The Bible on the Preservation of the Bible

Introduction: 

- How can you have any confidence that the book that the Bible that you hold in your hand is anywhere near to being the inspired Words of God?

- There are a lot of things to consider when you begin to think about this topic.

1. Any English translation of the Bible is, at best, a translation of a copy of the originally inspired texts.
2. Culturally we are so much different than the people whom the Bible was written to over 2,000 plus years ago, there has to be a number of things that we can’t really fully understand.
3. The Biblical accounts, in telling some of the same stories, have what appears to be conflicting information in them.
4. There are a number of other texts that people suggest to have been of Biblical origin and yet, we do not include these texts in the list of 66 books that make up our Bible.

- And the list could continue . . .

Transition Questions:

• How do we respond to so many voices of criticism?
• How can we have confidence in the accuracy of the English translations of the Bible that we use?

Mini-Series Intro:

In our Sunday Night series through the articles of the faith we began our discussion with article one - the Bible.We discussed a number of things in that study. (Inspiration, General and Special Revelation, Absolute Truth, and so on) Tonight, David adds one more to the list that helps us respond to so many of the claims that stand in opposition to God’s Word today. Psalm 12:6-8The concept that David deals with in this section of the Psalm is the preservation of God’s truth.When we talk about preservation what we’re talking about is the process by which God has supernaturally protected His word through many reproductions and translations.  The idea of preservation holds that God has faithfully superintended His Word down through the ages, so that even today, some 3,500 years after portions of the Bible were written down, we can say that what we possess, what we love and what we read are the very words of God.Now this is a huge topic, there are a lot of places we could take this discussion and a lot of information that is significant concerning how God preserved His Word through human authors and translators.So what we’re going to do is split this up over the next few weeks (perhaps 3) breaking down this information into 3 categories (a fourth will be available on-line)

1. The Bible on the Preservation of the Bible.
2. The application of vs.6-8 in the context of this Psalm.
3. The Custom and Culture Question.
4. The Historical Preservation of the Bible. (Online)

The Bible on the Preservation of the Bible:

Now . . . it’s important to understand that we are working off of one major assumptions.We’re working off of the assumption that the original autographs, that is, the writings of the original authors were divinely inspired.  Sadly, none of those original autographs have survived to this day.  In other words, you can’t go anywhere in this world and find a scrap of paper containing the actual writings of Paul, John, Moses, Peter, James, Daniel, Isaiah or any of the other biblical writers.  Since that is true, how can we be confident that the Bibles we possess today are in fact accurate and are the very Word of God?  And to answer this question we need to begin with the Bible itself . . . more specifically the claims that God makes about His recorded Word.

The Old Testament on Preservation

• Psalm 12:6-7
• Numbers 23:19
• Psalm 89:34
• Isaiah 40:8
• Psalm 119:89

The New Testament on Preservation

• Matthew 5:18
• Matthew 24:35
• Titus 1:2
• 1 Peter 1:25

Conclusion:

To my mind, the conclusion from these verses is crystal clear: God had indeed promised to preserve His Word! The internal evidence is overwhelming!  I have given you nine passages that explicitly state God’s intentions in this matter.The question I have for you is this: How many times does God have to say anything before we can conclude that He means it?  We have the promise of God, Who cannot lie (Heb. 6:18) Who identifies Himself as the “Faithful and True Witness” (Rev. 3:14) that He will forever perfectly preserve His Word.  However, while that may be all the evidence Bible believers need, that is not all the evidence we have.  If you’d like more information, more will be available online.