Scripture: Final in Authority to Jesus

[Part 9]

According to the worldview of Jesus, the Scripture is final in authority.  He answered every temptation of Satan with a quote from Scripture.  Three times Jesus said, “It is written” (Matthew 4:4, 7 & 10).  Then, he followed those words with quotes from the book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 8:3, 6:16 & 6:13).  Even though the book of Deuteronomy was 1500 years old, Jesus quoted it to close the door on temptation.

Between the giving of the Law through Moses to the quoting of it by Jesus, Greek culture had given the world classical philosophy, moral relativism, and scientific discoveries of matter and the orbit of planets.  The golden era of Greek culture had been around for over 500 years when Jesus quoted Moses.  Yet, Jesus did not consider that as making the Scripture outdated.

Yet, that is what the secular world is telling Christians today.  We are being told that our beliefs are outdated because they predate the scientific age.  Those who espouse a secular worldview act as if the scientific age in which we live made a break with everything before it.  But the modern scientific age is not a break from the past but a development of classical Greek culture.

The view that matter is “all there is, was, or every will be” didn’t start with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.  The Greek Ionians surmised it.  And the idea of evolution didn’t start with Darwin.  It is traced back to Aristotle.

Nevertheless, scientists, who act like the high priests of culture, seek to mediate a meaning that undermines the Bible.  They say the Bible is irrelevant to modern culture.  But the timeless truths of the Scriptures are as relevant today as they were in the world of Jesus.  And true science aligns with Scripture rather than with classical Greek culture.

Greek cosmology taught that matter has always existed.  This belief gave birth to the “scientific” theory of the steady state universe.   This theory says that the universe has always existed.  This was the view of scientists until the Big Bang theory showed that the universe came into existence and is aging.

The Bible has always taught that there was a time when the universe was not and that it is growing old.  The New Testament book of Hebrews says of the universe, “YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT” (Hebrews 1:10-11).

These words are capitalized because they are a quote from the book of Psalms.  This means at the time of the writing of the New Testament, these words were already 1,000 years old.  It took scientists another 2000 years to catch up with the Bible and realize that the universe came into existence and is aging.  Their thinking was limited by Greek cosmology.

A Biblical worldview does not limit your thinking.  It expands your mind with the thoughts of the infinite God.  Maybe that’s why it was a priest who came up with the Big Bang theory.  God’s thoughts are eternal.  That’s why the Scriptures are final in authority, and if we are to look at the world as Jesus did, we must accept the final authority of Scripture.

Michael Peters

www.TheCellChurch.com

 

About the Author:

Michael Peters

Dr. Michael Peters is the lead pastor of Christ the King: TheCellChurch.com. He is married to Linda, and they have two children and seven grandchildren. Dr. Peters graduated from Covenant Seminary with an MA and obtained a PhD in historical theology from Saint Louis University. He has written several books. His most recent is titled Cell Vision. It’s about organic discipleship and how to develop supporters into disciple makers. He taught critical thinking and Biblical worldview at Missouri Baptist University. His favorite course textbook was Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. His favorite philosopher is Nietzsche because postmodern people are just catching up with premodern Nietzsche. And his favorite Christian writer is G.K. Chesterton because he understood the difference between a poet and theologian. “The poet,” he wrote, “only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the theologian who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

CSM