Week by week from pulpits around the globe Christians are admonished to read their Bible's and bring their lives under the authority of it's teaching.  Why do we give the Bible such an important place in Christian life? Why don't we ascribe similar authority to other religious works? Can we trust the words of the Christian Scripture's to be genuine and truth bearing?

My topic is the authority of the bible. The suggestion I'll bring you is that the Bible derives it's authority from God alone.  That there is an intimate relationship between God's revelation of Himself in the resurrected Jesus Christ and the words of Scripture that point to Him.  Furthermore that it is the action of the Holy Spirit that brings conviction, not only of the Scriptures authority over our lives but also of the living love of God that lays claim upon us.

There have been times past when it would be considered heretical to even question the Scriptures authority. The historical growth of literacy and forms of authority other than the church means that today the Christian Scriptures are examined from many different viewpoints.

The field is wide open. There are scholars that claim very little of the Bible should be taken as factual.  There are those holding to forms of Biblical fundamentalism that suggest every single dot and comma of the King James version is a direct revelation from God to be literally interpreted.

A significant development has been the growth of  Biblical Criticism.

The term first started to be in common use in the nineteenth century. As scholars examined different copies of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament they noticed that in the original Greek there existed occasional discrepancies.  For the most part these did nothing to alter the meaning of the passage but were a different way of saying the same thing.

For instance part of 2 Peter 1:10 reads; "If you do so you will abandon your faith". At the bottom of the page is a footnote that says some manuscripts include the words, "fall into sin" rather than "abandon your faith". The essential meaning remains the same, but in certain Greek manuscripts the wording had been slightly altered.

Since 1930 numerous New Testament papyri have been discovered, some of which date back to 220AD. Certain fragments have an even earlier date. The miracle is that our bible's have so few footnotes! One would think that the process of copying manuscripts would produce a greater amount of variations than there are. 

It is a testimony, in itself, to the sacredness with which these texts were held from earliest times, that those who copied the words were painstaking careful to preserve their integrity. We can be sure that the words we have in our Bible's are an accurate representation as can be of their original authors intent.

A form of criticism know as "Source Criticism" seeks to discover the sources that lie behind the Bible's stories.  Both Matthew and Luke's gospels use material that is found in Mark's gospel.  They also use common material from another source (which scholars refer to as "Q") as well as material of their own.  John's gospel, has certain passages which suggest that the author was familiar with the other gospels, but also some startling differences which suggest the material came from elsewhere..

Questions of authorship, projected dates and sequences of composition, different theological emphasis given to similar stories, all these have a bearing on the material the gospel writers used when composing their accounts.

"Form Criticism" is an attempt to look behind the sources and discover whether the authors were attempting to write in a particular way. If so, how did this influence their telling of events?  Other forms of criticism try to discover the "Setting in life" of the biblical stories.  Did this story arise from the beliefs of a particular community? Was it written in response to a particular question or event? If so, how should we view this story?

Much of the gospel material must have originally been in the form of "Oral Traditions". Jesus allowed others to record His actions and words. We have no record of His writing a book or recording His teachings. We are dependant on the memories and recollections of those who were there at the time for our information.

It has been suggested that this allows very little chance for the words we have in the gospels as being anything near the actual words of Christ.  Such a view fails to pay sufficient attention to the importance of oral traditions in cultures where the majority are not literate. Have you noticed how pre-reading children remember every nuance of a bed time story in such a way  that if you change a single word, they will correct you? Such skills in non-literate societies become developed rather than lost.

In that setting of Oral Tradition being prominent, had any of those who recorded the words of Christ sought to change them or invent them, there were others who would have corrected them. Even when we consider the letters of the New Testament, whilst these originated as literary documents, certain passages (such as the Christological Hymn in chapter two of Phillipians)  suggest the use of earlier oral traditions and material.

Long before biblical criticism evolved there was the recognition that the Bible is not one uniform book, but a collection, a library of volumes spanning many centuries, cultures and circumstances.  Every age has sought to use the disciplines of it's day to interpret the meaning.

As an example, consider the Creation Story. According to Genesis One, God made the world in seven days. Some biblical fundamentalists would seek to interpret that story literally. It's not that God couldn't create the world in seven days, if God is God of course God could!

Rather a recognition has grown that this story is not and never was intended to be a scientific description of the origins of the earth. Scripture itself witnesses to this.  A similar, but differing account of Creation appears in Genesis Three.  In that account not only is the sequence of events altered, but there are other changes; ie. in Genesis One, Mankind is created on a single day; according to Genesis 3, man is created, becomes lonely, is put to sleep and some days later a woman is made out of his rib.

The advent of evolutionary theory and differing  understandings of the genesis of the universe make it extremely unlikely that Genesis One was ever intended as a scientific chronicle.  None of this affects it's basic integrity as an account of the "Who" and "Why" of Creation.

The story points to purpose and design, to sequence and order. Humankind is given a particular role to fulfil. At least one day out of seven is seen as being important for recreation and rest and it's all good!  To dismiss the story on the ground of scientific inaccuracy is to totally misunderstand the idea of literary form. Truth is a many layered jewel.

It has been recognized for centuries that there are obvious literary differences in much of the Bible story, in form, in style and in content.  The same method of interpretation can not be used on a love poem like "Song of Songs" as can be applied to Pauls theological treatise to the Romans. The letters to the seven churches contained in the Book of Revelation are not the Sermon on the Mount. It's all Scripture but it's not all the same. It all has authority for Christian life but not all in the same way.

The most pressing claims for Scriptures authority come from the Biblical authors themselves. Consider this text from 2 Peter 2:16: "We have not depended on made up stories in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. With our own eyes we saw His greatness". Peter is here at pains to stress that his purpose was to faithfully record what he had experienced and what he knew about Jesus.

The claim is made that the Bibles writers were not just biographers or historians but people inspired by God. That God's hand was upon them in such a way that they faithfully recorded how God was at work in the events they witnessed.

Those involved were not ghost writers in suspension of all natural faculties. God spoke through  real flesh and blood people, through the sometimes ordinary and sometimes extraordinary experiences of their lives, through their particular personalities and cultural settings; and in doing so has made clear God's will for all people.

If the Bible has authority then it's authority is not independent of God.  Rather the Bible's authority rests upon the claim that it's authors were writing in entire dependence of the action of God's Spirit upon their lives.  The Bible's authority is not one within itself, but dependant upon it's source.

A stained glass window is dependant on the light behind it to reveal it's beauty. Through the different textures and colours of it's panes it presents a unified picture. Likewise, the light of God, shining through the different circumstances and personalities of the Bible's authors, reveals a portrait of a God who is one in purpose and intent.

Nothing said so far creates a case  for the Bible's unique authority. Reliable, it may be. Inspired it may be. It's authors may have been well meaning in recording what they considered to be divinely inspired thoughts.  You could make similar claims about the Koran, The Book of Mormon or many other religious works.  All we've really said is that the Bible is a book with a high level of religious understanding.

If it is to be vested with an authority different from other religious works we must go further.  We must claim something unique, something different. We need some other test for that authority . We have one. The resurrected Jesus Christ. 

Though we may know of Him through the Bible, He stands outside the Bible. He is the living Word of God.  Christianity is about a relationship with a person, not about a book. We get to know about Jesus Christ through the Bible. We get to know the Bible's authority through Him and through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

The realization that He is alive, the realization that it is His living presence that works within our lives individually and as church communities, gives the Bible a unique authority in comparison to other religious works.  No other body of religious literature has for it's authority Jesus Christ, Son of God, crucified, risen, and reigning in glory.

The Old Testament is a history of individual and corporate faith. Moses delivered the people from Eygpt.  David established the Kingship.  The prophets spoke of a coming suffering-servant, the son of man, of a communion of saints, of a day when people would worship God in Spirit and in truth and the law of God would be written on their hearts.

The New Testament claims that all this was fulfilled in Christ.  That while not every detail of Old Testament prophecy or vision is encaptured in His person, it was He who brought about the realisation of all Messianic hopes.  It all points to Jesus Christ.

Jesus believed His life to be significant.  So significant that He asks total commitment of those who would be disciples. Since he walked upon earth He has changed the lives of countless numbers of people who claim in every age and every place to have encountered His resurrection presence in the power of the Holy Spirit.

R.P.C Hanson, in the S.C.M. Dictionary of theology comments (on authority) that, "the Bible should be considered as the unique witness to the acts of God in history by which He makes Himself known to all men and demands their response; the church should be considered as the organ chosen by God to point to the Bible, to preach it and to order it's life by the light of the Bible.  The authority of the Bible does not lie in the book itself but in the subject to which it witnesses".

What is the subject that the Bible witnesses to? The Risen Jesus Christ whose Spirit continues the work of the Kingdom through the lives of faithful believers.  The saving work of Jesus Christ who died, rose again and opens the doorway to fellowship with God.  The Risen Saviour whose Spirit is the Counsellor and Guide.

John Calvin wrote about the Scriptures that "they obtain complete authority with believers only when they are persuaded that they proceed from heaven".  Recognition of who the Scriptures are coming from, that they emanate from the action of Jesus Christ, God's living Word, places them in a different light.

It is a light that is dependant on faith. Faith not in the reliability of the Scriptures testimony (though there is good grounds for that), faith not in modern methods of interpretation or understanding (though these have great value), but faith that Christ died, Christ is Risen and Christ will come again. Faith opens the heart to the entrance of the Holy Spirit to be our  teacher and interpreter of the written words of God, the one who "Guides us into all truth".

'If Christ be not risen' then the Scriptures that testify to his living presence as the centrepoint of human existence are a damnable lie.  The Scriptures only authority is the authority bestowed upon them as the written, reliable testimony of those whose lives were changed forever by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Before I was a Christian, I felt the Bible had no authority over my life.  Once I knew the one whom it pointed to, I saw it in a different light.  It becomes for me the Word of God when I am reading it and become conscious that God is showing me something or directing me in some way. It then asserts an authority over my life, that is not of itself, but is the authority of my Lord and Saviour.

I know that there is much that is difficult to understand in the Bible.  I know that in one lifetime no single individual could plumb it's depths.  I know how my life and the lives of countless others have experienced new life and change through the words in it's pages becoming fused with meaning by the action of God's Spirit.

If we want to know, really desire to know, the authority of the Bible, we must seek the living Lord Jesus Christ. Without Him it will be an incomprehensible collection of useless old books. With Him it becomes a library of God's messages to our hearts.

Put your trust in the Word of God and you will not be disappointed. 

Trust in the Scriptures as one of the primary ways through which God will challenge you and instruct your present life.

Put your confidence in those who wrote the books and invite you to share in their experience of God.

  Trust in the integrity of God to be a faithful witness of Himself to you.
   
  Trust in the testimony of those who tell it straight from the heart,
   in the words of the text quoted already in this message;