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Group Guide

April 6th, 2025
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This Week's City 7:

7. How can I trust that the Bible is still God’s Word today? I trust the Bible is still God’s Word today because Jesus rose from the dead, proving He was God and said His words would never pass away. Through the Holy Spirit, God inspired the writing of the Scripture, determined the canon of Scripture and protected the copying of Scripture so that we might know Him and worship Him to this day.
(Matthew 24:35; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Revelation 22:18-19)

Ice-Breaker:

  • How often do you encounter people that openly question the validity and reliability of the Bible? 

Discussion Questions:

  • As Christians, our lives are to be built on the Word of God. If we are to trust the Bible, we must first understand that God INSPIRED the WRITING of SCRIPTURE. Did God physically pen the words found in the Bible? Of course not. But He did inspire through His Spirit the ones that did. Jesus quoted from the Old Testament law, psalms and prophets, referring to them as God's Words. He gave authority to the Apostles and said that the Spirit would guide them in all truth and remind them of all the things they had seen. Peter and Paul refer to each other's writings as Scripture. Scripture is SUFFICIENT. This means that it is enough to tell us everything we need to know about God, His nature, His heart, His ways, the gospel, etc. When people tell you that you HAVE to read a certain book, we should beware! There is no knew knowledge or new revelation. All God wants us to know is right there in His book. This isn't to say Christians SHOULDN'T read Christian books, but we must be so careful not to give them more authority than Scripture. Everything must be submitted to and tested against the Word of God. Have you ever been guilty of treating Christian books as authoritative? How often are you testing things you hear or read against the truth of Scripture?

  • Clayton talked about the supernatural consistency and accuracy of Scripture. No other historical writings even come close! The most astounding fact shared on Sunday was concerning the over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. These were prophecies written hundreds of years before Jesus' birth. The odds of one man fulfilling just one in eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. The odds of fulfilling all of them? 1 in 10 to the 2000th power. That's a 1 followed by 2,000 zeros! The conclusion? Scripture is real and true and accurate beyond anything man could be capable of. How much confidence does this give you in the reliability of Scripture? How much does knowing that Jesus really is who He said He was build your faith and make you more assured that you're on the right side?

  • Not only did God inspire the writing of Scripture, He also determined the CANON of Scripture. Canon simply refers to the books that are actually inspired by God and considered Scripture. Many people are under the assumption that a bunch of greedy and powerful men got together and decided what went into the Bible and what didn't. But this isn't true at all. In order for a writing to be considered canonical, it had to be authored by an Apostle and had to agree theologically with other known Scripture. This rules out writings like the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Judas, the gospel of Mary and the gospel of Philip. These fail all the tests and fall short of what is to be considered Scripture. So, church councils in the 4th and 5th century RECOGNIZED (not determined) the 27 books of the New Testament that met the requirements to be considered Scripture. Have you heard people claim before that a bunch of men decided what was Scripture and what wasn't? Knowing what you know now, does it grow your confidence in the Bible?

  • God also protected the COPYING of Scripture. The Bible we have today ISN'T a copy of a copy of a copy, as some claim out of ignorance. It's NOT a game of telephone. We have translations that have been translated directly from the earliest Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. They are 99.5% accurate to the originals. And the .5% variance are things like spelling differences or word order. There is absolutely zero affect on any doctrine. The bottom line is, God WANTS us to have His Word, and so He made it happen. If Jesus has RISEN from the dead, then He is ABLE to PRESERVE His Word! Jesus said His words wouldn't pass away, that He would guide the Apostles into all truth, that they were to testify of all they had seen and heard, and that WE would believe because of THEIR message. So our trust is ultimately in JESUS! To NOT trust in Scripture is to call Jesus a liar. Where is your trust level for the infallibility and inherency of Scripture? Do you treat it as such?

  • So what do we do with all this? We build our lives on Scripture! The AUTHOR should be our AUTHORITY. We are to OBEY what we read in the Bible, to build our lives on the ROCK of Scripture. You aren't a good authority for your life. Neither is culture. Why? Because our minds and attitudes are constantly shifting. Because we can be selfish and self-serving. Because culture thinks what is up is down and down is up. Scripture is the ONLY constant. It is unchanging and ALWAYS true and good and right. Is Scripture the authority of YOUR life? How do you know? 

Prayer Topics:

  • That we would trust God's Word.
  • That we would build our lives on it.
  • That Scripture would be our authority. 

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