N EW D URHAM B APTIST C HURCH P ASTOR F RANK C UOZZO L ESSON 4 “T HE A UTHORITY OF THE F IRST C ENTURY C HURCH ”

II Timothy 3:13-17, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” Psalm 119:89, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” 2 L ESSON 4: T HE A UTHORITY OF THE F IRST C ENTURY C HURCH

Psalms 119:152, “Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.” We are able to hold in our hands and hide in our hearts the only eternal thing that the human eye will ever look upon! Think of that! Everything that we see happening around us should be judged through scriptural eyes, meaning that we should not look at the world to interpret the Bible; we should search the scriptures to interpret what is going on in the world. It is impossible to be spiritual without being scriptural. 3

#1) The Inspiration of ALL Scripture The Bible says that it’s words are “God breathed.” We must understand that we are not talking about the writers being inspired, but the very words themselves are inspired by God. In fact if we believe the testimony of the scripture, we must say that God always gave the words to the human penmen, but did not always immediately reveal to them the thoughts. For example, I Peter 1:10-11 says, “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” 4

In the prior passage we can see that when the OT prophets wrote of Christ, they actually had to search or study the prophecies that they themselves had written and even then they did not fully understand what they had written. For example in Daniel 12:8-9, Daniel said to God, “And I heard, but I understood not : then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” Here we find Daniel writing words given to him by divine inspiration which Daniel himself could not understand. He had to think about what he had written. And so even though God gave him the very words to write, he “understood not.” 5

We looked first of all at the inspiration of ALL Scripture, #2) The Necessity of ALL Scripture -When we are speaking about the necessity of ALL Scripture we mean every book, every chapter and every verse. -Most Christians are only familiar with parts of the Bible but very few Christians are familiar with “all scripture.” -In a puzzle, all of the pieces are necessary to complete the whole. Likewise all sixty-six books of the Bible are necessary to complete the whole. If you studied several books of the Bible to the exclusion of the others than you would only know a portion of what God wants you to know about Himself. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to us and we need all scripture if we want to know more about God. 6

And so it behooves every one of God’s children to read the Bible, to search the scriptures, to meditate on them, to memorize them and to ask God by His Spirit to teach us what He wants us to know about Himself in each book. We need certain pieces of clothing on our bodies to be completely dressed. It takes every piece to be properly attired. If we take one or more pieces of clothing out of our daily wardrobe, then we would not be properly attired and something would be missing. Without knowing all scripture, we would miss much of what God has for us. 7

#3) The Sufficiency of ALL Scripture Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” The Bible teaches us that Christ is all-sufficient. That means that He is all we need. By declaring that the scriptures are all-sufficient is declaring that God’s word meets our every need and that we can go to His word to have our needs met. Our greatest need is salvation and God says the first thing His word does is make us “wise unto salvation.” Paul told Timothy in II Timothy 3:15, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” 8

The Bible goes on to say that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.” Doctrine is what we believe and teach. Therefore we find in the Bible what we are to believe about such things as life and death, heaven and hell, past and future events and many issues of life. Our philosophy for life should come out of our theology and what we know to be true about God. In II Timothy 3:16 & 17 Paul goes on to say that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” 9

Paul gives a list to Timothy known as the works of the Word of God. They are, -Reproof- This means God’s word shows us where we are wrong. God’s word is truth and truth reveals error. -Correction- This means God’s word shows us what is right. -Instruction in Righteousness- This means that God’s word tells us how to do what is right. Why? -That the man of God may be perfect- This means complete or mature. In other words, everything we need in the Christian life to be a mature Christian is found in the Word of God. 10

-Thoroughly furnished unto all good works- Everything we need to equip us to be the laborers we must be, we can get from the Bible. Look no further than God’s word for a manual for the Christian life. Because of these facts about the very Words of God, we should seek as much as possible to use the very language of Scripture when speaking of the things of God because God’s words are,  More powerful  More Authoritative  Clearer  More Convicting  More Complete than man’s words. 11

Consider the following examples comparing God’s words versus Man’s words, God’s WordsMan’s Words “Drunkard” (Prov 23:21)“Alcoholic” “Complete” in Christ (Col 2:10)“Balance” “Looking Unto Jesus” (Heb 12:2)“Focus” “Eternal Life”(John 10:28) “Once saved always saved” “Adultery or Fornication” (Exod 20:14)“Affair” “False Witness” (Exod 20:16)“Fib or little white lie” 12

The first century church was a church that was wholly dependent upon God and His word. To become more like a first century church we must have a revolution back to the Bible! Next lesson- The Doctrine of the First Century Church. Acts 2:41-42 says, “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” 13