June 7, 2026

“Trusting the Bible”

Message by Rev. Alan Perkins

Good morning! This week, we begin a series on Baptist doctrines. Actually, we began last week with the sermon on the Trinity, I just didn’t announce it. And when I say “Baptist” doctrines, I don’t mean just those teachings which are specific to Baptists, or which distinguish us as Baptists. That would be a short list. Because most of what we believe is common to all branches of the church. One example is the Trinity, which we looked at last week. The doctrine of the Trinity is the statement that as Christians, we worship one God, who exists eternally in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That doctrine is accepted by all Christian churches, whether they are Catholic, or Protestant, or Orthodox. And actually, most of what we believe about who God is—who the Father is, who Christ is, who the Holy Spirit is—most of that falls into that category of “things that all Christians believe”. 

Other doctrines concern matters about which Catholic, and Protestant, and Orthodox churches differ. For example, we hold different views of authority. In other words, how do we know what it is that we are supposed to believe, and to do, as Christians? Who has the authority to tell us that? In the Catholic church, authority is like a three-legged stool; it comes from the Scriptures, and also from tradition, and also from the pope and the bishops, what is called the magisterium. In Catholicism, the pope is the ultimate authority, because he is the one who interprets the Scriptures and the tradition. Orthodox churches, on the other hand, recognize the dual authority of the Scriptures and tradition, but they have no pope. Instead, they emphasize the consensus of the entire church, including both clergy and laity, in interpreting the Scriptures and the tradition. 

But Protestant churches, including Baptist churches, have a different view. We recognize only the Scriptures as the final source of authority. We greatly value church tradition as informative and educational. But we don’t accept tradition as having authority over the Scriptures, or as being equal in authority to the Scriptures. We also respect the value of education for pastors, and we expect them to be qualified to interpret the Scriptures. But we don’t grant to any human being the authority to interpret the Scriptures for everyone else. This was one of the central issues of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century: Sola Scriptura. It means that the Bible is the only infallible and final authority for Christian faith and practice. The Bible is the standard by which all doctrines, traditions, teachings, and practices must be judged. And so the Bible judges the traditions and the teachings of men, not the other way around. Here is how our Statement of Beliefs puts it: 

We believe that the Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God, the final written authority and trustworthy for faith and practice. It is to be interpreted responsibly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit within the community of faith. The primary purpose of the Bible is to point to Jesus Christ, the living Lord of the Church.

Why does this matter? It matters because God expects us to follow his instructions.
He expects us to lead godly and obedient lives. He expects us to honor him in everything that we do and say. And so we need a reliable guide to just what it is that God expects us to do. It also matters because God expects us to believe what he has revealed—what he has revealed about himself, and about Christ, and about salvation. And so again, we need a reliable guide to what God has revealed, so that we can believe it. 

For Protestants—and for Baptists, because Baptists are Protestants—the Bible is the source of that revelation. It tells us what we need to believe, and it tells us how we are to live. This requires interpretation, of course, and different people have different ideas about what the Bible teaches on various topics. But all of those interpretations are subject to being tested against the Scriptures. That’s the key. Whenever someone has an idea about what we should believe or how we should live, they can’t just appeal to tradition; that is, what people have done in the past. And they can’t pull rank and appeal to what some authority figure says. No, they have to justify their teachings by showing how they are supported by the Bible. That’s the difference. 

Now, why don’t we accept the authority of any human being as final? You have to admit that it would be simpler. No need to evaluate what different people are saying about any matter of faith or Biblical interpretation. Just find out what that one person says, or that one group, and you’re done. The problem is that people are fallible, and that includes church leaders. Here is how Martin Luther stated it when he was called to answer for his writings during the Protestant Reformation:

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.” 

In 1542, Martin Luther was summoned to appear before an imperial assembly in the city of Worms, in Germany. The emperor had convened a kind of inquisition, which included himself and various princes and church officials. Because at that time, political leadership and church leadership were joined together. Luther was invited to either defend or to retract what he had written concerning several matters that challenged Catholic doctrine, including the sacraments, the authority of the pope, and the practice of indulgences; which was basically selling entry into heaven for money. The stakes were high. Luther knew that if he failed to recant, he could be burned at the stake as a heretic. And in fact, after this council concluded, he was declared by the emperor to be a heretic and an outlaw. Which meant that anyone could kill him without consequences, and it was illegal for anyone to protect him. But Luther refused to retract what he had written, and this is the reason he gave: “I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves”. And so what was Luther’s final authority? “my conscience is captive to the Word of God”. 

Luther wasn’t the first to observe this. In the twelfth century, four hundred years earlier, a theologian named Peter Abelard published a book entitled “Yes and No”, in which he gathered together quotations from many different church leaders, showing that they frequently contradicted one another. For 158 different topics, he cited one authority who answered one way, and then right next to it, another authority figure who gave a different, and opposite, answer. “Yes and No”.  This was not received well, as you might expect. Abelard was charged with heresy, and he was sentenced to perpetual silence by the pope. His works were placed on the list of forbidden books. Because obviously, if different authorities contradicted one another, one of them had to be wrong.  

Is there any Biblical support for regarding tradition as non-authoritative? Yes. Listen to Jesus’ statement to the Pharisees; the religious leaders of his day:

5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” 6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’

8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” 9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:5-9)

Now, this doesn’t tell us that any particular tradition is good or bad, Biblical or unbiblical. But what it does tell us is that tradition must be judged by the Scriptures, and therefore it is not equal or superior to the Scriptures. It is subject to the Scriptures. And when tradition conflicts with the Scriptures, as it had under the Pharisees, then it has no value and should be ignored.

This has several implications. For one, if we can’t depend completely on any person or group of people to interpret Scripture for us, then that makes each one of us responsible before God to read and to understand the Scriptures for ourselves. You are responsible to read and understand the Scriptures for yourself. You can’t outsource to anyone else the responsibility to study the Bible and to decide for you what it teaches. The name for this is the “priesthood of believers,” and it means that each one of us has the right, and also the responsibility, to go directly to God, without any other human intermediary; without any other person standing between us and God. Here is the key verse:

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

We don’t need priests to intercede between us and God, because each of us is a priest. Each one of us can approach God directly, with only Christ as our intermediary, and the Holy Spirit as our intercessor. We don’t need another person to do that, because Christ is doing that for us. He is our advocate before God the Father. And that implies that we each have a responsibility to pray to God and to study his word for ourselves. Listen to what happened when Paul and Silas arrived in Berea on their second missionary journey:

10 As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. (Acts 17:10-12)

How did those in Berea respond when they heard Paul’s teaching about Christ? They didn’t go to their leaders or to the religious authority figures. If they had, they would have been told to reject him. But instead, they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”, verse 11. And as a result, many of them believed. But here’s the key point. They weren’t being rebellious or unfaithful by doing that. No, this passage tells us that the Bereans “were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica”, because they went to the Scriptures to evaluate what Paul was teaching, rather than rejecting it based on what the Jewish leaders were telling them. And that is what we should be doing; testing everything against the Scriptures. 

I’ll give you a personal example. In college, I joined up with a Christian campus ministry called the Navigators. Good group. Their focus was on the Bible. Bible study, Bible memorization. And they were also committed to evangelism. One night a week, we would go into the dorms and just walk down the hall looking for an open door. And when we found one, we would stick our heads in and ask people if they would like to talk about Jesus. I don’t know if you could even do that today. But one evening, I was doing that, and I met a guy named Mike and some of his roommates. I shared the gospel with them, and we had some follow-up conversations. Mike seemed really interested. But then he went home for spring break. And when he got back, his attitude had changed. He had gone to see the minister of his home church. That minister told him that what we were sharing with him was wrong, and that he shouldn’t talk to us. I was disappointed, but I didn’t try to argue. Instead, I just asked Mike to get out his Bible. And for each of the points that his minister had disagreed with, we looked up the relevant Scripture passages. And that won him over. Because we weren’t arguing from authority, or tradition, or logic alone, but we kept going back to the Scriptures. And even as a non-Christian, he recognized the authority of God’s Word. And Mike did come to faith. Now, many years later, Mike is married to a wonderful Christian woman and they have lots of children and grandchildren. So I’m thankful for that Navigator emphasis on the Bible. 

Now, is there still a place for teachers? Of course. I hope so. I’m one of them. Teachers are people who have the gifts and the ability to devote more of their time to studying the Bible and explaining it to others. They may have education that exposes them to different views, or they may be just great students and readers. And so they can help us to understand the Bible, and also to evaluate what other people are saying and writing. Like I’m doing this morning. As for myself, I try to be as helpful as I can, every week. And I consider it to be both a privilege and a sacred responsibility to make sure that what I am teaching is as accurate as possible. But sadly, I’m not infallible. I know that comes as a surprise to you. As one of my seminary professors used to say, “I know that some of the things I’m teaching are incorrect—hopefully, not many—I just don’t know which ones they are.” And so ultimately, it’s up to each one of you here this morning to evaluate what I am teaching and to compare it to the Scriptures. And if you think you’ve caught me in an error, my office hours are Thursdays from 10-12 and 1-3. If you can convince me, I’ll correct it. But no refunds. 

Of course, you aren’t infallible either. And that’s where the community of faith comes in. The priesthood of the believer doesn’t mean that we should always trust our own interpretation, no matter what. And that’s especially true if you come up with something that conflicts with what most other people are teaching. Innovation in theology is not usually a good thing. Let’s look again at what our Statement of Belief says, 

“We believe that the Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God, the final written authority and trustworthy for faith and practice. It is to be interpreted responsibly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit within the community of faith.”

What that means is that we need to test our understanding of the Scriptures against what others are saying and writing. None of us is the final authority. We don’t try to interpret the Scriptures in isolation; we do it within a church body and a church tradition. For us, that’s the Protestant and Baptist tradition. We need to take into consideration how others are understanding the Bible, so that we don’t go off on some kind of wild tangent. That’s how cults get started. 

But in the end, each of us is responsible to decide what we believe the Bible is teaching, and to live accordingly. And that responsibility means that each one of us needs to be a student of the Bible, to the extent that we are able. So, should we listen to podcasts, and read books, and pay attention to what the pastor teaches? Yes, all of those things are good. Especially the last one. But we need to always be evaluating what we hear and read against the Bible. We should be critical readers and critical listeners. And in order to do that, we need to know our Bible. There is no substitute, no short cut, for reading and studying the Scriptures for ourselves. When we get to heaven, if we find out that we haven’t been doing what God told us to do; God is not going to accept any excuse that we just did what some Bible teacher told us. Why? Because God has given us his Word. And he expects us to read it and study it. 

I’m going to give you a little warning here, a little caution. There are some wonderful Bible teachers on the radio, and on YouTube. There are some great Christian authors. I’ve benefited tremendously over the years from many of them. And the temptation, once we have come to trust a teacher or author, is to let down our guard and just accept what they say. But every one of those teachers has made errors. How do I know that? Because they are all human, and humans are fallible. And so we must always compare their teachings to the Word of God. And I hope you’re doing that with what I am teaching you as well. Because it’s possible that some day I may make a mistake. And actually, we make that easy to do, by publishing the text of the sermons on the web site, and also making booklets of the sermons available in the foyer. So let’s all be good Bereans, and test what we hear against the Scriptures. 

Now, I’d like to take the rest of our time to look at the statement, that “the Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God”. What does that mean, and why do we believe it? First, when we say that the Bible is the “Word of God”, we mean that although it was written by human beings, they did so under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that what they wrote expressed perfectly what God intended, without any errors. And this is why we can trust it, and rely upon it, completely. That doesn’t mean that God dictated to the Biblical authors, so that they were just scribes or secretaries. God made use of their individual personalities and ways of thinking. And so there is clearly a difference in writing style and vocabulary between the gospel of Mark, for example, and Paul’s letter to the Romans. But the end result of that process, what they put down on paper, communicates exactly what God intended, and is without any error whatsoever. Here’s a key verse:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

“All Scripture is God-breathed”, that is, inspired, by God. And therefore, it is without error, because they are God’s words and God is without error. Paul is also telling us that the Bible is fit for purpose; that we can use it to teach, and correct, and train. It will thoroughly equip us for every good work. And note the first word: “All”. All Scripture. We don’t have to carefully pick and choose what to accept and what to disregard, because it all comes from God. Some people, who don’t accept what this verse teaches, compare reading the Bible to eating fish. They say that we have to swallow the meat and spit out the bones. But that’s not true. We can trust all of it. And by the way, if someone is trying to decide what parts of the Bible are true and which are not, then who is the authority? They are. They are making themselves the authority over the Bible and judging it, instead of allowing the Bible to stand over them and judge them. And that’s a recipe for error and unbelief. Because it’s human nature to reject the parts of the Bible which you don’t like, and those are probably the parts that you most need to hear. 

Now, if the Bible is completely trustworthy and without error, does that mean that it is always perfectly clear how to interpret it? No, because the Bible is composed of 66 books that were written over thousands of years, by dozens of different authors, to people in very different cultures, and using different ancient languages. In addition, it contains many different types of literature, including history, law, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, gospels, letters, parables, apocalyptic literature like Daniel and Revelation, genealogies, hymns and songs, and so on and so on. And every type of literature requires its own interpretive approach. Again, everything in the Bible is true, absolutely. There are no errors in the Bible. But you have to understand what kind of literature you are reading in order to understand what it is saying. And that’s why we have translators, and commentators, and theologians, and teachers. To help us to do that. And I’ll tell you that studying all the different kinds of literature in the Bible has been one of the great joys of my life. Because there is nothing boring about the Bible. 

I’m going to close by bringing this all back to the purpose for which God gave us the Scriptures, His Word. It wasn’t just to enlighten us or to broaden our minds, or to provide lots of material for academics and theologians to argue about. It was to change our lives. Listen to what the author of Hebrews writes:

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

God’s word is not like any other piece of writing, or any other kind of literature. It isn’t even like other kinds of religious texts. It is alive. It is powerful. It is active. It penetrates deeply into our minds and hearts. And it changes us. This book looks, on the surface, like any other book. It has pages, and text, and chapters. But it is not like any other book. Because no other book is completely true in every respect. No other book came from God. But also, because no other book is alive. And so no other book has the power that this one does, when we read it and meditate on it, to produce deep and lasting changes in our thinking, and our desires, and our values, and our conduct. Only the Bible can do that. 

Recall again what we read earlier in 2 Timothy:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

That is what the Bible is for. To change us, to penetrate into the deepest parts of our mind and heart; to equip us to live for God, every day, and to do the work he has called us to do. It wasn’t given to satisfy our curiosity. It has a purpose, and that purpose is to guide us and strengthen us in our walk with God. 

And so let’s commit to doing that. Several weeks ago, I gave you my foolproof Bible reading plan, and I’m going to repeat it this morning. Here it is: “Read the Bible today”. That’s it. Read as much or as little as you have time for. Start anywhere you like. Just read the Bible, today and every day. And it will change you, for the better. 

In conclusion, the Bible is our sole and final authority for faith and practice. History, and tradition, and pastors and teachers can help us to understand it, but they aren’t the authority; the Bible is the authority. And because it came from God, we know that everything in the Bible is true and reliable, and that we can safely base our faith and our life on what it teaches. It is worth all the effort that it takes us to understand it and apply it. And it is necessary that we do so. So that we understand what God expects of us. So that we know what resources he has made available to us and what promises he has made to us. But in the end, what matters is not what we understand, but what we do. And so let’s commit ourselves, not just to reading, and studying, and understanding the Bible, but to doing what it says. 

The First Baptist Church of Richwood - June 7, 2026