Our task as students of the Scriptures is not to interpret the Bible by staring at our own culture, but by entering the Bible’s world, its language, history, and culture, and asking what the text meant to the original hearers. Here are a couple of quotes from Dr. John MacArthur along this line:
“Realize that Scripture must first be viewed in the context of the culture in which it was written.”
He goes on to say that without an understanding of first-century Jewish culture, it is difficult to understand the Gospels, and that Acts and the epistles must be read in light of Greek and Roman culture.
Another quote:
“What does it mean period is the issue, not what does it mean to you… What did it mean before you were born? And what will it mean after you’re dead? What does it mean to people who will never meet you?”
Dr. MacArthur was right to warn against prioritizing “our culture” (the slide to “cultural dress”) and to call for fidelity to the Bible’s own context (for example, first-century Jewish culture when we read the Gospels) to ensure accurate interpretation. We call this the historical-grammatical method of interpretation: start with what the text meant, then, in its cultural and literary setting, before asking what it means now.
When we read Mark’s Gospel carefully, one thing that can unsettle us at first is how Jesus sometimes tells people to speak and at other times to stay quiet. Just yesterday, a friend wrote me an email asking about this, especially in light of Mark 8:26, where Jesus says to the man He has just healed, “Do not even enter the village.”
How do we make sense of that, especially when in another place, He says, “Go home to your friends and tell them”?
Is Jesus sending mixed messages?
Context is vital. If we take a single verse out of its setting, the Bible can appear to say almost anything. But reading in its immediate context, its historical setting, and the flow of the whole Gospel clarifies the picture and resolves apparent tensions.
In Mark 8:26, we read, “And he sent him to his home, saying, ‘Do not even enter the village.’” Jesus speaks these words before the cross and resurrection, at a time when people’s ideas of “Messiah” were very muddled. Many wanted a miracle worker or a political liberator, not a Savior who would die for sinners. So when Jesus restricts publicity, it is not because He is against people knowing Him, but because He is guarding how and when His identity is spread. He knows that if the story of this particular healing in Bethsaida goes “viral,” it will stir up more excitement and resistance without real repentance.
That is why it is helpful to set Mark 8 alongside Mark 5 and read them together. In Mark 5, with the former demoniac, Jesus is in a largely Gentile region—the Decapolis—where there is almost no light. The people beg Him to leave after the herd of pigs rushes into the sea. There, He wants the story told, because a clear mercy story in a spiritually dark place will prepare many hearts for later. In Mark 5:19, we read: “And he did not permit him but said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’” That one man becomes a kind of early missionary, a living testimony to the Lord’s power and compassion in a place that has very little truth.
In Mark 8, by contrast, Jesus is near Bethsaida, a Jewish town that has already seen many miracles and remains unrepentant. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Bethsaida comes under a solemn “woe” for its hardness in the face of great light. There, more noise about a miracle will only feed shallow curiosity and harden people further. Same Jesus, same love, but different instructions: one region has barely heard of Him, the other has already resisted a lot of light. The difference is not that one group is naturally more spiritual than the other, but that one has already had much greater exposure to His works and still refused to bow the knee.
It also matters that Mark 8 is a turning point in the Gospel. Right after this healing, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus begins to teach clearly that He must suffer, die, and rise again. The two-stage healing of the blind man is really a picture of the disciples themselves. At first, they see Jesus in a blurred way, then more clearly as He teaches them about the cross. The man says, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking,” and then, after a second touch, he sees everything clearly. That is a living illustration of how the disciples’ spiritual sight will be sharpened as they come to understand that the Christ must suffer before entering His glory.
By keeping the miracle out of the village, Jesus uses it as a lesson for His followers, rather than turning it into a show for a town that has already resisted the light. The “do not enter” is part of His wise plan to lead the disciples toward the cross, not a sign that He wants the good news hidden forever. He is shepherding events toward Calvary in God’s appointed time, refusing to feed a craving for spectacle in a place that has already had ample evidence.
After the cross and resurrection, the pattern changes very clearly. The same Jesus who sometimes says “do not tell” before Calvary later says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The temporary secrecy was meant to protect the path to the cross and to restrain false expectations in certain places. It was never meant to be the permanent posture of His church. On this side of the resurrection, His settled word to His people is to speak, not to be silent. We do not live in the Mark 8 moment before the cross. We live in the Great Commission age, where the risen Christ sends His people out with the gospel to the ends of the earth.
So the “do not tell” in Mark 8 is not a permanent rule for us to copy, but a glimpse of His wisdom in managing revelation at that particular moment in history. When we hold Mark 5 and Mark 8 together, we see no contradiction at all. In one setting, He is sowing first seeds into deep darkness through the testimony of a delivered man. In another, He is restraining further display in a town that has already refused to repent, while using the miracle itself as a quiet lesson for His disciples. Far from undermining our call to share the gospel, it shows that our Lord always knows exactly what to say in each situation, and that today His clear command to us is the Great Commission.
For us, the application is simple and searching. We are called to “go and tell,” but we are also called to trust the wisdom of the Lord, who knows every heart and every place. We do not know all the history of light and resistance in the lives of those around us, but He does. Our task is to be faithful, to read and teach passages in their God-given context, and to speak of “how much the Lord has done” and “how He has had mercy,” and then trust Him with everything we cannot see or control. When we meet verses like Mark 8:26, instead of doubting His goodness, we are invited to marvel at the careful wisdom of our Savior, who never wastes a word, never wastes a miracle, and always moves history toward the glory of His cross and the gathering in of His people.
Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess dropped the first of their podcasts on 1 Corinthians 15 today. If either of them turned this in at Whitefield Theological Seminary, it’d get an F. It’s that bad. I immediately got to typing and here is my quick reaction:
– The Same Old Word-Game on Mellō
Gary (and Kim) is still stuck insisting that mellō always means “about to,” even though he’s never proven it and has flat-out ignored my challenge to him on Acts 26:22.
They do the same thing with the word parousia. Now, a person may agree that every use of parousia refers to the same event, but it’s one thing to demonstrate that exegetically, and quite another to assume it because you’ve bought into this strange notion that words in Scripture can only ever mean one thing.
That’s not scholarship; that’s laziness.
– Twisting the Creeds: The False Claim About the Nicene “Correction”
It gets worse. They actually claim that the Nicene Creed corrected the Apostles’ Creed by changing “resurrection of the body” to the supposedly more “biblical” phrase, “resurrection of the dead.” As if the body isn’t even in view in 1 Corinthians 15! From verse 35 through verse 44, Paul uses the Greek word sōma (“body”) ten times. Yet Kim goes so far as to say that “resurrection of the flesh” is a “contradiction in terms.”
How? Of course, Kim never explains how. The only way he could possibly arrive at that conclusion is if he treats flesh (sarx) the same way they treat mellō; as if it only has one meaning everywhere it appears. But “flesh” in Scripture clearly has a range of meanings.
– Christ’s Resurrection Was of the Flesh
And what then are we to do with Christ’s resurrection, which these men claim to affirm? Christ’s resurrection was bodily. It was of the flesh. His fleshly body died and rose again.
“As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'” (Luke 24:36–39)
“For a spirit (pneuma) does not have flesh (sarx) and bones (osteon) as you see I have.”
Obviously, then, “resurrection of the flesh” is not a “contradiction in terms.”
– The Historical Record: No Evidence of a Bodiless Creed
There’s absolutely no evidence that the Nicene Creed was “correcting” the Apostles’ Creed to avoid the idea of flesh being involved in the resurrection. And if that were their intent, it would actually be a denial of the Apostles’ Creed itself; a point that completely flies over DeMar’s head. You can’t redefine a doctrine and then claim to affirm it.
The hyper-preterist claim that the 381 Creed was a “corrective” to deny bodily resurrection has no support in the sources whatsoever.
On every front—creed manuscripts, council records, and patristic theology—the early Church consistently taught that bodies will rise again. The phrase “resurrection of the dead” in the Nicene Creed was always understood in full continuity with “resurrection of the body” or “resurrection of the flesh,” not as a covert denial of a physical resurrection.
The Fathers used dead and body/flesh interchangeably in reference to the same hope. The idea that Nicaea (or Constantinople) quietly erased bodily resurrection is historical revisionism of the worst kind.
– The “Burros of Berea” Problem
And all of this follows a rather dishonest admission from Gary at the start of the episode. He claims he was dragged into this controversy because of comments he made years ago on the Burros of Berea podcast.
According to him, he was merely describing that some people believe you receive your resurrection body at death, and he supposedly just said he “had no problem” with that view. He insists he wasn’t rejecting the traditional view; just acknowledging another perspective.
But the dishonesty lies in the fact that Gary was specifically asked what he personally believes:
“When your body takes its last breath, what is your belief?”
He answered, and I quote:
“I believe that when you die, you go to be with the Lord, and you get a new body at that time.”
So no, Gary wasn’t simply pointing out what others believe. He explicitly said that he believes that very thing. He denied the resurrection of the body in that podcast—plain and simple—and now he’s trying to rewrite history as if he didn’t.
– “It Doesn’t Affect Worldview”? Think Again
What makes this even more absurd is his claim in this latest episode that he didn’t have a problem with that belief because, in his words,
“…to me, it’s not a factor in terms of worldview thinking. What happens when we die doesn’t come into play in terms of how we’re living out the Christian faith in the world in which we live today.”
Oh, really? Ever read 1 and 2 Peter, Gary? Or Romans 8? Or Philippians 3?
I would argue, and have argued in our sermon series, that the hope of bodily resurrection is precisely the foundation for how we live as Christians in the world today. It’s not some detached doctrinal curiosity; it’s the heartbeat of Christian ethics and endurance.
Peter grounds the entire moral and pastoral force of his letters in the certainty of the coming judgment and the future resurrection. The call to holiness, perseverance, and hope flows directly out of that eschatological reality.
“He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3–5)
In 1 Peter 1:13-16, the imperative “set your hope fully” is explicitly future-oriented. Holiness in the present is the ethical outworking of fixing one’s hope on the eschatological revelation of Christ. Peter’s “therefore” shows that eschatology drives ethics.
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
In 1 Peter 1:17-21, Peter ties obedience in this life to the coming judgment. The believer’s conduct is shaped by the knowledge that the Father will judge impartially; a future eschatological reckoning.
“If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile…”
In 1 Peter 2:11-12, the “day of visitation” is a future day of divine judgment or vindication. Present moral purity and good works serve evangelistic and eschatological purposes.
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
In 1 Peter 4:7-10, Peter explicitly links ethical behavior—sobriety, prayer, and love—to eschatological imminence. The nearness of “the end” demands alert, holy living. And no, we’re not ignoring the so-called “time texts,” such as verse 7. Kim and Gary keep slanderously accusing us of that, but it’s simply false.
“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:”
In 1 Peter 4:12-13, present suffering is interpreted through the lens of future glory. The eschatological revelation of Christ’s glory gives meaning and endurance to persecution.
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
In 1 Peter 5:1-4, pastoral faithfulness and humility are sustained by the expectation of Christ’s future appearing and reward. Again, eschatology shapes vocation and character.
“When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
In 2 Peter 1:10-11, ethical diligence leads to eschatological assurance. Present godliness confirms the believer’s readiness for entry into Christ’s eternal kingdom.
“Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Furthermore, Peter makes it unmistakably clear that false doctrine and moral corruption go hand in hand. The heretics he describes in 2 Peter 2–3 are not merely confused interpreters; they are willful deceivers whose denial of the Lord’s return is directly linked to their immoral lifestyle.
In 2 Peter 2, their character and conduct are on full display: they are “bold and willful” (2:10), “slaves of corruption” (2:19), and “blots and blemishes” (2:13). Their theology accommodates their lusts. They deny “the Master who bought them” (2:1) and twist the promise of His coming into an excuse for sin. Their doctrinal deviation is moral at its root. They scoff at judgment because they love their own depravity.
Peter ties the progression together in 2 Peter 3:3–4:
“Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.””
They dismiss the Second Coming because it threatens their autonomy. The denial of eschatological judgment becomes the license for unrestrained living.
Peter answers their cynicism by reminding believers of two things: the certainty of divine judgment (3:7) and the patience of God in salvation (3:9). The same God who once judged the world by water will again judge by fire. Far from being delayed, the Lord’s timing is merciful, giving room for repentance before the final reckoning.
In other words, to scoff at the Second Coming is to scoff at holiness itself. When false teachers erase the future return of Christ, they remove the moral horizon that keeps the church sober, humble, and watchful.
And Peter could not be any clearer than 2 Peter 3:10-14:
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”
Having exposed the false teachers’ denial of judgment, Peter brings his letter to a climactic close by grounding true Christian living in the certainty of that judgment and the promise of renewal. The destruction of the old and the creation of the new are not speculative curiosities — they are moral imperatives.
Eschatology is not an appendix to doctrine; it is the heartbeat of Christian ethics. The same certainty that “all these things will be dissolved” also guarantees that there will be “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Those twin truths — dissolution and renewal — demand lives marked by holiness, godliness, diligence, and peace.
Future righteousness defines present conduct. The believer’s anticipation of the coming age shapes his moral integrity in this one. We live as citizens of the world to come, waiting for what God has promised, and our purity now is the visible evidence that our hope is genuine.
That is why Peter closes his letter with this sober exhortation:
“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:17–18)
Sound doctrine and sound living rise and fall together. A distorted eschatology always leads to ethical collapse, just as we see today among those who, like Gary and Kim, scoff at the promise of Christ’s appearing while claiming to defend biblical consistency.
To argue, as Gary does, that the resurrection and the new heavens and new earth have no bearing on our present lives is not merely misguided, it is spiritually disastrous. Peter would have called such reasoning blindness. The entire moral framework of Christian faithfulness rests on the certainty of future resurrection and renewal.
“If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.” (1 Corinthians 15:32-34)
The apostles never treat the promise of the new creation as a minor point for debate. For them, it is the engine that drives Christian perseverance and purpose. The coming reality of resurrection gives meaning to obedience, courage to suffering, and direction to hope. Because this world will be dissolved and remade, believers live now as heirs of that world, walking in holiness and hope.
To detach Christian ethics from eschatology is to strip Christianity of its horizon. Without the expectation of bodily resurrection, holiness becomes optional, suffering loses its context, and hope collapses into sentimentality.
Peter’s eschatology does not pull believers away from faithful living; it propels them into it. It sanctifies our present engagement in the world by fixing our eyes on the one to come. The creation itself will be freed from corruption; righteousness will dwell upon a renewed earth; and our resurrected bodies will share in that glory. The future is not irrelevant to the present. It defines it.
To deny that connection, as Gary does, is to preach a Christianity without resurrection power and a faith without forward motion.
And this is precisely what Peter warns against. The false teachers of his day scoffed at the coming judgment and therefore abandoned holiness. Their denial of Christ’s return was not an innocent exegetical error; it was a moral rebellion disguised as theology. Once the expectation of resurrection and renewal is stripped away, the call to righteousness loses its urgency, and corruption rushes in to fill the vacuum.
That same pattern repeats itself today. Those who mock the future hope of Christ’s appearing — while boasting of their “consistency” — reveal that their theology serves their desires, not the text. And Peter would have recognized them instantly.
Well, I’m excited to be speaking with you this evening. You might have picked up from my funny accent that I’m not from around here. And that’s cuz I’m from Ipsswitch. But I, as Dan said, am excited to talk about my favorite topic, and that is the Bible. Because like you heard in that trailer for our series at Apologetics Canada, can I trust the Bible?
I as a Christian claim to stake my life on this historical individual Jesus of Nazareth. And where I find the source of information from that individual’s life is not just the Bible, but in the four-fold gospels that we find, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These biographical accounts of his life found within scripture. And so we’re going to go through some details, some facts tonight that I hope will give you a foundation for you to walk away and likewise understand the vast reservoir that is the trustworthiness that we can put within the Bible. And when we talk about the Bible, we could be talking about all sorts of things philosophically, historically, contextually about the Bible and what it is. But what I want to capitalize on tonight is the simple fact that we often look at and understand the Bible as this, right? And that’s obviously what it is, right? It’s a single bound volume that we have today. But the Bible didn’t always look like this.
The Bible throughout history looked a little bit different in that the Bible isn’t one book as much as it’s 66 books written over a period of 1600 years on three different continents by close to 40 different authors in three different languages. two major languages, Greek and Hebrew, and one minor language, Aramaic. And our culture, because we’ve moved far beyond in Western society, in Australia, in Canada, from our Judeo-Christian roots, the misunderstandings that are often communicated about the Bible are one simply because people don’t know what we’re talking about when we talk about the Bible. and we encounter objections that are common but are simple misunderstandings and misrepresentations. Characterizations like this.
One of my favorite things about the Bible is how antiquated all the things that are supposed to take place in the future are already. How all the prophecies, how completely antiquated they are. Because you know when the when the Bible was uh written and then rewritten and then edited and then re-edited and then translated from dead languages and then re- re-ransated and then re-edited and then re-reeddited and then re-ransated and then uh given to Kings for them to take their favorite parts out and then re-edited and re-ransated and then re-edited and then given to the Pope for him to approve and then re-ransated. Then re-rewritten then rewritten, re-edited, re-ransated, re-edited again. all based on stories that were told orally 30 to 90 years after they happened to people who didn’t know how to write.
[Applause]
So I guess what I’m saying is the Bible is literally the world’s oldest game of telephone.
Now that’s David Cross. You might recognize him. He’s a famous actor and comedian. And this characterization of what the Bible is being this long telephone game, this this line of transmission of people communicating and it being edited and redacted and so on is one that I hear all the time. Maybe you’ve heard it too. And when you dig into what people are actually communicating when they use this illustration, they think something like this. that there may very well have been an individual within history called Jesus and Jesus communicated words maybe in the language that would have been spoken in first century Judea Aramaic and at that point that’s more or less correct and then they think okay well his followers or somebody around the time frame maybe a little bit farther than we would actually say they wrote but wrote those things down in Greek and time goes on and people aren’t speaking Greek anymore. They’re speaking languages like Latin. So they take those Greek copies, they translate them into Latin and they get rid of the Greek copies because nobody can read or nobody’s speaking those anyways. And time goes on further and you have middle a middle ages and languages like uh middle-aged Latin being turned into German. And so German is the language that it’s translated into. And the Latin copies are once again gotten rid of. And this goes on and on for a number of languages until eventually you get to the English. And so you have a translation of a translation of a translation in this long line of transmission. Now if you dig into how we actually do get something like a modern English Bible, that is the opposite of what we see. Not only do we not see translations of translations of translations, but when you hold a modern English Bible in your hands today, it is a direct translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. And translation committees, individuals who have dedicated their lives to understanding the language and history and context of the Bible, consult previous editions and translations to understand how people have understood this text throughout history. But that’s not what they’re translating. But they do check it to see how people in the past have understood these things. This is a very important difference that individuals like David Cross and others misunderstand in the difference between translation going from one language into another and transmission going from an ancient text in papyrus or parchment into modern-day print. And likewise, what David Cross articulated with the telephone game or what has previously been called Chinese whispers, which is not appropriate, right? So, we’re not going to use that word. Um, politically incorrect and I’m Canadian and I have to be politically correct. So, what we’re talking about with something like the telephone game, if you know the game is a single line of transmission. Someone whispers into the person beside them’s ear and they whisper into the next and the next and the next and there are rules. You can’t say it more than once. You have to whisper. The game is designed to corrupt the the understanding of the message. But that is not what we see with the Bible. When we look at the history of the Bible, we don’t see a single line of transmission. We see multiple lines of transmission of individuals writing at different times in different places by different authors in different locations to different audiences. And then we have scribes who are likewise writing in different times in different places who are writing as different authors as scribes as copists to individuals in different locations. And so there are copies that it’s vitally important to understand in terms of this idea of a transmission of going from ancient papyrus to modern day print that this is not a process of a single line of transmission but multiple lines of transmission. The New Testament originated at different times in multiple places written by multiple authors with books being sent to multiple locations. And between the first century when we have say the New Testament documents being written, between that and the fourth century when you have the decriminalization of Christianity under someone like the emperor Constantine, those centuries encompass hundreds, if not thousands of copies of the Bible spread over all of the ancient world. And this number only grows as Christianity is moved from an illegal religion to a decriminalized religion where people are able to copy and pass around the text all over the ancient world. And this resulted in two things. First, it resulted in the gospel being spread very quickly all over the place. And second, what it meant is that no one person or no one group could have controlled the text at any one point in time. So when David Cross talks about kings and popes and scribes, if a king like once again the emperor Constantine in the 4th century wanted to do something like is asserted in the Da Vinci Code, like insert the divinity of Christ, he has to go back into the sands of Egypt, dig up copies that were buried hundreds of years before he was born, change them, and then put them back in the sand for us to find in the 21st century. That’s not realistic. That’s not how this works. And so the gospel is spread very quickly, very early on. And we have these messages all over the place in the actual artifacts of the physical documents. The thing that I’m passionate about and study in the manuscripts, the handwritten copies that are all over the ancient world. This is a fascinating topic and concept that gives us confidence in the credibility of the Christian scriptures.
When we look back at how we actually go from ancient papyrus to modern-day print, the history of the Bible is not some sort of layered web of translations. In reality, what we find ourselves with is a single step going from the original Hebrew and Greek directly into our Bibles today. The translation of the Bible takes into consideration an amazing collection of archaeological evidence from discoveries in Israel like the Dead Sea Scrolls to papyrie dug up in places like Oxarinkus. Over time, as we’ve uncovered more of these fragments and manuscripts, they haven’t complicated our understanding of the Bible, but clarified it. The documents that sit behind the history of the Bible and the way that we translate them today gives us confidence in their reliability to go from the original languages into our own. Even though we’re almost 2,000 years removed from the last book of the Bible that was written, as discoveries are made, we are not getting farther away from the text, but getting closer. This evidence confirms and gives us good reason to trust that our Bibles have been faithfully and accurately copied and that what we have now is what the original authors wrote.
And let me capitalize on a phrase that you just heard me say that as time goes on, we’re not getting farther away from the text, but we’re getting closer by illustrating this from capitalizing and using example from the King James Bible. The King James Bible, a very famous English translation, was translated between604 and 1611. And particularly the New Testament of the King James wasn’t translated from manuscripts, but printed editions of the Greek New Testament. Seven printed editions of the Greek New Testament. The key ones within those seven printed editions was based on 31 manuscripts available at that time. Now, for what it was, it was an excellent translation and remains incredibly reliable for the day that we live in as well. But if we skip over to 2025, we not only have and are aware of what the 31 manuscripts that were used for the base text, the underlying Greek of the translation process of the King James Bible, which was published in 1611. But we have 5,000 plus other manuscripts that likewise share and and clear up our understanding of the text that go back further within the time frame of history. So that when we stick shovels in the ground, we are able to see how the text has both changed and has been preserved over time. As we find these manuscripts, what it does is not alter and radically change how he understood the Bible in 1611, but works to confirm it. So it allows us to then likewise publish modern English translations and the same key ideas, concepts, and ultimately the text is there and has been preserved. As time goes on, even though the 1611 translators were closer, a few hundred years to the original text, because of the evidence that God has revealed, has given to us in this time frame of things like extreme skepticism, we’ve been able to see, no, God’s word has been preserved and it’s been preserved because of the evidence, not in spite of it. Evidence like the manuscript that’s on your screen right now. This is P66 or P bottom 2 and it is a manuscript of the Gospel of John from the late 2nd or early 3rd century. Now scholars are very imaginative and they name things based on a whole bunch of different factors. So this is made out of the material papyrus. So they take the first letter of that word tracking with me so far? It’s a P. And they say okay how many of these do we have so far? 65. Haha. P66. And this makes us scholars feel very intellectual and superior. And so we look at something like B66 which is incredibly important. And it’s incredibly important for a number of reasons, but chiefly because it is a codeex or a book. Once again, codeex means book in Latin. And so us intellectuals like just use the Latin words to make ourselves sound smart. And so books are very vulnerable at the beginning and at the end because those are the areas that are open to being worn down to the elements to bugs to being ripped and so on and so forth. So we tend to have a lots lots of middles of books from periods where codeexes were very popular and what P66 preserves for us is the beginning of the gospel of John. John chapter 1. Let’s all read together along on the screen. It says no takers. You sir, I’ll make it easy for you. Go ahead. Loud and clear.
Okay then.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and not and without him was not anything made that was made. Sound familiar? You know why?
Because what Christians were reading in the late, second, early third century in terms of the beginning of the Gospel of John that some Christian scribe wrote down is exactly what we read in our modern English translations. Now, this isn’t true for all manuscripts. I’m not saying that there aren’t additions and deletions, but ironically, it’s actually the additions and deletions that help us understand why even those lend to the credibility. Because these additions, deletions tend to be geographically located. like I said before spread very far. So when changes pop up in one area almost exclusively by accident, not on purpose, then we can say, okay, well there are changes in the Syrian copies, but there aren’t changes in our copies from North Africa or Europe or Asia. And so, ironically, both the manuscripts like P66 that reveal the preservation of the text and the ones that have a lot of differences within them both lend to our understanding because we can compare and contrast and gives us a level of credibility and confidence to say we know what the original text was. And so, unlike the telephone game, I want to give you a better illustration of what we’re dealing with with the Bible. Unlike the telephone game, which is a single line of transmission, I think that the text of the Bible is far more like a puzzle. A puzzle with a 100,000 pieces. Now, if I were to hand you a puzzle with 100,000 pieces, and you opened it up, would it be more annoying or less annoying if it had 99,900 pieces, meaning it was missing 100, or 100,00 pieces, meaning that it had 100 too many? Well, that’s both annoying, and you would have reasonable grounds to be mad at this Canadian. Nonetheless, and I would say I’m very sorry about it. And but really, you want more pieces because when you put the puzzle together, you can see where there are just pieces that shouldn’t be there. There are pieces that are added from a different puzzle. There are pieces that don’t fit. There are blank pieces. There are pieces where your sibling has come in and they’ve smashed it in the wrong place. Once you put the puzzle together and the picture comes into view, you realize what does fit and what doesn’t. And so in that sense, we don’t have a 100% of the text of the Bible. We have 110%. And it’s because of our the vast repository of manuscripts that we have that we’re able to say it’s not that hard to figure out what the 10% is. It takes some leg work. And individuals like myself who uh find it interesting to dig through the original languages can allow us to understand why we know what the Bible says. Why? When I read my English translation, I have confidence that that is what the original authors wrote even if the most recent book of this book was written 2,000 years ago. I hope that gives you confidence. Now, in one sense, your Bible and particularly your English Bible has been changed. And let me illustrate that for you by showing you what the text of the English Bible looked like um over time in Psalm 23 from the 9th century over to the 21st century. When was the last time you were in church or at a funeral or at a wedding and you someone said, “We’re going to read Psalm 23.” Okay, let’s open it up. Drayton Meteth Main’s goods one and he may get on good Fant and Fed me by water. Sometimes you read a passage of scripture, it just hits you right here, does it? [Applause] That’s English, but that’s old English. And obviously that doesn’t sound like English. And so in one sense, your Bible has been changed, but not for the sake of corruption, but for the sake of clarity. And that’s a good thing for you to be able to not just understand it, but apply it to your life. Now, let me very quickly as we kind of dig into this, I want to capitalize on the New Testament and particularly the Gospels and give you some key reasons why you can have trust in the biblical text. The first is location, location, location. When we look at the Bible, we see lots of places and names located in particular places.
The biography of Jesus written by this individual Luke, what we call the gospel according to Luke prefaces his gospel with his thesis statement. Why am I writing? I’m writing because many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us just as they were handed down to us by those who are from first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too have decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things that you have been taught. And we likewise see that Luke, who is a very careful historian, uses a word that we often translate as account or sometimes it’s translated in your Bible as narrative to describe his book. and other Greco Roman writers do similar things using the word this word that Luke uses to describe their writings. Two very important writers, Josephus and Lucian. In fact, Lucian’s document is called how to write history. And in it, he says, “You should write an orderly account.” Luke is taking note of this. Luke goes to lengths to demonstrate that his narrative is placed within an actual time and location. In the first three verses of Luke chapter 3, we are not only given seven historical characters that mark out the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, but within these three verses alone are 22 historical references to locations and people that have been verified by archaeology and ancient literary sources outside of the Bible. This places Luke’s account within a historical framework, making sure his readers know he’s not merely making up a story, but pinpointing when and where these events actually took place in history. And the gospel authors do this in multiple different ways with names, locations, as well as with accurate plant and animal life related to the areas within the narratives they are describing. The gospel authors get these types of facts right even when other ancient writers of the time don’t. And it’s interesting that not only do they locate these things, but we have four biographies of Jesus. And this is very important because we rarely have multiple sources that describe an individual and give as much bio biographical information as we see with Jesus in the ancient world within the time frame of Jesus within the first century. The only other true comparable character is the emperor at the time, Tiberius Caesar, the one who’s on the coin that Dan so graciously gave me. Tiberius Caesar has similar to Jesus four writers who talk about the biographical information of his life. Valas Peterculus, Tacitus, Sutonius, and Casodio. So, it’s a very interesting test case to look at Jesus and look at an individual who is arguably the most powerful, the most important, the most well-known character of the time and compare it to a Galilean traveling rabbi who really shouldn’t have anything said about himself at this time. And yet, he does. And if we kind of dig down on this and I share a little bit about what I’m passionate about, the manuscripts, these are all examples of our first copies of these documents and their dates. All of these are incomplete copies. So there are earliest surviving fragments of once complete copies of these books, but over time and the centuries, over the last two millennia, they’ve left left to us only partial stages of existence today. But if we look at Matthew, our earliest fragmentaryary copies coming from the second century, uh Mark coming from the second century, um sorry, John coming from the second century, Mark coming from the 3rd century, and Luke coming from the 3rd century. And we compare it to those sources for the emperor. Valas Peterculus is from the first century, Tacus second, Sutonius second, and Casio is actually the ninth. And although Valas Peterculus is writing in the century, he’s a political propagandist. So though he’s the earliest, he’s the least reliable because he has monetary incentive to make the emperor look good. Now if we’re talking about our earliest complete copies, not just fragments, but cover to cover copies with all four gospels, that number is drastically different. That switches to the 4th century for all four gospels where for Tiberius we get the 16th century and then the 9th century for the others. Now what does this mean? What this means is that at face value, we can have just as much good source information as the most powerful, most well-known, and most influential person of the time as we can for Jesus Christ. This is important. This is important when we see accusations about who Jesus is. And there’s this hyper level of skepticism. If you’re going to be skeptical of the historical person of Jesus based on the source material, you basically have to be skeptical about everyone else within the ancient world because we have just as much well articulated source information for Jesus as we do for anyone that we have a firm foundation on what the details of their life were in the ancient world. And it is because they are located within history. Location, location, location.
My second point is unnecessary details. A series of scholarly studies has shown that though Jews were located in many places across the Roman Empire, people’s names often tended to be geographically located. By observing literary and archaeological artifacts, a list of common names can be clearly identified. By narrowing down the most popular names in places that Jesus lived, traveled, and ministered, and by comparing these to the list from the studies, an interesting correlation can be seen. Just as we see today with popular names, a qualifier or nickname is often used. For example, notice that when Matthew lists the disciples in his gospel, certain names have a qualifier or nickname and others do not. Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother and James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alfus and Thaddius, Simon the Zealot and Judas a Scariot who also betrayed him. As we would expect, the most popular names are those that have an added description. When we compare the most popular names in Judea and Galilee during the first century with the names we see listed in places like the biblical gospels, we find that all of the names with qualifiers match with what we’d assume if they were actually written in the time and place they claimed to be narrating. In contrast, the Gospel of Judas only has two names that would fit, Jesus and Judas, but contains a host of other characters whose names match not with first century Galilee and Judea, like biblical gospels, but with names that were popular in Egypt during the second and third centuries. Consider how difficult it would be for someone living outside of the locations and times that these events took place to get the right names with the right qualifiers. We have four biblical gospels with four different named authors. And yet each gets this test of naming, frequency, and attribution right every time. A test in standard that the apocryphal and gnostic gospels simply do not pass. And it’s unnecessary details like names that we often skip over because they’re just names to us that give us a picture of the reliability of what we see going on. If I were to ask you to write a document about 1980s Toronto, Canada, and I want you to pass it off as something that was original to 1980s Toronto, Canada, what is the likelihood that you would get the names that were popular in say a particular area of the city during that time in that place. It’s probably harder than you might think. When I was going to high school, there were a lot of mics and there were a lot of Sarah. And so you would you would disambiguate them, right? tall Sarah, short Sarah, you know, you use the first letter of their last name, Mike M, Mike T. And that’s what we see happening. And yet, unlike these other documents that you might have heard of, the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Judas, which do have some names that fit, but then other names that just don’t fit and actually pinpoint and locate them in different times and different places. And ultimately those non-biblical gospels fail because not only can we not connect the internal evidence like that of name correspondence, but we know that these were written in times when the falsely attributed names on them, Mary, Thomas, Peter, Philip, Judas were dead. They could not have written them. And yet we see both the internal evidence from the biblical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the external evidence pointing to these unnecessary details giving us a picture of their accuracy. Location, location, location, and unnecessary details.
And last one I want to point to is what are referred to as undesigned coincidences. What does that mean? An undesigned coincidence is an instance when you have one or more independent historical accounts and they interlock in such a way that would be unexpected if they were simply fabricated wholesale. Well, what does that mean? I don’t know. I’m not really listening either. So, let me give you an example from the Gospels because we have stories within these four biographies of Jesus’s life that you might notice are either the same or very similar. And there is one story that is in all four gospels. It’s the feeding of the 5000. If you look at John’s account of the feeding of the 5,000, you see that it says, “Lifting up his eyes,” this is talking about Jesus then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him. Jesus said to Philillip, “Where are we to buy bread so that the people may eat?” Now, I’m going to ask you a strange question. Why did Jesus ask Philillip? Think about it. Philip is an unlikely character to ask. He’s not one of the main disciples, the inner circle, Peter, James, and John. He’s not even someone who we have historical context for someone that could very well have known about, say, the goings on economically. Matthew was a tax collector. Levi, he would have known about the, you know, economic status of particular areas, what the taxes were for something like food to buy bread. And Judas is said to have carried the money bag. He would have known how much money they had that when they get their flat whites before they go into the temple that that how much they’d have left afterwards. But that’s not what Jesus does. He doesn’t ask someone like Matthew. He doesn’t ask someone like Judas. He asks Philillip. If we go back to Luke’s account of Jesus’s life and this particular story, we see that on their return, the apostles told him all they had done and took him with them and drew apart to a town called Betha. When the crowds learned it, they followed him and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, excuse me, of God and cured those who are in need of healing. So where we’ve just previously from John heard about the who, Luke tells us the where this particular event happened in Beth Sida. Now if we go back to John a little bit earlier in John we see this very interesting passage that says so they came to Philillip who was from Basida in Galilee and asked him sir we wish to see Jesus isn’t that interesting Phillip is from Basida okay so if we go back both John and Luke tell the same story Luke doesn’t mention Philip in this context at all but Luke does tell us the location of the event. John doesn’t mention Betha as the setting of the miracle but does tell us that is where Philip is from. So why did Jesus turn to Philillip? He was a local. But it is only by putting these stories together side by side can we understand how to answer the question from John 6:5. Why did Jesus ask Phillip? These are undesigned coincidences. These are things that in a court of law you’re looking for in terms of eyewitness testimony. The differences in the details that ultimately lend to their credibility because people who make these stories up don’t give ancillary details that end up working together to show levels of truthfulness and credibility. This is something we find throughout the gospels in Acts or in the Old Testament in writings where we have the same stories in different perspectives like 1 and 2 Chronicles, 1 and 2 Kings. Undesigned coincidences allow us to gain a picture and the understanding of the trustworthiness of what the Bible is telling us in how it operates. And there are so many examples of these proofs for the New Testament. These are only a few. In fact, you might be asking, Wes, how many of these do you think there are? How many do you think there are? Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and thank you Mr. Trump. Yes, not quite billions and billions but there are a whole lot. There are enough that give us grounds for a fairminded individual to say we’re dealing with something here. So although I’ve only outlined a few, I think we can say that even just looking at a few, give us if we are analyzing the data fairly and looking at the fact that what we have now is what the original authors wrote and the data bears that out and that what we have in those writings is accurate eyewitness testimony from things like location, location, location, unnecessary details, and undesigned coincidence. that this leaves us with confidence regarding its content. You can have trust based on the evidence that this is something that is attempting to con convey actual historical information that it is reliable that it is what scholars refer to as communicating verimilitude which is a word you’re all going to use at the party next week. Veric similitude is what we as historians are looking for in a word that simply means the appearance of truth, likelihood, and probability. That’s what we find with the Bible.
However, if I were to finish my talk there and you were to walk out of this room and simply believe that the Bible was a collection of generally historically reliable documents that maybe even communicates eyewitness testimony of actual historical events, then I would have failed. I would have failed because the Bible is no less than that. But the Bible is so much more than that. Because the Bible in its 66 books is all communicating about a single individual and person and event. And we find the question about that person right in the middle of Mark’s biography of Jesus when Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, “Who do you say that I am?”
That’s the question that the entire Bible is coming down to. That’s the question that the prophets are predicting hundreds of years before Jesus is even born. And then Jesus comes on the scene and there’s this expectation of someone who’s going to change the reality of God’s people. And Jesus makes claims, audacious claims, claims to be God himself. And then he predicts his own death and resurrection. And he does it. And people who rise from the dead have more credibility and authority than people who don’t rise from the dead. And so that means something. That means something that beyond the evidence, beyond the historical details, the undesigned coincidences and big fancy words like varyilitude, it means that if we can have confidence that the question that we need to ask of who do you say that I am is an imperative question. And so tonight, I want you to think simply on the basis of this small sliver of insufficient evidence that this stammering tongue has communicated tonight about who you say he is. Who do you say Jesus is?
What do we make of this man from Nazareth whose life has split our world in two? Could there be truth to all the rumors of what he means for me and you? Some call him a sage, a prophet, a sorcerer, saying history is shrouded in legendary tales. But Jesus’s genius, it’s beyond the pen of phrase mongers. His story stacking up where conspiracy fails as celebrated as the centerpiece of civilization, lighting a legacy of true humanity a glow. And no mere man or myth could fake such moral beauty. Inspiring faith is the life beyond all shadow. So come one and all who tire of darkness and come and see what his friends and followers speak. Step Aresh into the pages of these gospels. Who is Jesus? He may just be the one you seek at Christ Chronicles. Start with nativity. A creation’s author entering our story with creativity, angelic enunciations, Mary’s musical magnifications, animal accommodations, and celestial celebrations. Heaven’s high king swaddled in an earthly manger. Love incarnate, worshiped by shepherd and stranger. Humanity’s hopes long foretold across scripture and sky. Now breathing in Bethlehem. Heaven and earth united in a newborn’s cry. The word became flesh. And that word grew from a babe to a boy. From a teenager to a tradesman, escaping murderous machinations, confounding elders interpretations, drinking deep of our temptations, preparing for our souls true liberation. Yes, the word grew, laying down Joseph’s tools to start making all things new. Jesus goes public. Scores of people searching for truth designs, swelling into crowds for Christ’s sermons and signs. The tables of religious hypocrisy flipped by this living revelation of heaven’s true script. Blind eyes sited, lame legs rided, crooked hearts straightened, lost loved ones awakened. Forgiveness to soft-hearted sinners extended. A suffering’s reign prophesied to one day be ended. His message of mercy staying angry hands from violence. His aura of authority setting raging storms to silence. But Christ’s enigmatic deeds prompting disciples to say, “Who is this Nazarene that even the wind and the waves obey?”
But not all our evil likes being exposed. So evil sets about scheming, afraid of being deposed, taken captive by a kiss of a treacherous friend. Once again, God betrayed in the garden, left abandoned in the end. Creation’s judged, denied justice through shady trials, drinking deep of rejection through Peter’s denials. the heir to David’s throne, cursed with thorns for a crown, opting to take up his cross so he could lay his life down. Jesus dies at Calvary, God’s redemptive plan in brutal disguise. Heaven remaining silent for Christ’s derelict cries. Creation’s maker now mourned by darkened skies, leading everyone to wonder, were his claims empty lies? Or could the corpse of our hope from the grave still rise? And three days later, Jesus comes alive. Defeating death by resurrection. Earth’s foretaste of heaven’s future insurrection. Persuading doubters to believe on his wounds inspection. Christ’s true identity now an open secret beyond objection. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the friend of sinners whose love-born sacrifice can offer us salvation. The king of kings turned humble carpenter who can craft a new creation. eternal son, the great I am stepping forth to redeem this paradise lost. Our forgiveness, freedom, and future all paid for by Jesus who says, “Come to me freely all you who thirst and drink without cost.”
