into. And so that is an issue as well. And so we too should be weary of that. You don't want to ignore your pastors and your teachers and your professors. They know the Bible well, but you too should be studying the word and seeing if what they teach, if what I teach aligns with scripture. A third issue is that some people are unable to. This is what they say. They say some people are unable to personally apply oneself to reading the Bible because of discouragement or even laziness. Now, I will assume that as we read the Bible, let me just summarize that real quick. That's saying I read the Bible and I'm discouraged or I don't know, want to do the work, to apply that to my life. I just read that. What does that mean for me? That's why I don't like to read the hard books. I want to read the easy books so that it's easy for me to read a psalm and say, oh, yeah, that makes me feel good. But it's hard for me to read numbers and know what that means for my life. And I want to assume that we've all felt this way. We've read a passage and we felt. I have no idea what is that supposed to mean? Did I just waste 1015 2030 minutes an hour reading to walk away with nothing? And I just want to encourage you to not give up. Because again, it is. Some things are hard to understand and you need help. And not every day you will feel the same amount of fed after reading the word. That's just the truth. But we don't keep reading the Bible because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy. We read it because it's true. It's life giving and it's God's word. So even when it's hard, we must persevere because we want to know the God it reveals. And sometimes that takes a little bit of work, and it takes prayer and meditation on God's word, and so do the work. It's completely worth it. But now, as we think about this, let's think about how it applies to our life. So we have clear obedience, even though, as I just said, sometimes obeying the word is not always clear and easy to do. But we want to obey. We want to not just understand that the Bible is clear, we want to know, what does this mean for me? How do I live my life knowing that this doctrine is true? So I want to ask a question, see if we picked up any hints. What can you do when you are having a hard time understanding a passage? You can pray and you can ask a pastor. Those are great. Any other things, Levi? You could read it again. That's a great idea too. Yeah, read it, read it, read it. That definitely helps. You can read more, you can read wider to know context because that can help. But I think Kate, and hit both answers. I was thinking of right on the head. First, pray. Trust Christ. Jesus Christ revealed in the scriptures. If you have faith in him, he has promised in his word to give you his spirits. And the spirit taught the apostles all things and indwells. Believers even now to illuminate the word. The word that he inspired is illuminated by the author for you if you're in Christ. And so believe on Christ. Trust his word. It's true, it's clear, it's understandable, it's useful, it's sufficient, it's necessary, all of that. But even then, as we pray, and that is something that's so easy to overlook, is praying. Before you open the word, we need to pray. Trust, ask the spirit. And even then, sometimes we'll still need a little more help. And that's when I think that second answer you gave Kaden was really helpful. To ask for help from a person, a pastor, a teacher, could be your parents. Even your parents likely have a lot of biblical knowledge. They've probably spent many more years than you in the word and they can help you. And so I would say, do those things. Pray, ask the spirit, read it and reread it like Levi said. But then ask for help. And ask your pastors, because those are trusted people. Don't ask, don't look it up just anywhere online. It's a mixed bag of resources, so it's just not reliable to just look stuff up like that. You want to make sure you're getting it from good sources. But with that, let's just think about what this means for us. Let's pray and then we can go worship with the church. Father God, thank you for your word. Lord, we praise you. That it is clear, Lord, that you have things about yourself that we need to know, that we long to know, and that you have revealed to us. Lord, please help us as and each of these students in here as we go out and we open our copies of the word of God this week, that you would help the students and myself, all of us, to understand what we read, that you would pierce our heart with the word, convict us of sin, point us toward Christ as we open the word. And Lord, we trust that as we faithfully do this, you will help us to better and better understand your word, which means to better and better understand who you are. Lord, we praise you for your word, and we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. I.