Guest Speaker: Dr. Christopher Graham.

“How To Read a Book – Part I” – Mark 1

Dr. Bingham’s series on The Nature of Scripture resumes August 1.

Series on The Nature of Scripture

“God Talks” – Genesis 1

What would it be like if the Creator of all things chose to keep silent? What would it be like if God gave us the silent treatment?

This would be the exact opposite from the God we encounter in the Holy Scriptures. We find out in the very first chapter that the Creator of all things is a talking God. To be silent is entirely contrary to God’s nature. In fact, we see in the first chapter of Genesis that God brings everything into existence by speaking it into being. All through Genesis we find that God cannot keep silent. He is a speaking God.

God even calls His Son “the Word of God.” (John 1:1)

2 Timothy 3:16 – Everything you need to do every good work that God expects of you is to be found in the scriptures. You don’t need private dreams or visions or a private word or for God to whisper something to you. Everything you need is between the beginning of Genesis and the end of Revelation. Because God is a speaking God, His words become for us our very life, strength, and breath to live the life that He intends for us.

2 Peter is a broadly addressed letter, to all Christians. Chapter 1 tells us that what we need to be complete in Jesus Christ is a God speaking, revealing, manifesting, prophesying, declaring God. The body of the letter begins in verse 3 and sounds very much like 2 Timothy 3:16. We have been supplied with everything we need for life and Godliness. Peter declares that everything originated from God’s divine power, but it is by our knowledge of Him through His word that we receive His promises and through them “participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world.” It is our comprehension of God and His Son that gives us everything we need for life and Godliness. In this chapter, we find the apostle to the Jews in agreement with the apostle to the Gentiles, that everything we need for life and Godliness has been given to us. Peter and Paul both bring us back to the word of the prophets and God’s promises through them.

Peter further reveals that God’s mere words have the power to transform our lives. Conversely, we also know that a single word withheld or spoken in thoughtlessness or malice can drive a person to utter despair, death, or even hell. The power of the promises of God is life-giving. His words can ween you from your evil desires and cause you to escape the corruption of the world and participate in the divine nature which enters your life and transforms you from what you were to what you should be because words are powerful. If you have a time in your life when you think God is giving you the silent treatment, remember it is not God keeping silent but rather you not inquiring of the words God has already spoken.

Because of God’s promises to us we can and must add to ourselves the virtues listed in verses 5 and 6.

In verses 12 – 15, Peter is anticipating his death, which tradition says took place in Rome as a martyr’s death. This is the same situation in which Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy; Paul was anxious to impress on Timothy that the scriptures are able to give him everything he needs for life and godliness. And that is exactly what burdens Peter’s heart in his second letter. In verse 16, Peter reminds his listeners that he and the apostles did not deliver to them any kind of cleverly invented story or fable but they spoke the words of Jesus as they heard them and presented the things Jesus did as they saw Him do them. On the day of Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter heard God declare Jesus to be His son and the words God spoke are in Psalm 2:7. In the same way that the promise of Psalm 2 was fulfilled, you can depend on every other promise and every other word spoken by God to be fulfilled. Psalm 2 also points to Isaiah 42.

In verse 19, Peter declares that we have “the word of the prophets made more certain” and that we ought to pay attention. Their words are more certain because the apostles have seen them fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, in verse 21, we find that the words of the prophets are reliable because they did not speak out of their own will but they were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak the very words of God. The reason the scriptures can transform you out of your evil desires and from corruption into incorruption is because they do not find their origin in human beings but in the One divine being, God, who through the third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, makes sure that when the prophet writes or speaks his words do not come from within himself. Everything the prophets spoke are the very words of the God whom we see speaking in the first chapter of Genesis. The words of God are just as powerful in your life as they were to bring light into being, just as powerful to free you from your evil desires as the word of God was to separate the water from the land, and just as powerful in your life to change you and transform you from a corruptible thing into an incorruptible thing as the word of God was to fill the heavens and the earth. God’s word is life-giving. The word of God is sanctifying as well as saving. You have need of nothing else.

Beginning of Series on The Nature of Scripture

“Lovers of Self & Pleasure reject the Truth” – 2 Timothy 3

Paul probably wrote this letter to Timothy from one of two places in Rome, Marmertine Prison (Carcere Marmertino) or Abby of the Three Fountains (Monestery Complesso dell’Abbazia Tre Fontane).

2 Timothy 3:1-9
Paul begins this chapter by telling Timothy to pay close attention to what he is going to say; it is very important.
For Paul, the last days began with the coming of Christ.

Paul wants Timothy to know that, although he may have some good days, the times in which we all live are terrible times.

Paul gives two characteristics of the last days — people love in perverted ways and people relate to truth in a perverted way.

People of the last days are lovers of self and money to the point of not loving anyone else and totally without virtue of any kind and loving pleasure rather than loving God. They are always learning but never acknowledge the truth and are even against the truth.

Don’t think our times are wonderful. Terrible times require devotion to trustworthy teaching.

2 Timothy 3:10-12
Paul points to himself as a man not described by the above verses. Our first obligation is not to be like the people in the above verses. If you do live a Godly life in Christ, that is the opposite of those described above, you will suffer and be persecuted.

2 Timothy 1:8
Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of him but join him in suffering for the gospel.

2 Timothy 1:11-12
Paul is suffering because he was appointed to be a proclaimer of the gospel, an apostle, and a teacher.

2 Timothy 1:15
Everyone in Asia Minor has deserted Paul.

2 Timothy 2:8-9
Paul is suffering for the gospel to the point of being chained like a criminal.

2 Timothy 4:9
Demas, because of his love of the world, has deserted Paul; so Paul wants Timothy to come to him quickly. Things got too uncomfortable for those helping Paul.

We need to understand that John 10:10, in speaking of having life abundantly, does not mean we have an easy time; but, rather, that we experience abundance in spiritual matters.

2 Timothy 3:14-16
Paul exhorts Timothy to continue in what he has learned and what he has been convinced because he knows the ones from whom he has learned it and has known the holy scriptures since he was a child, which are able to bring salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Paul calls the scriptures “holy” because these writings are as different from any other writing as God is different from all His creatures. What we hold from Genesis to Revelation are holy writings able to make us wise but not to deliver us from suffering, persecution, and desertions.

All of scripture is God-breathed. This is what makes scripture unlike any other writing. They have their origin in the God who spoke the universe into existence. God used human beings to write the scriptures within a cultural and historical context but they didn’t come up with it.

Some translations use the word, inspired, in place of God-breathed, but it is not like an artist being inspired by something in his surroundings or by some piece of knowledge or by his emotional response to something.

The scriptures are entirely capable of themselves to thoroughly equip us for every good work. We do not need anything else to equip us; we do not need a private vision. We don’t need God to speak to us privately. All we need are the words written from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation because they have their origin in God. But remember that living your life according to the holy scriptures turns on the heat of suffering and persecution.

A book published by Crossway, entitled Why, O God?, has an article by Dr. Douglas Blount, which gives the best Christian perspective on suffering and evil to come along in years.

Guest speaker: Christopher Graham

“Trees in Scripture” – Isaiah 44:1-5, 41:1-4, 17-20; Jeremiah 17:7-8

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Guest speaker: Christopher Graham

“Grass in Scripture” – Mark 6:39; Isaiah 40:6-8; Job 8:11-12

Series in Genesis

“God Pulled a Switch on Joseph” – Genesis 48:11 – 49:12;

Philippians 4:11

Guest speaker: Christopher Graham

“Flowers & the Brevity of Life” – Isaiah 40:6-8, 12, 21-26, 18-20, 27-31;

James 1:10-11

Isaiah divides into two sections:
I. 1-39 — Judgement & Doom
II. 40-66 — Books of Comfort

Throughout scripture flowers are the metaphor for brevity of life.

The remedy for brevity is to focus on the everlasting and all-powerful nature of God.

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