SPEAKING OUT
BIBLICAL AUTHORITY – A PRIORITY OR A NECESSITY? In the early 1990s an idea began to grow in popularity among many in the business world and beyond. The idea, perhaps first popularised by Thomas Leonard, an American financial planner, was to find someone who could serve you as a “life coach”. The “life coach” was someone who would help you think through the bigger questions of life, not just your financial strategies for safeguarding your future, but someone who would help you organise and prioritise your life’s goals and activities. In many ways, the task of the “life coach” was to help you set the whole trajectory of your life. But long before the latest fad of “life coaches” came along, we Christians already had a coach to show us how to live, and where our lives should be heading. That coach came, not in the form of a series of DVDs and training manuals, or the counsel of a professional “life coach”. It came in the form of a book which, in His grace, God has preserved for us down through the millennia. That book is the Bible, the Word of God, which Paul reminds us is God-breathed, or inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16). I have recently returned from a week-long Bible Conference in which I was asked to share in the Word of God at the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) bi-annual conference in Vanuatu. This was a particularly precious time as, over the course of the week, we worked our way through Peter’s second, and final, letter to first century believers. In this letter Peter, in one sense, serves as a life coach as he reminds believers about the foundations of their precious faith— foundations which are grounded in 10 FEB/MAR 20 QB.ORG.AU
the Word of God. Peter wants his readers to understand how vitally important it is that they are firmly established in the truth of God’s Word. And, towards the end of chapter one, Peter wants them to understand that this Word is not just the product of “cleverly invented stories” (v.16), nor is it just a collection of opinions from prophets of a bygone age. Peter, in this letter, makes three great appeals to the veracity and value of God’s Word. 1. He draws attention to the witness of the apostles of Jesus. These are the men who had been there with Jesus, who had seen what He did, heard what He taught and had witnessed His manner of living. Indeed, Peter reminds his readers that some of them had witnessed His glorious transfiguration (vs. 16-18).
They heard the voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (ref Matt 17:5). They had also witnessed His life, death and resurrection. But it is not just their own first-hand witness to which Peter appeals. 2. He draws attention to the witness of the Old Testament prophets. Peter is careful to remind his readers that the prophets did not simply speak of their own accord, offering their own opinions about life, the origins of the universe and the meaning of life. Peter tells us that these prophets spoke as they “were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (v.21). While men may have penned the words, God breathed or inspired the words they wrote.
