Last night in our series ‘The Bigger Picture’, we looked at how the Bible actually came to be handed down to us. We believe that ‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Tim 3:16-17), but the process by which God gave us His word often seems to us mundane and even confusing. Why couldn’t He just write it out for us, word for word, to ensure there was no dispute about it? Why entrust fallible humans with such an amazing job? As Casting Crowns say, ‘The Bible was inscribed over a period of 2000 years in times of war and in days of peace by kings, physicians, tax collectors, farmers, fishermen, singers and shepherds. The marvel is that a library so perfectly cohesive could have been produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time which staggers the imagination. Jesus is its grand subject, our good is designed and the Glory of God is its end.’ (‘The Word Is Alive’)

Not everyone believes this, of course, and many people say that the Bible is full of contradictions and errors and therefore can’t be relied on. How did people decide over the years what books to include in the Bible and what books to leave out? How can we be sure that what we read today hasn’t been corrupted or changed?

The first Bible[1] containing both Old and New Testaments ever to be printed was an edition in Latin published in Mainz, Germany in 1456 known as the ‘Gutenberg Bible’, but the Latin version printed in that edition had been circulating in Europe for more than a thousand years. Jerome completed this version (known as the ‘Vulgate’, because it was the ‘common’ edition) in 404 AD.

The three oldest, fairly complete, manuscripts of the Bible known to be in existence are not in Latin, however, but in Greek and it’s thought that two of them were written probably at least two generations before Jerome was making his Latin version. Latin and Greek were, of course, the key languages of the world at those times, for the Romans and the Greeks were the conquerors of that day, in much the same way that English has become the lingua franca of the world in the 20^th and 21^st centuries because of the spread of the British Empire in Victorian times.

Those 3 manuscripts are now:

• In the Vatican library in Rome (‘Codex Vaticanus’)
• In the British Museum in London (‘Codex Sinaiticus’ & ‘Codex Alexandrinus’)

The Greek version of the Old Testament (known as the ‘Septuagint’) was done at Alexandria in Egypt, but the Old Testament was written down long before this and even before it was written down was handed down orally so that by the time Jesus lived, there was a recognised order to the Old Testament. The books in the New Testament were named by Origen in AD 240, although it was not until AD 367 that Athanasius provided us with an actual list of New Testament books identical with ours. However, long before we have that list, the evidence shows that the 27 books, and only those, were widely accepted as Scripture.

For books to be accepted as ‘God-breathed’, several criteria had to be fulfilled. These are often referred to as the ‘5 As’:

1. Authorship (who wrote these books? The authority of the writers was paramount to accepting the authority of what was written)
2. Authentic (did the writings have the ring of truth about them – ‘This is what the Lord says’ is the prophetic ring of Scripture.)
3. Ancient (most of the New Testament, for example, was written by eyewitnesses in a relatively short time after the life of Christ)
4. Accepted (Jesus said He came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, and the Old Testament was widely accepted by all Jews in the form we know by the time He was born; with regard to the New Testament, it took time for letters to circulate among the churches, so it is all the more significant that 23 of the 27 books were almost universally accepted well before the middle of the second century. When tradition carries the weight of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the widely scattered Christian communities across the vast Roman Empire, with no one church controlling the beliefs of all the others, it has to be taken seriously.)
5. Accurate (did it conform to the general teaching of the church overall?)

Although this process may have taken a long time and may seem rather ordinary to us (where’s the inspiration in debating and discussing?!), it shows us how God is willing to work with people. 1 Cor 3:9 says we are God’s fellow workers, His co-workers. There is no need for God to include us in His work at all. He has the power and authority to do whatever He likes, but somehow He chooses to use us, a mystery that combines our imperfections with His perfection, another example of His completely undeserved grace

[1] See ‘The Making of the Bible’ (Geddes Macgregor), P 2ff

Here are a few more photos of Jade’s baptism:

Setting up the baptistery beforehand, heating the water:

Jade answering questions before the baptism and listening to verses given to her (John 15:9/ Col 2:6-7):

Everyone watching!

The joy of a baptismal service is great, but the advantage of this portable baptistery is that we can be ready to do another baptism at very little notice! So if anyone else wants to be baptised, just let us know – this is one service we are very happy to repeat!

In photography, the photographer focuses on a particular object and draws the eye to certain things; how a photograph is framed or composed gives a definite focus to how we look at the photo.

In this photo, the rose is the focus of our attention, with the rest of the church (including the cross) intended as background:

In this photo, however, the church hall is the focus of our attention, with the rose as background.

All too often, we spend our lives in the now, focussing only on what is immediately before us, failing to see the ‘bigger picture.’ Luke 12:16-21 tells a parable about a rich man whose focus was wrong. By focussing only on the prospect of riches and a life of ease, he failed to contemplate eternity. We can focus on riches, reputation or other people, and fail to think about God. The present reality we see, however, is only part of the picture. Ps 40:4 in the Message Version says ‘Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,” ignore what the world worships; the world’s a huge stockpile of God-wonders and God-thoughts.’ We have to refuse to buy the lie that the world sells as our main focus and refocus on God.

Col 2:22-3:4 reminds us that the things of this world are destined to perish, and we need to fix our hearts and minds on things above. We have to know what our goal or purpose is in life and we need to allow God to direct our focus. A good way of discerning where our priorities lie is to look at where we willingly spend our time. As Jesus reminded us (Matt 6:19-21), where our treasure is, there our heart is. We are called to love God whole-heartedly (Mark 12:30) and must have a clear focus on God, for it is all too easy not to have in mind the things of God (see Matt 16:21-23).

God works with each one of us both individually and collaboratively, rather like a conductor directs and holds the orchestra together. We can’t see the whole picture, but must rely on the Holy Spirit to have that bigger picture in view and to direct us into what we should be doing. We have to be single-minded in our pursuit of God, allowing both what we seek and think to be focussed on God. A zoom lens on a camera can focus on even the smallest detail, but sometimes in the process, it’s easy to lose sight of the whole. We need to allow God to be at the centre of our lives so that our focus is on Him; that way, we can be sure not to get lost and lose our focus.

Everyone enjoyed singing about the love of Jesus tonight!

It’s so high…

… and so low…

… and so wide…

We also enjoyed hearing other people’s testimonies of how they had come to know God and how their baptisms had led to times of blessing:

After the service, there was time to eat and share fellowship as we all celebrated this great occasion.

Tonight we held our first baptismal service in our building on Market Street, an occasion for great celebration!

We held the service in the community room in order to be able to accommodate the baptistery, starting with a time of worship:

Dave then explained about baptism. In our church, we don’t baptise babies, but baptise believers who want to obey Jesus and live for Him. Baptism is by full immersion, since this was the way that this was done in the Bible, and does not save anyone; it’s a sign of the salvation that Jesus has already given to us. Rom 6:1-12 explains that as we go down into the water, this is symbolic of the death of Christ to take away our sins and symbolic of our own death to our old way of living. As we rise up from the water, this is symbolic of the resurrection of Christ and the new life He brings. Baptism is our identification with Christ and a public proclamation of our allegiance to Him.

Then it was time for the actual baptism, with various shades of apprehension on Jade’s face!

Dead to sin…

… but alive in Christ!

A truly joyous occasion!

The questions raised by the Corinthians don’t always seem especially relevant to people nowadays. In our culture, do we still sacrifice meat to idols? Do we stress over how to give money to charity? Surely we’re not still hung up on sex in the way the Corinthians were? Because many of the New Testament letters deal with specific questions that are inevitably related to their context and times, there can be a tendency for people to shrug their shoulders and ignore what is written as no longer relevant to them. Similarly, because many modern questions involve aspects of technology that were not even invented when the Bible was written, there is often a tendency for people to believe the Bible must inevitably be irrelevant nowadays, for it cannot possibly speak about those issues. Questions such as the ethics of IVF or embryonic cloning, GM crops, transgender issues, organ transplants, computer hacking and so on are not specifically mentioned in the Bible; because of this, many people feel that they must work out their own stances on such issues with no reference to the Bible.

I often wonder what Paul’s letters to churches would look like if he were writing in the 21^st century. How would he ‘get down to the questions asked of him’ in a modern context? Our ‘Talking Point’ series is perhaps a little taster, as we seek to relate the Bible to these modern issues, severing the disconnect that many people feel exists between the Bible and modern issues.

It is perhaps pointless to speculate about what Paul would write nowadays, but I am by no means convinced either that the issues we read about in the Bible are irrelevant today (when you get to the heart of the issues, the sinfulness of the human heart is exposed, and that hasn’t changed since the Fall!) or that the Bible has nothing to say on ‘modern-day issues.’ Article VI of the ’39 Articles of Religion’ (the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation) says ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.’ In other words, all we need to know concerning life and salvation can be found in the Bible. That may well not be all we’d like to know, for we’re curious, thinking, intrigued people. But all we need to know to live as God wants us to live can be explored in the Bible. Our problem is not necessarily not understanding the Bible, but our failure to obey it. Ps 119 talks of the need to meditate on God’s word and allow it to permeate our whole lives; Ps 119:32 says ‘I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding.’ As we seek God and allow His Spirit to breathe on His word, I believe He will broaden our understanding and give us wisdom beyond our intelligence and our years; for us to truly have this broad understanding, however, we must also seek to obey (to run in the path of God’s commands.) As Mary reminded the servants at the wedding at Cana, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’ (John 2:5)