October 17th sermon: "Sola Scriptura"

    2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

 I spent last Monday afternoon at my mother’s place. I was lying on the couch watching the BC lions. I flipped channels between plays. I observed that there were at least two talk shows dispensing medical advice. There were at least another two dispensing parenting and marital advice. And I reflected and realized that there is a whole lot of advice given in this world. In fact, there is a whole industry based on advice. Just check out your local bookstore. Brows the self-help section. From investing to golf to cooking to spirituality, there is no shortage of advice, and no shortage of people willing to give it.

            For Christians, this tremendous market of advice raises a very important question: Where does the church stand in the mix—the mix of plentiful and contradictory advice  which the world offers? What do we, as Christians, make of all of this information  which is offered to us? My pastor says one thing, the television counselor says something quite different. The book I’m reading about marriage contradicts everything I hear in church on the topic.  That talk-show psychologist is giving me advice that I sure wouldn’t hear from the pulpit. With the explosion of information made possible by the internet, people are saturated with information, and many are burdened with information overload. In all of this it is easy for the Christian to become confused, to lose sight of the truth of God’s Word alone—and follow teachings which sound good, make us feel good, tell us what we want to hear, but don’t tell us the truth. False teachings are easy, they are comfortable, they are bendable, and mallable. The sinner likes them, because they put us in charge, and push God out of the way. False teachings are stealthy, deceptive, and alluring. But like a steady diet of junkfood, they do not nourish, but lead, ultimately to spiritual malnutrition. But in times of pain, confusion, despair, it is very tempting to look around in desperation and grasp at whatever is offered—especially answers that are easy.

            This explains the popularity of  the “health and wealth” gospel which we here proclaimed by some televangelists. If only you have enough faith you will be healed of all sickness. If only you believe harder, you will be rich and prosperous. The promise of the success gospel is a false promise, for it gives false hope and tells a lie. And that lie says that Christian faith leads to worldly success and happiness, and a life free of pain and struggle. But we know from scripture that this isn’t the case. Jesus, the Son of God, did everything right; yet still was crucified. All but one of the original twelve Apostles was executed. All of Paul’s letters to the Christian communities in the Greco Roman world speak pastorally to some kind of trouble within those communities—Paul himself was afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh”Christians strong in faith and righteous in spirit endure all kinds of hardship and trouble, and are not spared the sufferings of life. That fact is something the purveyors of the “health and wealth” gospel do not want you to know, an inconvenient truth which is brushed under the carpet.

False and confusing teaching isn’t a new problem. Paul spent a lot of time repairing the damage done by false teachers. In today’s Epistle reading, the Apostle Paul gives sound instruction to his protégé, Timothy. This advice points him to the source—the source where the truth is to be found, and that source is scripture. Paul tells Timothy and tells us: “ All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” In a world where so much confusion abounds, and so much false teaching, there is one place where clarity can be found. It can be found in the pages of scripture.

But we must be careful in how we approach scripture. Some view the Bible as a kind of instruction manual for good living, believing that if they follow all of the rules, then they will make God happy and earn their way into heaven. But this is wrong. The  Bible is not an instructional manual or mere historical document—it is the Living Word of God. It is the Living Word because it points to He who is the Living God for us. Martin Luther said it succinctly: “All Scriptures point to Christ Alone”. Christ is the centre—both of the New Testament and the Old Testament. Paul reminds Timothy of this basic spiritual fact. “Continue”, he says, “in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” “Sola Scriptura”—Scripture alone emerged as a great truth held by the reformers, and for good reason.

Scripture is reliable, scripture is trustworthy, scripture is inerrant, without error, because it innerantly  points to an testifies to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. You cannot be a Christian, you cannot proclaim Jesus Lord and Saviour and at the same time deny the Bible—deny the source which tells us Jesus is Lord and Saviour. You cannot believe the Bible and deny Christ. The Bible is the only reliable source and guide for Christian living. As Paul says,  all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Yes, there have been errors in translation of scripture. There have been errors in interpretation of scripture. But the message of salvation through Christ, and what that means for us is without error.

Now Paul wasn’t speaking to Timothy about what we understand as the New Testament. At the time Paul was writing  it hadn’t been written yet. What he was telling Timothy was that Christ had been revealed in the pages of the Old Book, the Hebrew Bible; for the work of Christ is present in and throughout the Old Testament Narrative, delivering and nourishing the Israelites in faith, until He himself entered the world in the person of Jesus. This isn’t easy to understand. The workings of God is beyond all human comprehension. But what we can understand is that in the face of Jesus we see the face of God for us-the God who loves us, the God who has claimed us, the God who has rescued us. That is the most important and central lesson we need to learn from the Bible. In the pages of the Bible we learn about what God has done for us, how God has transformed us, and how God expects us to live according to his great promise for us. All of this  deserves our attention, and Paul is emphatic as he urges Timothy in the use of scripture.

The first thing Paul tells Timothy is to proclaim the message. What is the message? What is the central message? The best summary of that message is John 3:16: “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life” That’s the message. That’s the Good News. And pay very close attention to the facts of this message. Who is the initiator of the action? Who is the subject of the sentence? The answer is clear. It is God.

This past week, the world ‘s eyes were fixed on television screens as Chilean miners were brought safely to the surface from within what would have been graves, miles beneath the surface of the earth. These men were trapped. They could have done nothing to rescue themselves. Their physically reality paralleled the spiritual reality of humanity. Luther said it succinctly, “ were are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves”.  Trying harder doesn’t help—it cannot help you. What was required was a great rescue. Just like the rescuers were sent down into that collapsed mine to bring those men up, Christ came down to earth to bring us up. That’s the good news. We don’t have to try; it has all been done for us. To believe that is to have faith. To trust in that is to have faith. But we need to be reminded. We need to be reminded again and again and again. Again and again we need to hear that Word of Life proclaimed Through the visible signs of water, God proclaims that Word to us. Through the wine and bread of communion, God proclaims that word to us. And through the pages of scripture God proclaims that Word to Us.

We need to hear that Word, both in Good Times and Bad. So Paul urges Timothy to be persistent in his proclamation whether the time is favourable or unfavorable.

And we will struggle with the Word of God, because there will be things in the Word that we do not want to hear. We will hear that we are not to do as we like; that Christians are called to a different way of being, that may cut sharply against the grain of social norms in this time and place.  So we need to be constantly convinced of God’s love for us, rebuked when we sin and are straying off path, and encouraged to live lives worthy of the Christian.  Scripture does that too: it convicts us, calls us back to repentance, and back to trusting in the God who has done all things for us—rather than trusting in ourselves and our self constructed idols.

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus encourages his followers with the parable of a widow who sought justice from an unethical judge. How easy it was for her to place her faith and trust in this man. How easy it is for many of us to place trust in the things of this world. Yet, how difficult it is to place trust in the God who has promised us eternal life—so our Lord commands and encourages us to pray always. The walk of  faith is not easy. It is not easy because life can be so very difficult.  Faith can be a struggle. Just as Jacob wrestled with God at the Jabokk we will wrestle and struggle with God’s Word as it confronts us, convicts us, and challenges us. But we have not been left alone. That same Word is the same Word which has rescued us, nourishes us and sustains us. It is a word of promise, and that promise does not depend on us, does not depend on how religious we are, does not depend on what we have done or haven’t done. The righteousness Paul speaks of is not something we muster, it is something which God has given us freely through Christ. We know this from scripture.

            But we also know from scripture that God has claimed us, and rescued us for a reason, and it is not so that we can do as we like, how we like. It is with a far greater purpose than humanity can imagine or conceive that God has done this great rescuing work—it is to transform us into the image of Christ. Yes it has been said many times and it is most certainly true that there is nothing we can do to make us love God more or make God love us less.  But there are things we do to turn away from God. When we neglect the hearing of  God’sWord, we turn away from the nourishment of the Gospel. When the nourishment stops the starvation begins. We may struggle against the Word, but we need to hear it, we need to be nourished. And that nourishment happens here in this place. It happens when we hear that word proclaimed, “In the name of Jesus Christ your Sins are Forgiven” For where there is forgiveness of sins there s new life and salvation. The nourishment happens when we are washed in the waters of baptism, and give thanks for that baptism. That nourishment happens in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. That nourishment also happens in individual Bible reading and in  group Bible Study. All of the work of those great reformers was not done so that our Bibles collect dust on our bookshelves. Some might respond by saying: Well I did my Bible reading a long time ago. I know the stories. But that really misses the point. God’s Word is Living is active, it is doing something—it convicts and restores, admonishes and guides. It is a the Living Message of the Living God. The same Living God who has done such a marvelous and wonderous thing for you, who has given you the gift of eternal life, who is transforming you into the image of Christ. Now. May the peace which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in  Christ Jesus, Amen.