In this series, we have been studying various key characteristics of Scripture. First, we have examined its sufficiency or how Scripture is trustworthy because it is true and entirely inerrant. Second, we learnt about its clarity or perspicuity, or the idea that Scripture is clear in communicating its central message of salvation through Jesus Christ. This does not mean it is equally easy to understand or that no effort is needed to interpret or understand the Bible. Reading it does takes work. But anyone can understand and access what God intended to communicate to us – the essential meaning of the Bible — that God has provided salvation through Christ Jesus for all who will repent of their sins and receive His work on their behalf.
Today, we talk about a third characteristic: the authority of Scripture. How should we use the Scriptures? What does it look like to reject the Bible as Scripture?
Authority is a word that some may find uncomfortable. We may prefer a more democratised model of freedom and choice, of autonomy in decision-making. We may eschew a Single Source of Truth, or doubt if there could ever be one. It is far easier for us to accept the Scripture as one authoritative voice among many others. For that matter, we may very prefer our own perspectival view of reality – after all, beauty, and perhaps reality, can be in the eye of the Beholder.
We are saying something profound about Scripture when we say that it is authoritative. We confess that Scripture trumps all other sources when it comes to being the source of spiritual truth and revelation. There is nothing above the Scripture that can explain it, or tell us definitively why we exist, or why life has meaning. In this view, yes (gasp) even modern science is subject to the Scripture. This is why some people think Christianity can be dangerous —we seem to reject modern science or what some consider to be healthy societal norms. The authority of Scripture means that the Bible is our final rule for faith and practice.
And the God who has spoken demands that we submit to the authority of His Word.
(A) Scripture is believable truth (Acts 17:1-4)
In the book of Acts we see that the apostle Paul made the synagogue of the Jews his first stop in Thessalonica after passing Amphipolis and Apollonia (Acts 17:1). The book of Acts is something of a historical narrative about the ministry of the apostles or chosen witnesses of Jesus Christ, akin to a travel log or travel diary, and its genre is important to assess the truth claims made within it. This genre is certainly not fiction or Sci-Fi. Rather there is an active engagement with dates, real places and people in the narration.
So we see that Paul’s custom, as the writer records, was to reasoned with the synagogue worshippers from the Scriptures (Acts 17:2). Luke tells us that this was Paul’s MO – his standard practice! Instead of referencing modern philosophy, popular culture or maxims, Paul establishes his arguments from specific content in the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament books of the Bible Notice what the style of Paul’s communication is? He appealed not to emotions or storytelling. Rather, Paul sought to reason with them from Scripture.
Why did Paul resort to reason? Was it because Paul was academic or intellectual? Today some may levy that charge to point out that some intellectual conversations are very exclusive and cannot be understood widely by others. But that is probably not what Paul was doing when he reasoned in the synagogue. If that were the case, he would have gone to the marketplace where Greek philosophy and Roman discourse was being debated and traded in the realm of ideas.
Neither does Paul appeal to the emotions. Paul’s appeal to reason from Scripture was simply a way for people to: think for themselves, and think based on Scripture. Desiring for them to arrive at their own conclusions, and on the basis of Scriptural proof, he reasoned from the Scriptures – so that his logic would be plain and the truth self-evident to all. This explains why Paul made the synagogue his strategy. And he spent three Sabbaths — three weeks — working this way.
Notice the content of his reason. Paul explained from Scripture and proved that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead (Acts 17:3). In other words, he interpreted Scripture in such a way as to expect a suffering and rising Christ, and he helped the people to see that Jesus’ experience matched these Old Testament-shaped expectations.
The focal point of Paul’s ministry is the Scripturesor our Old Testament. And according to Paul, understanding them rightly would point us to a Christ that needed to suffer and rise from the dead, in other words, looking to the Cross and resurrection. Reading and believing Scripture leads us to believe God’s truth. We must stress that if we understand Paul, God’s truth does that bypasses reason, but flows out of reason and from reading the Old Testament rightly.
Notice also Paul’s expectation is that you can read Scripture rightly or wrongly. He did not assume multiple interpretations are equally right, or that truth is in the eye of the Beholder. This does not mean that people will agree on every thing, or different people cannot have different personal takeaways. Rather, Paul is assuming a stable epistemology, a trustworthy interpretation of the Scripturethat one can either get right or wrong.
In other words, the Scriptures can be understood. They are deeply relevant. Paul based his entire ministry and professional life and personal life on the conviction that the Bible can and must be understood as God’s authoritative Word. Getting it right and understanding it truly should lead us to submit ourselves to us and believe what it says. It is neither confusing nor arbitrary, nor mysterious, nor theoretical. Rather it is clear, impactful, understandable and concrete.
Do you share the same views about Scripture as Paul did? Or do you suspect there are better ways to know God and ultimate reality?
Three groups respond positively to Paul’s teaching —the Jews, devout Greeks (Greek converts) and the leading women (probably not limited to the synagogue, but on strength of reason and reach of social networks, women of high Greek society who were persuaded to convert) (Acts 17:4). Notice how Luke insists that the way they came to believe was that they were persuaded — not coerced, enticed or drawn. Rather they came to believe on the basis of reasonable reading.
Reasoning, appealing and persuading unbelievers from the Scriptures is what we should be doing to advance the Gospel. Do you know how to persuade and reason using the Bible with an unbeliever?
(B) Scripture challenges our autonomy (Acts 17:5-9)
Witnessing the reception to Paul’s teaching, the Thessalonian Jews turned to violence and political efforts to silence their opponent (Acts 17:5-6). They were unable to convince adherents otherwise, and were not able to withstand Paul’s reasonable arguments. These Jews must have felt like their Scriptures were being taken away from them and in their desperation, they turned to measures to try to bring things back under their control.
The Jews were clear that this was a fight for authority. Either Paul and his Scriptures were authoritative, or they were in charge of their own lives. It was a zero-sum matter. For them, they claimed that Paul and Silas had turned the world upside down to act against Caesar by claiming another king, Jesus (Acts 17:6, 8-9). They had the surprising insight to know that their claims and teaching were world transforming in nature. Friends, we don’t have to know a lot of things to change the world. We just need to know Paul’s message of the Gospel.
Learning from these Thessalonians, Christians should never turn to violence, not even when we feel we have no choice. Eeven in the worst persecution, the world is still under God’s good control. All things are always under the rule of a sovereign, loving God. Violence, or taking matters into our own hands, is never an option for us against our enemies. Our greatest weapon is reasoning from Scripture.
This is also not the first time that we have seen Jews resort to these tactics. They had also hung an innocent man on the Cross because of their need to control society and reject authoritative claims.
What about you? Do you believe that a sovereign, almighty God has spoken, yet you too wish to be free of Him? If so, we are just like these Jews who rejected His reasonable Word. Are you submitting to what God has said?
Friends, most of us do not want to kill Jesus, or Paul. We are not that crass in our rejection. But we may agree that Scripture is authoritative, but also try to relativize its claims over us. We do this when we say that sections of the Bible may apply to someone else but not me. Perhaps others can receive the missionary call to obey the Great Commission but not we, because we are busy with children, school or work etc. Perhaps God’s call is for people with specific spiritual gifts but not for introverts etc. Truly, either a sovereign, almighty God has spoken and we come under His authority or we Will seek out ways to subvert and undermine it.
What creative strategies have we employed to undermine the Word of the God who has spoken?
(C) Scripture is our final authority (Acts 17:10-15)
Facing this crisis, the church sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea for their safety. Yet, when they arrived, Paul and Silas did not go into hiding but went into the Jewish synagogue (Acts 17:10). Luke records how the Berean Jews were different from those in Thessalonians. These Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica — they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11).
There was a buzz in the air as people heard, discussed and checked what Paul said against the Scripture. They received the word with a posture of anticipation, delight, excitement.
Paul’s reasonable arguments did not land on more intellectual audiences. The passage does not suggest their intellectual rigour but their joy and excitement in believing that God had spoken. They love the fact that God has spoken. It is this kind of people that sing joyfully the words of Psalm 119! It is this kind of God they believe has spoken, and they believed in both His goodness and the goodness of His Word. As a result, they have no problem submitting to Scripture’s authority with joy and gladness.
They were not subjecting Paul to the architecture of facts previously held or known, but checking Scripture against Scripture. They checked the Scriptures to see if it was so, by looking to see if the teachings about Jesus according to Paul corresponded with what was actually promised. And this was likely not a once-off affair but it something they did daily, or “day after day” as the text reports. The Bereans were noble because they did not subject God’s revelation to another authority. They believed in the authority of God’s Word and subjected Paul and His teaching to that authority. Friends, we should be the people that subject what we hear to the Word God has spoken.
No wonder then, that once again many come to believe, including Greek women of high standing and men (Acts 17:12).
Paul’s experience reflects and reveals these words in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “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.”
Paul has a such a strong confidence in God’s breathed-out Word. Every part of it meaningful and useful because it isGod’s own Word. Because of Who has breathed it out, what attributes it possesses as a result, and how it has come to us, there is not a single part that is irrelevant and not useful.
Are you weary of God’s Word? Have you grown tired of hearing His voice simply because what He sounds like is not quite like what you’d like Him to? Do you need a reminder to submit to the authority of God’s good Word? Consider that every part of His word has a different glory and it will all endure forever. It is given to thrill us now. It will do us well to receive it as authoritative.