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A love letter from God. Why and How Should I Read the Bible? The Bible ... a unique book ' ... A Love-letter from God. In the Bible, God speaks to those who ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: What sort of


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Who is Jesus?
  • What sort of faith?
  • Historical evidence
  • Reliability of the Bible
  • Was He only human?
  • What Jesus claimed
  • His teaching, works character prophecy
  • The problem of the resurrection

3
Why did Jesus die?
  • The pollution of sin
  • The power of sin
  • The penalty of sin
  • The partition of sin
  • Pictures from
  • the Law Courts (justice)
  • the Market Place (debt)
  • the Temple (sacrifice)
  • the home (relationship)

4
How Can I Be Sure of my Faith?
  • the philosophical question!
  • faith decision to trust based on evidence
  • difference between fact and feeling in a
    relationship
  • the promise of the word of God
  • the effect of the work of Jesus
  • the witness of the Spirit of God

5
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
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Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A unique book
A love letter from God
A manual for life
7
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
The Bible a unique book
An inspired and authoritative written record
of Gods care for His children
8
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
With other books, you search within
With the Bible, you are searched
With other books, you find out
With the Bible, you are found
9
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
Blessed are those who do not walk in the counsel
of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or
sit in the seat of mockers. But their delight is
in the law
of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and
night. They are like trees planted by streams of
water, which yield their fruit in season and
whose leaves do not wither. Whatever they do
prospers. Psalm 1 1 - 3
10
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
Uniquely Popular
  • 44 million Bibles sold each year
  • 6.8 Bibles in each American household
  • 1,250,000 Bibles and Testaments sold in the UK
    each year
  • 53 of people in the UK own a Bible 72 have a
    Bible in their home

Forget the modern British novelists and TV
tie-ins the Bible is the biggest -selling book
every year The Times
11
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
Uniquely Powerful
  • The Bible is high explosive. But it works
    in strange ways and no
    living man can tell or
    know how that book, in its journey through
    the world, has startled the individual
    soul in ten thousand
    different places into a new life, a new world, a
    new belief, a new conception, a new faith
    Stanley Baldwin (Prime Minister), 1928

12
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
Uniquely Powerful
  • In a world with rising interest in the occult,
    the offer of meeting with the living God is more
    thrilling, more satisfying, and much wiser
  • The teaching of the Bible and the words of the
    Bible exercise power over
    occult forces

13
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Unique Book
Uniquely Precious
  • Immensely valued where it has been forbidden by
    law
  • People do not live on bread alone, but on every
    word that comes from the mouth of God Jesus
    Matthew 4 4

14
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
  • God has spoken to us through His son, Jesus
    Hebrews 1 2
  • The main way we know about Jesus is through Gods
    revelation recorded in the Bible
  • (God has also revealed himself through creation
    and speaks directly through his Spirit)
  • To know God, we need to know Jesus to meet
    Jesus, we need the Bible

15
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
All scripture is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that Gods servant may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work 2
Timothy 3 16, 17
100 human work 100 inspired
16
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
All scripture is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that Gods servant may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work 2
Timothy 3 16, 17
For Jesus, what Scripture said, God said
17
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
  • The Scriptures are perfect
    Irenaeus, c 130 - 200 AD
  • Scripture which has never erred Martin Luther
    1483 - 1546
  • written under the inspiration of the Holy
    Spirit have God as their author
    Vatican II

18
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
Inspiration doesnt mean
its all easy to understand!
  • Peter found some of Pauls letters hard to
    understand! 2 Peter 3
    16
  • The Bible was written over 1500 years by at least
    40 authors, in a whole range of genres
    (historical, narrative, poetry, prophecy, letters
    apocalyptic)
  • Every great doctrine has its difficulties, e.g.
    suffering

19
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
I went back and I got my Bible, and I went out
in the moonlight. And I got to a stump and put
the Bible on the stump, and I knelt down and I
said, Oh God I cannot prove certain things. I
cannot answer some of the questions but I accept
this book by faith as the Word of God. I stayed
by the stump praying wordlessly, my eyes moist
I had a tremendous sense of Gods presence. I had
a great peace that the decision I had made was
right.
Billy Graham
20
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
If we accept that the Bible is inspired by God,
then its authority must follow
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Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Manual for Life
  • Jesus supreme authority Mark 7 1 - 20, 12 18 -
    27 (above church leaders of his time, and above
    the opinions of others)
  • Our authority for what we believe
    (tells us what God has said)
  • Our authority for how we act
    (the Ten Commandments at work under
    pressure sexual morality)
  • Rules that bring freedom
    (driving on the left - break the rules, you
    get hurt!)

22
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Love-letter from God
The Bible is more than
a manual -
God spoke then,
but God also speaks now
You diligently study the scriptures because you
think that by them you possess eternal life.
These are the scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Jesus John 5 39, 40
23
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Love-letter from God
Scripture is the manger or cradle in which the
infant Jesus lies. Dont let us inspect the
cradle and forget to worship the baby. The
Bible is alive, it speaks to me it has feet, it
runs after me it has hands, it lays hold on me.

Martin Luther 1483 - 1546
24
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Love-letter from God
In the Bible, God speaks to those
who are not yet Christians
From somewhere I got this desire to read the
Bible again. Thats the most important part of my
conversion. I started with the Acts of the
Apostles and then moved on to Pauls letters -
Romans and Corinthians. And it was only after
that I came to the gospels. In the New Testament
I suddenly discovered the way that life should be
followed.
David Suchet as Poirot
25
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
A Love-letter from God
  • As we study the Bible, we come into contact with
    Jesus
  • He brings us joy and peace
  • The Bible gives us defence against spiritual
    attack

In the Bible, God speaks to Christians
The word of God is living and active. Sharper
than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even
to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow
it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the
heart Hebrews 4 12
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Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
Some practical matters
  • Be realistic about time
  • Get alone if you can
  • Take diary, notebook, coffee!
  • Ask God to speak to you
  • Start with something like the gospels
  • Ask What does it say? What does it mean? How
    does it apply to me?
  • Put it into practice

27
Why and How Should I Read the Bible?
Some practical matters
Fruit perseverance prospering
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