(upbeat music) ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ Yes that's the book for me ♪ ♪ I stand alone on
the word of God ♪ ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ Yes that's the book for me ♪ ♪ I stand alone on
the word of God ♪ ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ Yes that's the book for me ♪ ♪ I stand a lone
on the word... ♪ ("The B-I-B-L-E" music) ♪ The B-I-B-L-E ♪ ♪ Yes, that's the book for me ♪ - [Man] Hey, Bob! What are you doing? - Nothing, just
cleaning up a little. ("The B-I-B-L-E" music) - So this is a series
for adults, really, who were introduced to
the Bible as children. And this is a series for adults who were introduced
to the Bible as adults by adults who were introduced
to the Bible as children. Because either way you go, most of us know
some Bible stories, but very few of us know
the story of the Bible. That is, how we got the
Bible to begin with. And understanding
how we got the Bible is almost as important as
knowing what's in the Bible. Because as we're going to see, the backstory sheds
enormous light on the story. Now, for children growing up, was it important
that children knew, that we knew when we were
kids how the Bible came to be? Probably not. We would have been bored stiff, we weren't interested at
all so it wasn't a big deal. But as adults, this is an
extraordinarily important topic and it's a fabulous,
fabulous story. Because if you don't know, if you don't know the
story of the Bible, it's easy to discount
the stories in the Bible. In fact, some of you have
walked away from faith or you have friends or
family member or kids who've walked away from faith. That maybe you're
watching today, haven't been to
church in a long time, or somebody invited you
haven't been for a long time. And you haven't told the
person that invited you or you haven't told the
person you're sitting next to, or maybe you haven't told the
person that you're married to or your parents
that you know what, I just don't think I believe
all of that stuff anymore. And it's understandable. Because if you don't know
the story of the Bible, it's very difficult to continue to embrace the
stories in the Bible. And the problem is,
the big problem is, we'll talk about this
for the next few weeks, is that the way that
we got our Bibles is not the way the
world got the Bible. By the time you got your Bible, it had been chapter
and versed up, right? It had been footnoted. It was in English. All the type was set. There were maps,
there were titles, there were headers, there were cross references, there was a concordance. When you got your
Bible it was all done. But that's not how the
world got the Bible. And the story of how
the world got the Bible sheds extraordinary light
and gives us insight into the stories in the Bible. Now, my first Bible
didn't look like this. My first Bible was red, it was much smaller, it was wrapped in genuine
imitation leather, and it had my name printed
on the front in gold leaf. Now I'm just curious if
you're watching or everybody everywhere at all
of our campuses, how many of you had
a Bible as a child with your name
printed on the front in some form or fashion? Yes, that's right. And I bet when you
received your Bible, for those of you who
didn't raise your hand, you're feeling kind of left out, chill; I'll tell you why
in just a minute, okay? It's no big deal. So the thing is when
you received your Bible, if you received a Bible
like I did as a child, we were probably
told similar things. We were told this is God's word. It's all true. Try to live your life by it, I don't know what kind
of words you were told depending on how old you were
and of course we believed what we were told because
these were adults telling us and we believed
whatever adults told us. And if you're like me,
you've always had respect and held the Bible
in high regard. And I was an unusual child. As I began to read I
actually read the Bible throughout my entire
life in every season and even high
school and college, I've always read the Bible. But the way I received
even my Bible that I love is not the way the world
received the Bible. Now your situation
may be very different. Maybe you weren't given
a Bible as a child. In fact, maybe you
went to a church or maybe you had a religious
tradition where you were not even encouraged
to read the Bible. There's a couple in our
small group right now who said the tradition
they grew up in, they were actually encouraged
not to read the Bible, even though it was a
Christian congregation. Because the pastor or the
priest was responsible for telling everyone in the
church what was in the Bible and how to understand the Bible. But regardless of how you
were raised with the Bible, the truth is for most of us
we developed an understanding of a respect for the Bible
not based on reading it, because very few people
actually read it. We based our understanding
on what we were told about the Bible and the
stories that we were told and the stories that
were selectively told to us as children, as high school students
and ultimately as adults. But either way, regardless, and again, you may have been, not been raised in a
Christian tradition at all. But even if you've
not been raised in any kind of
Christian tradition, even if you've never
read the Bible, you have a perspective or
you have sort of an attitude about or you have a belief
about what the Bible is and what the Bible isn't. So regardless of where
we're coming from, what happens is this. That all of us carry our
childhood perspective of the Bible into adulthood. Now for many of us
if the Bible says it, that still settles it. But for many of you,
many of you maybe who were even raised
with the Bible, it's just not that
simple anymore. Because somewhere along the way, somebody pointed out to you
what else the Bible says. The parts they didn't talk
about in Sunday school. The parts they didn't
talk about at church. In fact, you may be in a
situation where you brought some of the parts to
your parents' attention or to your pastor
or priest attention that they skipped
over in Sunday school, that they skipped over in church and you find yourself
having a very difficult time reconciling what you found
in the Bible with the reality that you live in and the
world that you live in. And you're an honest person. You couldn't just
look the other way. So perhaps because of
what you discovered about or in the Bible,
you walked away. Or perhaps you're
considering walking away. So regardless of
where you came from and regardless of how you
were introduced to the Bible, this is a very, very
important series. Now, you may be surprised
to learn that the story of the Bible does not
begin in the beginning. The story of the Bible doesn't
begin in the beginning, the story of the
Bible actually begins toward the end of the middle. The story of how we
actually got the Bible begins with a first century
doctor who was not Jewish but Greek and his name is Luke. And Luke actually spent the
time necessary to document the events of the life of Jesus. And the reason he sat down
to document the events and the life of Jesus is he had a wealthy friend
named Theophilus and Theophilus was a first
century Jesus follower, a first century Christian. And Theophilus, like many people
in this region of the world had heard enough
stories about Jesus and had met enough
of the eyewitnesses of Jesus' life and miracles that he had put
his faith in Jesus. But Theophilus wanted
an orderly account of how this whole
thing transpired. It's a little bit like
hearing about somebody that you have a lot of
respect for and you hear bits and pieces of the story and
you have two or three quotes, but at some point it's like okay but tell me the whole story. Put it in order for me. So Luke decided for the
sake of this wealthy friend Theophilus, he decided
to sit down and write an orderly account of the
events of the life of Jesus. In fact, this is how
his document begins. We know it is the
Gospel of Luke, but let's not call it that
yet because that would happen way down the road. This was simply a Greek
in the first century who's documenting to
the best of his ability the life and the works
and the words of Jesus. And here's how his
document begins. He says, many have undertaken
to draw up an account, or a document, of the
things that have been fulfilled, or the things
that happened, among us. Something had happened
worth documenting. And the interesting
thing is that Luke says I'm not the only one trying
to document all this. I'm not the only one
that's trying to put down the story of the events
that actually happened here in this region
of the world. And this you should
know is very unusual. There are not many cases,
historically speaking, there are not many cases of
multiple written accounts of the same event
or series of events. In ancient times we have
virtually no multiple written accounts of the same events. The life of Jesus in
some way stands out all by itself in that regard. He goes on, he says this: with this in mind,
with this in mind, since I myself have carefully
investigated everything from the beginning, going
back to the beginning of Jesus' life, I too, along
with a lot of other people, I too decided to write an
orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus. And this title, most
excellent Theophilus is what gives us the idea that
Theophilus was an important person, he was a
well known person. Either a merchant or a landowner
who was a Jesus follower who wanted to know
the story in order. He wanted to know the
facts and so Luke says I'm going to spend the time
necessary to put together an orderly account. Now this is really,
really important, what I'm going to say next. When Luke was writing
this document, Luke was not writing the Bible. Luke had no idea that
this would ever exist. Luke could not even begin to
fathom that 2000 years later there would be something
that included what he wrote along with what other
people had written about Jesus and other things. Luke isn't writing the Bible. Luke is simply creating an
orderly account of the events of Jesus' life based
on eyewitnesses and based on the people
that he interviewed. And Luke because of
the way he did this, tells us why and how the
story of the Bible began. And the story of the Bible began and the reason we
even have a Bible is because when it became clear
to the people who followed Jesus in the first century, when it became clear to them that Jesus was clearly
not who he claimed to be, that's when the story of
the Bible actually began. Because Jesus claimed too
many things about himself. I mean he said some
wonderful things, he did some wondrous things, but Jesus said too
much about himself and when Jesus was crucified and there are other
extra biblical literature that tells us that Jesus
was a historical person, that Jesus was actually
crucified or put to death under the Roman Empire
so nobody disputes that. But in the first century
when Jesus followers recognized that Jesus had
been put to death by Rome, it was game over. There was going to be no story. So Luke is documenting
something fabulous that happened in the first century
and his story tells us that a man named
Joseph of Arimathea, a part of the Jewish
Supreme Court, and a man named Nicodemus, two people that everybody in
that region would have known. These were famous guys in the
first century within Judaism. That these two men
went to the cross and took Jesus' body down, not because they believed he
was the savior of the world, not because they believed they
would ever get their names in a book, but because they
had so much respect for him but they were so
disappointed because clearly Jesus was not who
Jesus claimed to be. In fact, Luke says, I
thoroughly investigated it and here's what happened. After he was crucified, Joseph
of Arimathea and his servants took the body down and
wrapped it in a linen cloth and placed it in a
tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one
had ever been laid. Luke gives us all this detail. And he gives us all this
detail because he's a doctor, he's detail oriented
and he's trying to write an orderly detailed account. He goes on and he says this: the women who had come
with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph of
Arimathea and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. And then these women went home and they prepared
spices and perfumes. Why? They were going to come
back and re-embalm the body. Why would they come
and re-embalm the body? Because Jesus was
dead and everybody expected Jesus to stay dead. And in this moment,
this is so important, in this moment there
are no Christians. There are no Jesus followers. There is no church,
there is no hope. There are just
broken hearted women and disillusioned disciples that are scared for
their own lives. There's Rome, the Eternal City, and clearly the gods of
the Romans had won again. And there was the
Temple and the leaders of the Temple had won again. Between Rome and the
Temple the Jesus movement had been crushed
out of existence. And if it had ended there, there would be no the Bible. And there would be no Christians and there would be no church and there would be no, as we're
going to see, Old Testament. And there would be no
account by Luke considering and looking into the details
of the life of Jesus. This is so important. Luke documented, Luke
documented the life of Jesus because the story of Jesus
didn't end on a Roman cross. If the story had ended there,
there would be no story. Luke tells us the reason
that he was a Jesus follower, the reason that Theophilus
was a Jesus follower in the first century is
because Jesus was seen alive. And once he came back to life, his followers came out of hiding
and they went to Jerusalem and they went into the
streets of Jerusalem and faced down the very people
that had Jesus crucified. And they got arrested
and they had to face down the very men who were
responsible for taking Jesus to Pilate to be crucified
in the first place. And Luke documents these early
sermons and Luke documents what these men said in
the face of extraordinary, in the face of actually being
arrested and put to death just like Jesus was. In fact, here's just one
sentence from one sermon that Luke documents
because again, he's trying to
document everything that happened surrounding
the life of Jesus and beyond. Peter, one of Jesus' followers, to Caiaphus, the
High Priest, said, God has raised
this Jesus to life, and we are witnesses of it. We didn't read about it, we didn't hear about it, we saw him. And so the Jesus movement,
the church, was birthed. But still, there's no Bible. Luke goes on to
document what happens for the next about 30 years
following the resurrection. He documents it in a book
in our New Testament called Acts or Acts of the Apostles. Luke knew Peter, he
interacts with Peter. There are conversations
between Luke and Peter that are documented. Luke knew John, there
are conversations between Luke and John and James,
the brother of Jesus. These men knew each other. Luke traveled with the
Apostle Paul all around the Mediterranean
basin planting churches and he documents the rise
of the Gentile church as the church became
more and more Gentile and less and less Jewish. And this movement called
the church would ultimately shape Western civilization. In fact, the most secular
of secular historians all acknowledge that
Christianity shaped and greatly impacted all
of Western civilization. But here's the cool thing and
here's the interesting thing and here's the thing
that you need to know. Luke admits right up front, hey, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one trying
to document what happened in our midst. Remember what he said,
many, many have undertaken to draw up an account of
the things that have been fulfilled, or the things
that happened, among us. And the question that we all
should wrestle to the ground, and if you've walked away
from faith or walked away from Christianity, I understand. If I heard your story as to
why you walked away I would probably say, who
could blame you? But here's something you
need to wrestle with. Because I think you
should come back. Why so many? Why so
many? Why so many? That would be unusual
now for multiple people to cover the same
event in detail. But then it was
expensive to write. Most people were
illiterate anyway. Why would Luke and why
would others feel compelled to document the events that
happened in the first century surrounding the
city of Jerusalem? And the answer is undeniable. Because something
extraordinary happened. Not something
extraordinary was written, that would come later. Something
extraordinary happened. Something that had
to be preserved. Because after all
Peter and the boys, Peter and the
followers of Jesus, they weren't getting any younger and their lives were
threatened constantly. So several of them sat
down and dictated or wrote their account and their
experiences with Jesus. In fact, Peter, the
apostle Peter, dictated his account to a young man, a
young Greek, named John Mark. We know this from second
century writer named Papius who tells us that the
Gospel of Mark came from the lips of Peter. And Peter was
probably illiterate, an illiterate but
smart fisherman. So consequently he sat
down with another Greek and he gave him his story, and the Gospel of Mark, but
let's not think Gospel yet, the document that we
call Mark is short. It's action, it's
action, it's action. It's almost as if a fisherman, this is how the fisherman's
account would sound. It's bottom line,
it's event driven. And again, John Mark is
no mystery to history. John Mark traveled
with the apostle Paul, John Mark knew Luke, he
was a friend of Luke. And this document was
written in the fifties, just about 20 years
after the resurrection. Luke said several people
sat down to document this extraordinary event. Matthew was one of them. We call it the Gospel of
Matthew but before it was called a Gospel it was
simply a document. A document addressing
first century Jews to say trust me, Jesus is the
one we've been waiting for. Jesus is the Messiah and
he leverages Old Testament passage after Old
Testament passage after Old Testament
prophecy saying look, all of the prophets, all
the law and the prophets pointed to the
coming of the Messiah and Jesus fulfilled so
many of those prophecies. Believe that he is
who he claimed to be. The church fathers, that's
what we call the group of people that came
after the disciples, late first century, second
century church fathers indicate that there was
actually a Hebrew copy, a Hebrew version that the
original version of Matthew was probably written in
Hebrew which makes sense. It was written to the Jews. But then it was
translated into Greek and the version that we have
today is a Greek version. And why would a Hebrew document
be translated into Greek? Because Greek was the
language of the Eastern Empire and this was not simply a
message for Jewish people. This was not simply
a message for people in that region of the world. This was a message
for the whole world. So there's Luke
and there's Mark, there's Matthew and then
there's the Gospel of John. But again we call it a Gospel. John wasn't thinking Bible. John wasn't thinking Gospel. John decided that he too
needed to get out of him the story and the experiences
that he had with Jesus. So we might say to John, John,
I mean, you're an old man, because by the time he dictated this document he was an old man. John, why bother? Others
have already written. And here's something
so fascinating. And regardless of where
you are with faith and regardless of what your
church experience has been, I hope you'll lock into this. John in the first century, again he's not
thinking about this. This is the furthest
thing from his mind. John is simply documenting
his experiences with Jesus. And in his document that
we call the Gospel of John, he tells us at the end of
his account why he bothered to write in the first place. Knowing that other people
had written as well. And here's what he said and I
don't want you to miss this. John writes, Jesus
performed many other signs, because he's just given
us a list of things that Jesus has done, so we're
at the very end of the Gospel. He says oh yeah we're getting
to the end of this thing, but I want you to know
this isn't the whole story. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence
of his disciples. These weren't done in secret. And by disciples he's
not talking about the 12, he's talking about
the hundreds of people that followed Jesus from the
banks of the Jordan River right through the crucifixion
and then showed up after the resurrection. He said there were many
other things that Jesus did that are not recorded
in this book. And here's something very
important for you to know. When John says that these, that they're events
that Jesus accomplished and things that Jesus did that
don't show up in this book, this book is not a
reference to this book. This book is a reference to
the document he's writing. He says there are many
other things that Jesus did that don't show up in my
account of the life of Jesus and then he says
something so important. But these, the
ones I have chosen, the ones I have chosen,
these are written. In other words, as I
face the end of my days. As I face the end of my life,
my faith is still intact. Not based on what I
see around me now. But based on someone
I met and what I saw. And so John says I want to
speak to future generations. I want future generations
to know what I saw. What my hands have handled. What we experienced. Here's what he says. He says but these things
are written that you, and do you know who you is? You is you and you is
me and you is all of us. In other words John
is saying this: the reason I've written this
account of the life of Jesus is so that whoever stumbles
across this document, imagine this, he
spends all this time documenting his story. He has no idea if it will
survive a day or a week or a month, much less 2000 years and would several
hundred years later be wrapped together with
other ancient sacred documents to be called the Bible. He's not thinking the Bible. He's thinking I just want
the future generations to know what I saw,
what I experienced, what I, what changed my life. What changed my worldview. What gives me hope when
the world around me seems to be absolutely hopeless. This document was
dictated by an eyewitness of these extraordinary
events that Luke felt like he had to tell about Peter,
Matthew and others. So here's what he says. But these are written
that you may believe. Now again we have to ask the
question, but believe what? I mean, John, what is it
that you want us to believe? Now again back to us. It's possible that you
left faith because, you know, you have a lot
of presenting reasons if you walked away from faith or if you're considering
walking away from faith, you have lots of
presenting reasons. You know, something you
read, something you heard, you're just not interested. But at the end of the day
for most people who walk away from faith you know
what the bottom line is? And maybe this is
your bottom line, maybe you know this, maybe
you have a thought about it. The bottom line is you know,
Andy, it's good for you but I don't believe it anymore. I mean I just don't
believe it anymore. And the question that I hope
you'll wrestle to the ground and the one that John wants
you to wrestle to the ground because he wants to wrestle it to the ground with you is this: what is the "it" that
you don't believe? If you walked away from
faith or considered it or are considering it, what is the "it"? And John, not the Bible, we
haven't gotten there yet. John, not the Bible, is
about to tell you the only "it" that really matters. This is so important. John, an eyewitness, someone
who spent time with Jesus says to this, these things that I've
written in this Gospel, these things are written
that you may believe. Believe what? That Jesus is in
fact the Messiah to the Jews. The Son of God to the
Greeks and the Romans, and that by believing you
may have life in his name. Regardless of what you've heard, regardless of what you've seen, regardless of what you've
experienced in your life as a Christian, John
says this is the "it". That's it and that's the
only it that really matters and the implications of this
statement in this document we call the Gospel of
John are staggering. And here's why I say that. If John's account of
the life of Jesus, if John's account
is all you have, John's account is all you need. It John's account
is all you have, John's account is all you need. He said I have written
this in such a way that if this is the only
message you stumble across, if this is the only
document you ever read, if this is the only bundle of
stories you are ever aware of, it's enough for you to
have confidence that God has done something in the world. That God has done something
in the world on your behalf. Because it's John that
interrupts Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus because
he can't help himself and he writes that famous
verse that most of us grew up having
memorized as children. John that says look
let me summarize it, for God so loved
the whole world. The Jewish world,
the Greek world, the Roman world,
the Pagan world, the Barbarian world. That God loved the
whole world so much that he sent his son
and I have been eyeball to eyeball with the Son of God that I'm convinced
is God in a body. That whoever believes, whoever places their trust in
him and who he claims to be, will not perish, will
not be lost to God. But will begin to
experience in this life a different kind of life. John calls it eternal life. John says if this is
all you ever hear, this is all you ever need. Isn't that amazing? You know what's so
interesting about that? For decades, actually
for generations, for you know a couple
300, 400 years, people have been directed
not to read the Bible, but to read the Gospel of John. In fact, some of you may
have become Christians because somebody said hey, I just want you
to read something. Don't start in Genesis, don't start in Matthew. Don't read the Bible. Just read this one account
of the life of Jesus and in reading the
Gospel of John, you put your faith in Jesus. Because John was right. If this is all you ever have. If this is all you ever get, this is all you'll ever need. Whew! Isn't that amazing? 270 years before this
book is ever assembled. So that brings us up to the end, about the end of
the first century. At the end of the first century, there's still no the Bible. At the end of the first
century there are thousands and thousands of Christians. Jewish Christians, Greek
Christians, Roman Christians, Christians in other
parts of the world. At the end of the first
century there are thousands of Christians and there are
dozens and then hundreds and then eventually
thousands of copies of these documents floating around
telling about the life and the works of Jesus. And they're meticulously copied
and they're bundled together and some people have a
Gospel and some people have two Gospels and some people
have three and some people have a part of one
and part of another. And can you imagine? Can you imagine if you were a
first century Jesus follower? Or a second century
Jesus follower? Can you imagine how valuable these documents would be to you? That perhaps you had only
heard the stories of Jesus and then somebody comes to
your town or your village or your grandfather
shows up and says, let me show you something
and he uncovers, here is a full copy of
John's recollections of his life with Jesus. Can you imagine this? To have a parent or grandparents
who had actually heard Peter or John preach and
they've told you to the best of their memory what
Peter and John preached and then one day somebody comes
to your town or your village and they say look we
have an actual copy of a letter that Peter wrote. Can you imagine? I'll give you an illustration
that I'll admit up front falls way short of the
magnitude of what was happening in the first or second century. I grew up hearing stories of
George Washington Stanley. Yes, that's his real name. This is my father's grandfather
and it look like he's preaching during the Apocalypse. Like there's nothing left. Only the machines roam the Earth and he's the last
surviving human being. I don't know where
this picture was taken. He lived and he did most of
his ministry in North Carolina but my dad's grandfather,
George Washington Stanley was a preacher and he started
a whole bunch of churches and he traveled around and
when my dad was a teenager, just as he was
finishing high school and about to start college, my dad went and spent a good bit of time with his grandfather. My dad's dad died when
he was 17 months old, so he never knew his father. And so George Washington
Stanley for a short period of my dad's life,
this was his guy. This is a big part of the
reason my dad went into ministry and became a pastor. And I grew up as a kid
hearing these amazing stories that my dad's grandfather
told my father that my father told me, and if I had time I could
tell you some of the stories and maybe they were embellished
a little, I don't know. They are fascinating. As a child you just
leaned forward and said, Dad, just tell us
that one again. Because he preached during some very difficult
times in the Southeast. And he wasn't liked by
certain groups of people. And yet he stood firm
and he taught the Bible the best he knew how
as an uneducated pastor in the Southeast, mostly in
the area of North Carolina, a little bit of Virginia. So I grew up on these stories. And then about five years
ago my dad calls me. He said Andy I want
you to come over, I want to give you something. I'm like, well, what... Just come over I want
to give you something. So I drove over
to my dad's house and we go in the kitchen and
there on the kitchen counter are these two little blue books. They're about this thick,
they're about this big. In fact I should
have brought mine, I don't know why I
didn't bring my copy. And there are two of them and
I can tell they're very old. He said, guess what these are? I said, what? He said, I didn't know
this until last week, but my grandfather
actually wrote a book. He said and my sister was
cleaning out some things and she ran across these two, and these are the only
two copies that she had and she knew that
I would want one and she knew that I'd
probably want to give you one. And he hands me a copy of a
book written by his grandfather, my great-grandfather, the
man that was so instrumental in influencing my
dad who influenced me as it relates to the ministry. Now what do you think I felt when I held that little
blue book in my hand? You think I got in my car and
tossed it in the back seat? No, I mean before
I even opened it. Before, before I even
knew what was in it, it was already precious to me. Because of the influence
he'd had on my father and through my father the
influence he had on me. So I went home and I
read every single word and then I read
every single word. How valuable is that book to me? How valuable is that
book to my father? We can't even begin to imagine. Again, 200 plus years before
there was ever one of these, there were these precious
extraordinary documents that gave the first and
second and third century Christians a picture of details, quotes from their Master
and their Savior, Jesus. From the very beginning they
were considered valuable and reliable. From the very beginning
they were considered sacred and eventually inspired. And it is no surprise and
should come as no surprise that very quickly
these four documents, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were considered
sacred Scripture. 270, 250 years before one
of these ever existed. Isn't that amazing? Now to catch you up, the Empire, the Roman Empire was very suspicious
of Christians. And the reason the Roman Empire
was suspicious of Christians was not because of what
Christians believed, it was because of what
Christians didn't believe. Because Christians didn't
believe in the gods. Now Rome could care less
who you worshiped as long as you kind of threw
a few, you know, did a grain offering every
once in a while to Caesar and a grain offering
every once in a while for the sake of
the gods of Rome. You could keep your
household gods, you could keep
your regional gods. If you were a barbarian
you could keep your barbarian gods, your Greek gods. As long as you
acknowledged the gods and as long as you
acknowledged Caesar. And that was the
problem for Christians. Because Christians
refused to declare that Caesar was their lord. They declared that
Jesus was their lord. Which offended
Caesar and the gods. Now in the words
of Stevie Wonder, the Romans were very,
very superstitious, okay? So anytime something
went bad in the Empire, and this is true for us today, even as Americans or Canadians
or wherever you live. Anytime things went
bad in the Empire, they looked for
someone to blame. And when things were
good they considered it the blessing of the gods. And when things went
bad they assumed that the gods were disturbed. And if the gods were
disturbed there was a reason the gods were disturbed and why
would the gods be disturbed? It must be the growing
number of Christians who don't recognize the gods. There was a late second,
early third century Christian leader, author named
Tertullian and he wrote this famous statement that
survived antiquity and this gives us a glimpse
of what the Christians were up against in the
second and third century. He wrote this: he said if the Tiber
River, it's a river. If the Tiber River
floods the city or if the Nile refuses to
rise and water the crops, or if the sky
withholds it's rain. If there is an earthquake,
a famine, a pestilence, at once the cry is raised, Christians to the lions. That is Christians were blamed
for everything just about that went bad in the Empire. The point was to keep the
gods happy at all cost and at all times. And the gods demonstrated
their pleasure or displeasure through the wonders of nature. Through the rains and
the floods and the river and victory in war. So from time to time when
things were bad in the Empire, Christians got too much
attention from the Empire. And this culminated
and I'll end with this, this culminated in the year 303, when Emperor Diocletian,
Emperor Diocletian issued an edict that resulted
in the worst state sponsored persecution of Christians
that had happened up until that time. It was very official
and this edict declared that every single
house of Christian worship must be destroyed. That assembly by
Christians was illegal. That the bishops were to
be rounded up and forced to recant and offer
sacrifice to the gods and declare that
Caesar was their lord or else they would
be punished by death. But perhaps worst of all. All Christian literature, all Christian literature
was to be turned in and was to be burned and
if you were caught with Christian literature you
could lose your life after you watched your wife,
your daughter and your son lose their lives in order. And hundreds and hundreds of
Christians risked and lost their lives protecting, this
is important, not the Bible, there still wasn't a the Bible. They risked and lost
their lives protecting fragments of Matthew and
Mark and Luke and John. Bundles of two or
three Gospels together. Copies of the letters of Paul
and the letters of Peter. And the reason that those
valuable documents survived the third and early
fourth century is because of their confidence that
these documents told the truth about something that had
happened on planet Earth in the first century
when God showed up in the person of Jesus Christ. They died rather than give
up those sacred documents. Even during that
persecution Christianity continued to spread. And then political change
brought about reform and an easing of hostilities. And by the year 324,
Constantine the Great became the undisputed Emperor
of both sides of the Empire. Canceled those edicts, returned
property to the church, allowed Christians to worship
freely and Christianity as you know became the preferred
religion of the Empire. And then for the first
time ever, so important, for the first time ever, Christian scholars were
able to work in the open. And Christian scholars were
able to work in the daylight. And Christian scholars could
gather together without fear of persecution and
without fear of having their ancient documents taken away. They were able to
work in the open. And for the first time
they were able to bring together this extraordinary
collection of valuable what we would call New
Testament documents and the stage was
set for the assembly of the very first Ta
Biblia, the Bible. But there is so much
more to this story and we will pick the
story up there next time in part two of The
Bible for Grown-Ups.
