Fundamental Beliefs I (Lesson 1 of 12) Teacher’s Guide GROW
Religious Instruction. The Bible provides the best religious Academy
instruction. Through its pages, we come to know God as our
Creator and Sustainer, but more than that, a loving personal God
who gave His Son as a ransom for our sins. The Bible also reveals
how God wants us to live happy and satisfied.
B. For our correction (II Timothy 3:16)
The Bible is like a mirror that allows us to see our own reflections
and see the dirt on our faces. When we study the Bible, our sins--
wrong thoughts and actions, and imperfection of character are pointed
out before us.
C. To give us hope. (Romans 15:4)
The Word of God provides hope and strength to face our burdens and
trials in life. It contains stories of people who overcame because God
upheld them. It gives many wonderful promises from God that we
can cling to when we face seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
The Bible also provides hope against sin and death. It tells about
salvation in Jesus, and depicts to us the dramatic events at the close of
human history when righteousness will reign once more.
D. For us to believe in Jesus and be saved. ( John 20:31)
We have gone through many important functions of the Bible, but the
main reason why we have the Bible is for us to know and believe in
Jesus Christ. All our strivings to read and study the Bible comes to
no avail if we fail to discover Christ in the Bible and accept Him as
personal Savior. He is what humanity needs.
SUMMARY:
The Bible is the authoritative word of God to man. It serves as our measure
for truth, a source of guidance and hope but most importantly, it is shows
the way for humankind to experience salvation in Jesus Christ.
Do you believe that the Bible is God’s inspired Word, and that it
constitutes the rule for faith and morality?
My answer: ________
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THE BIBLE: THE TEXTBOOK ON SALVATION
Ever bought an appliance that after sometime became difficult to use?
Instead of tinkering, the best thing to do is to reach for its manual. It will
provide you with a step by step guide on how to operate and care for your
unit.
Would it not be wonderful if life also can have a kind of a manual--a book
that we can refer when things go difficult or wrong in our lives? Christians
claim there is such a book-- the Bible.
I. WHAT IS THE BIBLE?
A. It is actually a LIBRARY.
The term “bible” originally meant books. It is not a really single
book, but a collection of 66 books considered as some of the best
literatures ever written.
B. It’s an AMAZING BOOK.
Some of the things that amaze us about the Bible are:
1. Its Literary Supremacy. The Bible is the most published, most
translated and most circulated book. There are other books that
rocked the world, but none can come close to how the Bible
influenced human civilizations. For example, modern science is
born out of the biblical view that the physical world is orderly and
understandable. This is the reason why many of the great pioneers
of science were from Christian backgrounds. Democracy also, as
we have it today, arose within the ranks of Bible believers
championing the value of every man.
2. Its Unity of Thought and Message. A period of 1,600 years
passed before the Bible was completed. About forty different
authors coming from diverse historical periods, cultural
backgrounds, and conditions in life wrote the Bible. Yet what they
produced can be collected and bound as one book as if written by
a single author. The reason for this is the amazing unity and
harmony in their contents.
3. Its Textual Reliability. Under the search light and scrutiny of
modern scholarship, the modern copies of our Bible are by far
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 more accurate reproductions of their original documents than that
of any modern copies of ancient literature.
4. Its Historical Accuracy. Two examples that prove the historical
accuracy of the Bible are:
a. The Hittites- They are often mentioned in the Old Testament
C. Reproduction of the inspired documents. (Deuteronomy 17:18)
but not in any other ancient documents. Skeptics used this to
falsify the Bible, but in the late nineteenth century, the ruins of
the Hittites were excavated. Today, no historian in his right
mind would question that they once existed.
b. Nebuchadnezzar- Ancient Greek history never credited to him
the greatness that he was ascribed in the book of Daniel. This,
again, was used to discredit the Bible until the digging of the
city of Babylon and it was discovered that every brick contains
a stamp of the name of the city’s builder, that name was
Nebuchadnezzar.
III. WHY DO WE HAVE THE BIBLE?
5. Its Amazing History of Survival. Its journey in history down to
the present time abounds with many inspiring stories, and also
with many horrendous acts by its enemies. Those who treasured
the book willingly gave their lives for it, while those who wanted
it extinct acted out their most villainous deeds. At the end, the
Bible survived to the present time as a book to be reckoned by all
men in all ages.
C. It is the WORD OF GOD. (Luke 11:28)
Not that each word in the Bible are literal words of God, but that He
guides the writers so that what they wrote accurately reflects His
thoughts. At the end the Bible is nothing short of being messages
from God, or as we call today, the Word of God.
II. HOW DID WE GET OUR BIBLE?
Since we say that the Bible came from God, some might think that the
Bible just dropped from the sky as a parcel from God complete with a
leather binding and a gold edge. No, instead it went though several
stages before it reached our hands.
A. Writing down of the messages coming from God. (Daniel 7:1)
God communicated to the prophets in various ways like dreams, visions,
and voices. Then, under the influence His Spirit, the prophets wrote
down these messages.
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B. Recognition of the written documents. (Deuteronomy 31:26)
These prophetic writings came to be acknowledged as inspired. Some
were right away taken as authoritative while others took a longer
time, but all were eventually gathered together and deemed as part of
the authoritative Word of God.
They were painstakingly hand-copied to assure accuracy and were
given out to other groups of believers as well. The earlier copies of
the Scriptures were written on plant materials called papyrus, the root
of our present word paper, and animal skin called parchment. These
copies were then rolled into bundles which were called scrolls.
Another book type that came later was the codex it is made of
individual pages bound together by a spine. This is the dominant
book type today. The ancient surviving copies of the Scriptures
became the basis for the text and translations of our Bibles today.
A. For our learning and instruction. (II Timothy 3:16)
The Bible provides us with the most important instructions and
information any man could possibly have.
1. Answers to Life’s Fundamental Questions. Man is always in
search for answers to life’s big questions: what is he, where did
he come from, why is he here, and where is he going?
The Bible teaches that we are created by God to be objects of
His love. He destined us to be with Him forever, only that sin
spoiled this plan. It also teaches that God is now doing
everything so that we can be reconciled with Him, and that the
world can be restored to the paradise it once was.
2. Morality. Ours society is in chaos morally. States endlessly
create laws. Each generation puts up its own value system and
tearing down the previous ones. Every person speaks of his own
principles and beliefs.
In contrast to these varying and passing human opinions, the
moral codes of the Bible stand firm as a rock. We have the Ten
Commandments in Exodus 20, the Beatitudes, in Matthew and the
Golden Rule . These are only some of the moral codes found in
the Bible that are honored by men in ages.
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