“Can I really trust the Bible?”

Steve Brown:
Can I really trust the Bible? The answer to that, and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. So, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday. Here it is, even though we’re recording, it’s still Friday.

Steve Brown:
It’s still Friday. Friday. That’s proof Friday. Friday every time we do this. That’s right. It’s kind of a virtual Friday. It’s not a real Friday for us.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But it’s a virtual Friday. That’s true. Well, that’s Pete Alwinson and you ought to go to ForgeTruth.com for some really good stuff. Pete has, an exploding and wonderful men’s ministry. In fact, it’s the best men’s ministry I’ve ever encountered. And God is really honoring it in some wonderful ways. There are three sites that you can be involved in, in the Orlando area, and Pete never told me, and I just found out about this. Pete, you’ve got to tell me these things. But there are 8, 10 virtual sites in different places. And you have one in Nashville and one in some other place? Yeah, Miami, Missouri. And here in Florida we’ve got a few too. Okay. Now look, you have those on your website.

Pete Alwinson:
I think so, we’ll check them out. Go to ForgeTruth.com and you can check it out.

Steve Brown:
I really need to teach you some things on public relations. You’re way too humble. Listen, very soon on the ForgeTruth website, ForgeTruth.com, the virtual sites will be listed and you can find out those if one is in the city where you’re listening to this broadcast. And as soon as we finish this broadcast, I’m going to sit Pete down and I’m going to say some things that he needs to hear. Like quit being so humble. And that, by the way, is one of the reasons I love him. As you know, Pete comes in on Fridays and we answer questions, and we’ve been doing this for over 25 years. We love your questions. You can ask a question anytime, 24 7, by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and just follow instructions. And sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

if you live in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can send your question by e-mail to [email protected] and if you can help us financially, we’ll rise up and call you blessed. If you can, please do. Enough said. Pete, would you lead us in prayer? And we will then answer these questions?

Pete Alwinson:
Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Our Father, what a great day it is to be able to now just briefly at the end of the week, come into your presence. We honor you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you so much for being the God who is, the God who was, and the God who is to come and all that you have done. We praise you for your wisdom and your might. Yes, but we praise you for your great love for us and how that’s been proved in the coming the life, teaching, death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior. We honor you. Lord, you know we need you and we need your grace to continue to permeate every area of our life. So, at the end of this week, we ask that you would allow us to have a great experience this week, this week-end as we worship with our pastors, teachers, leaders, worship directors. May you use them and put the finishing touches on their preparations to lead us into your presence, where we can encounter the great God of the Universe. So, thank you for your mercy to us, and we give you our needs. And Lord, we ask that you’d bless this time of Q&A right now. Thank you for Key Life, for Steve, and for those who do so much behind the scenes. We commit this time to you. In Jesus’ strong name we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. You know something? We’re backing up on some of these phone call questions and so I generally we try to find one and use it on this broadcast, but we’ve decided that they’re getting to be so many we can’t, we’re going to have to do more of those. By the way, don’t forget, if you call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, that’s not for preaching, that’s for questions. We’re the preachers, and if you ask a question, sometimes you’ll make it on the air like this.

Caller 1:
In II Timothy 3:16 and 17. In this passage, what Scripture was Timothy talking about? What does that mean about the books we consider to be part of the Bible in God’s word? I’m also remembering in I Corinthians chapter 7: verse 12 I guess, how that relates to all of that.

Steve Brown:
Well, and that’s a good question, by the way. And very perceptive. Because in that Timothy passage, he’s talking about Scriptures that are Old Testament Scriptures, but he’s also stating a principle under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that is appropriately applied to the entirety of Scripture. And make some comments on that.

Pete Alwinson:
No, you’re right. So, the Scripture, and that’s what our sister was bringing up there, that it was, it’s the Old Testament. However, we do see that because of the apostles were who they were, their writings were considered, and their speeches, their messages were considered right away as Scriptrue, on the same level.

Steve Brown:
Oh, I know. Yeah. And if you’ll read the book of James, he refers to Paul’s writings and other Scripture. And so, you get exactly the same thing and that Timothy passage, it’s not that the Scripture says, yeah, well, the Old Testament is inspired and authentic and inerrant, but the New Testament, that’s not the same thing. It is the same thing. And the Scripture itself teaches that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And the second part of our question has to do with divorce or setting aside. You want to.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, you know, I think it is that verse I Corinthians 7:12.

But to the rest I say not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever.

And it does talk, I think

Steve Brown:
Oh, she’s the not the Lord thing.

Pete Alwinson:
I think she’s talking about.

Steve Brown:
I see.

Pete Alwinson:
I didn’t catch that the first time I looked at it.

Steve Brown:
I didn’t either. I see what she’s saying.

Pete Alwinson:
Not the Lord. So, what Paul is saying in that context, is I’m saying this with authority, but Jesus didn’t address this in particular.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And he does that again in II Corinthians when he is defending himself.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
Not the Lord.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
He’s just saying Jesus didn’t talk about it particularly.

Pete Alwinson:
Exactly. He’s not denying his own authority.

Steve Brown:
No, and it does not undercut the reality of the authority of Scripture.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. But this is so good because we do have to continue to go back as believers given how much assault we are under from a culture that doesn’t believe the Bible anymore. We have to go back to these questions and make sure we have it clear in our mind that the Bible is a inspired word of God, Old and New Testaments.

Steve Brown:
And in the church you don’t ask what do you think?

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right, right.

Steve Brown:
You don’t have committees to decide on truth.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
The truth is there, and if you can’t accept it, become a Buddhist. Quit messing around with a reality of what the church is, built on the rock of revealed truth from God himself.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. And we’re going to deal with this another time. We’re not going to talk about it now, but one of the issues with AI that that comes up is that we are going to have to know the truth because it’s going to be easily and persuasively slanted against us.

Steve Brown:
And one, well, we’ll talk about that later.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. We’ll take another time.

Steve Brown:
That’s another one.

Pete Alwinson:
The Bible, we’ve got to know the Bible.

Steve Brown:
Let’s go back to our phone lines again.

Caller 2:
I had a question about the loss of a child. I lost my child in a car accident at a very young age and just wanted to know what plans, you know how that works, if you know, if you don’t then I understand. God bless you guys.

Steve Brown:
Oh man. That’s a hard road to walk, it really is. I don’t know how, and you and I both have dealt with that a lot. And when we were pastors for so many years and it’s just, there’s nothing, a small casket in front of the church is so sad that you just hardly can get through it.

Pete Alwinson:
I know. And you never forget it. I’ll never forget that.

Steve Brown:
People will come to you, sir, and they’ll say It’s been two years ago, get on about your life. Make an obscene gesture at them, and I’m kidding of course.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
But you never get over it.

Pete Alwinson:
And you have to have language for that, I think. And it’s so hard when people say those things, but you know, you don’t get over something like that. You can grow through it. And you can carry on and mature deeply, but it’s, you know, we believe in a gracious, good God. Right? And, I know there are many books that have been written on this subject. David certainly believed that his child who did not survive. He was going to see again in the eternal state.

Steve Brown:
Absolutely. And Jesus, don’t forget, said.

Let the little children come unto me.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right.

Steve Brown:
If you’re looking for an attitude by the God of the Universe toward children, that’s it.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And that’s enough.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And our whole view on the significance and the sanctity of human life, unborn human life is for the same reason.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
So you know, I think you can expect to see your child again. You know Steve, recently I was, it was my birthday on a Forge morning. And they sang Happy Birthday to me. I didn’t know they knew, but one guy came up afterwards with tears in my eyes and he didn’t know, you know, my birthday is his son’s birthday, and he said, my son who was with Jesus would be 18 today.

Steve Brown:
Oh my.

Pete Alwinson:
And it shaped all my view of my birthdays from here on out, to know that I share that with that brother. It’s a deep and painful experience. And so, we pray for you and man, I want to say you probably have a ministry to others that

Steve Brown:
Oh, yes.

Pete Alwinson:
that no one else can have.

Steve Brown:
And I, and that’s exactly true. If you haven’t gone through that, you can love.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
You can stand, you can pray, you can say things, but you can’t go there.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
But if you’ve been there, you’re allowed into the hearts of people who are facing it. So don’t waste that horrible pain.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
It can certainly be used that way. I’m looking at the clock. I hate it when we’ve run out of time and we still have more questions.

Pete Alwinson:
I know.

Steve Brown:
You know, we don’t have time to bring up another question. So sing for us Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s an inevitability, that’s just bringing hell to earth if that happens.

Steve Brown:
Well, you could maybe pray again and make it a little bit longer or something like that. No, we’re out, we really are out of time. Only time to say one thing. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.