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The Word of God is our ultimate authority, but God also delegates authority to pastors and elders to rule his church, which includes the authority to interpret and apply the Word of God to specific situations.
It was standard practice in the New Testament churches to appoint elders, who have God-given authority to interpret and apply the Word of God to the lives of the believers who are under them. Elders in the church today have this same authority. We are blessed by God when willingly come under the authority of these God-appointed leaders, who hold the keys to the kingdom of Heaven.
There is a need for discipline in the church and God has given elders the authority to administer that discipline, although every member of the church is responsible to deal with sin. Ultimately, that discipline can include excommunication, which is the most serious punishment a person can receive because it mirrors God’s actions. A person who has been properly excommunicated and does not repent, will go to hell. There is great pressure on church leaders to not administer proper discipline and to compromise the Word of God. John F. MacArthur recently compromised the Word of God by teaching that pastors have no authority, which is unbiblical and contrary to his own prior teaching.
The Word of God is the only absolute unquestionable authority. We should not obey any delegated authority who tells us to sin. In addition, delegated authorities in the church may overstep their proper authority, in which case we should deal with the issue biblically. We must take our commitment to our local church very seriously. The church is like a family and is part of the body of Christ. We must deal with problems biblically and may not leave a church unless it is operating unbiblically, and then we will be held accountable before God, so we must be very sure. Christians are personally responsible to know God’s Word and we must be very careful in finding and joining a local church.
The Bible is infallible because God is the author and he is infallible. To deny the infallibility of the Bible is to base faith on the shifting sands of subjectivism.
[Download PDF Transcript] Marc Roby: We are resuming our study of systematic theology today by continuing to examine the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible. In our previous session we argued that this is…
The study of science is part of fulfilling God’s creation mandate, and it should drive us to seek God. But the Bible is the only infallible source of knowledge about God and his plan of salvation. Jesus Christ considered the Bible to be the infallible Word of God and Christians must do the same. The alternative is to listen to men, who pervert the gospel of grace in different ways. Man-made religions cannot save anyone.
[Download PDF Transcript] Marc Roby: We are resuming our study of systematic theology today by continuing to examine the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible. In our previous sessions we have shown that the…
The claim that the Bible is full of errors is wrong. Most supposed errors are trivial and can be easily explained. The errors that do exist are very minor can be ascribed to errors by copyists and don’t affect any doctrine of Christianity.
Because our eternal destiny is at stake, we should be extremely careful to be sure that we understand the Bible correctly. The rules for proper interpretation are called hermeneutics. The first rule of hermeneutics is that we must use Scripture itself to understand Scripture; this is sometimes called the analogy of faith.
[Download PDF Transcript] Marc Roby: We are resuming our study of systematic theology today by continuing to examine hermeneutics, the principles we use to properly interpret the Bible. Dr. Spencer, last time we ended with…
We need to know the historical context of a biblical passage to properly understand it. We must also interpret every passage in the light of all that the Bible teaches since the Bible is a unity and cannot contradict itself. The apocalyptic portions of the Bible are not there to tell us when Christ will return, but are intended to cause us to live more carefully. The Bible uses all normal figures of speech and we need to pay careful attention to them.
Hebrew poetry uses plays on words and different types of parallelism, in addition to lots of metaphorical language. Our understanding is improved significantly if we take the time to pay careful attention to these features.
The biblical and historical context of a passage is extremely important in determining the proper meaning. We must also remember that the Bible is a unity and cannot contradict itself, so we should never interpret a passage in a way that contradicts something taught somewhere else in the Bible.
Jesus Christ is the central topic of the Bible and the focal point of history. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Christ and the New Testament gives us a record of his first coming and tells us that he will come again. There will then be a new heaven and a new earth and everyone who has ever lived will spend eternity either in heaven or in hell, with no possibility of altering that destiny. We must understand this Christological focus to properly understand the Bible. God providentially controls all of history. God also deals with his people in the context of covenants. Theologians frequently speak about two major covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.
