Luke 1:1-4 Can We Trust the Bible? July 2, 2006

A woman wanting to impress the pastor when he came to visit, said to her little girl, “Honey, go get the book that Mommy loves to read so much.” The little girl soon returned carrying the new mail order catalog.

All of us at times have had the feeling that we could and should be reading our Bibles more. It is a book that for generations has brought comfort, hope, and strength to millions of people. Yet in recent years, doubt has been cast upon the trustworthy nature of the Bible. Many a college student has been left confused by a philosophy or religion professor who questions the Bible. Many people will tell you that the Bible can mean anything because there are so many interpretations. I am reminded of two student chefs working in a restaurant one day, when their kitchen supervisor approached them with an order, and instructions on how to properly prepare it. The first chef looked at the recipe, and said "You can show a recipe to 100 different people, and each of them will end of up with a different dish. You can't understand recipes, so why even read them?" While this student fiddled around deciding how he thought he should really make the meal, the other student simply took the recipe, and prepared the dish according to instructions. The dish turned out to be delicious, exactly as the master chef wanted. Reading the Bible is much the same. Certainly there are interpretive aspects, but it is meant ultimately to be obeyed and followed in our lives.

However, recently a new challenge has emerged concerning the Bible. Dan Brown's widely popular book and now movie, The Da Vinci Code, claims that the Bible is not accurate to history at all. Dan Brown claims that there were many different gospel versions other than the four in our New Testament. He claims that these other gospels show that Jesus was not the Son of God but merely a good moral teacher. He claims that these other gospels reveal Jesus to be married to Mary Magdalene. Finally, Brown claims that these other gospels which tell the true story of Jesus were suppressed by the Roman Emperor Constantine and that our four gospels are lies. What are we to make of this? Today I am continuing my three week series on the Da Vinci Code and I want to ask the question, “Can we trust the Bible, particularly the four gospels to tell us the truth about Jesus?

Let's look at our scripture passage today. Luke 1:1 opens his story by telling us that many have compiled a narrative of the things that took place concerning Jesus. And this is true. There are other gospel narratives about Jesus other than the four gospels we have. Dan Brown is exactly right on this matter. There are other gospels such as the gospel of Thomas, Phillip, Mary, and even Judas. However, that is about the only point where Dan Brown is right. He claims there are eighty other gospels. No one knows where he obtained this number. There are maybe a dozen. He claims that these were suppressed by the Church but that these secret gospels were rediscovered by archaeologists in the 1950s in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. I have studied with some depth the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in reality, they were discovered in 1947, make no mention of Jesus, and contain no secret gospels. They are Jewish documents, more akin to the Old Testament than to the New Testament. They were a spectacular discovery which has revealed to us much about the ancient Jewish world, but they cannot be linked with any gospels. Dan Brown is simply fooling with the facts.

So what about these other dozen gospels that do actually exist? It has long been known that other gospels exist but only in the late 1940s at a site called Nag Hammadi in Egypt were most of these uncovered as full texts. All of these are known as Gnostic gospels. The Greek word Gnosis means knowledge. In the second through third centuries, along side the mainline church, there arose fringe cult groups which taught that one was saved not by faith in Christ but saved by learning secret esoteric knowledge. These documents—the most famous being the Gospel of Thomas—were written around the year 200 to teach people the secret knowledge to escape this world. And here is the major problem with all these Gnostic gospels. They are late. Look again at our scripture passage. Luke 1:2 says that his narrative was delivered to us by those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses. Who were these people who were with Jesus from the beginning of his work? Who were these people who were the eyewitnesses? They were the Apostles. Peter. James. John. Andrew. Matthew. And all the others. Why are the four gospels---Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—in our Bible today? Why did the church choose these? Because these documents were Apostolic, being closely linked with the original Apostles. Matthew was a disciple. Mark was the secretary for Peter. Luke was with Paul. John was the beloved disciple. While the other gospels mentioned by Dan Brown were all written 150 years too late and falsely had the names of Apostles placed on them to make them look authentic, the four gospels in the New Testament were written in the first generation of the early Church and are all linked with actual eyewitnesses who followed Jesus Christ. Now let me clearly ask you—if you want historical accuracy about the life of Jesus, what books should you read?

It does not worry me to ask the question about accuracy in the New Testament. Luke himself was concerned for accuracy. Look at verse 3. Luke says he has closely followed all these matters for some time and is now writing an orderly account. Closely followed the facts. Studied them for a long time. Wants to write an orderly account. You see, Luke wants to get the story right. So should we. How reliable are the New Testament documents which we possess? I mean, as these gospel stories were passed down through the centuries, have they not been altered and changed? The fact is the New Testament documents have stronger manuscript support than any other work of ancient literature including the works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, or Tacitus. We possess a huge amount of ancient papyrus evidence for the accuracy of our New Testament texts. Furthermore, the Church, the community of faith, has closely guarded these documents from any who would attempt to alter the story, such as in the case of the Gnostic gospels. Let me ask you, how many of you have read bedtime stories to young children? Very young children love to have the same story read over and over. Now what happens if you have read the same story many times and suddenly one night, you change the ending? (That's not how it goes.) You see, through the centuries, just as today with Dan Brown, there have many attempts to change the gospel story, but in every case, the community of faith quickly says, “That's not how the story goes.” These four—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-- gospels have come down to us from the original eyewitnesses who were there. And they have been closely guarded to be passed down to us today. But why?

Why have these books been passed down to us? Luke says in verse four, so that you may know the truth. The Bible claims to reveal to us the truth and yet many struggle to see any truth there. Phillip Brooks, the composer of the hymn “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,” stated, “The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through to see that which is beyond; but most people only look at it and so they see only the dead letters.” 

You should know that men and women for centuries have endured great persecution and death so that we could have these books. Kings and Queens have sought to destroy these books. At times, Church leaders themselves have tried to take these books from the hands of the people. Skeptics and doubters have tried to prove the Bible false. A thousand times over the death bell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession has formed, the inscription has been written on the tombstone, and the burial performed. But this book is a body that will not stay buried. Time and again, it comes back. Twenty years from now, no one will hardly remember Dan Brown's book or movie. Five hundred years from now, men and women, boys and girls will still read the Bible and hear the words of Jesus, “Come unto me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.” He says to us, “Seek the truth and the truth will set you free.”

As Luke tells us, there are other gospels but they are all late documents. The four gospels we have in the New Testament are first generation eyewitnesses. Luke and all the New Testament writers closely followed and recorded the life and teachings of Jesus so that we could have them today and so that we could know this truth which they claim to have discovered. What is this truth? That Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah as predicted by the Jewish scriptures in the Old Testament. That Jesus not Caesar is the anointed king of the world. That Jesus is the Word of Wisdom as longed for by centuries of Greek philosophers. Can this be true? Can this poor man who had little education, who never traveled far, who never held political office, who never wrote a book, who at age 33 was executed as a criminal, can this man really be the answer to all our questions, the key which opens the door to the universe? Next week, we will conclude our series as we discover who is Jesus? Amen.