October 9, 2011 - Sunday Service Notes 

GODQUEST - THE WORD

 

Text: John 20:31

 

[You might want to open the sermon with the Signpost 3 video sermon introduction on your Church Leader Resource DVD.]

 

Some books are fiction, like Tom Sawyer or Great Expectations or Gone with the Wind. Other books are nonfiction, like The Diary of Anne Frank or Evidence That Demands a Verdict. And some are best classified as fables and fantasies, like C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia or J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings.

 

Fact, fiction, fable ... but which of those is the Bible?

 

Some people believe it’s fact; they believe EVERYTHING it says, even the supposedly “outrageous” stuff, like a prophet being swallowed by a large fish or a man walking on water. Others think it’s fiction—or mostly so—a collection of stuff people made up over the years, the way Walt Disney made up Mickey Mouse. And a good many people think there’s some truth in there, but it’s in the form of fable or myth; it’s not meant to be believed the way you believe a traffic report or a wedding announcement or your Aunt Myrtle’s pastitso recipe.

 

So we’re here to discuss: which is it? Fact, fiction, or fable?

 

We are in the midst of a series of studies from God’s Word, the Bible, called GodQuest, a multifaceted journey of discovery that we are sharing in our worship, in small groups, in the youth and children’s programs, and in our individual lives as well.

 

The first thing I want to suggest to you based NOT on my primitive imagination but on careful research and thorough investigation is:

 

1.            I can believe that the Bible was recorded faithfully.