Sermon Tone Analysis

Manuscript: 

Good evening everyone, If you are new and joining us tonight, thank you for being here, if we haven’t already spoken do me a favor and come up and introduce yourself after we wrap up here.

We do a lot of great things in this ministry/ We come together, have fun, play games, sing really wonderful and meaningful songs, and I don’t know about you but it puts my soul at ease to come and be here week in and week out and be a part of something larger than myself.

We are not too far away from our mission trip to Atlanta where we will go to the area serve with compassion and offer real hope in the name of Jesus.

If you have your Bibles and I hope that you do, please open up to .

As always we’ll bounce around a bit but this is where we will plant our flag this evening.

As you turn there in the New Testament I want to ask you have you ever had someone break a promise to you?

Or even worse, have you ever been the one who has broken a promise you have made to someone else?

I mapped out where all we were going throughout this semester in terms of teaching back in the Summer and I love that this message coincides with where we are as a church at large.

If you were with us this past Sunday you saw that we are in a brief little sermon series called, Words Matter, and boy is that ever the truth.

Words absolutely matter.

You hear Mark Satterfield say its not uncommon in their household to ask, “are you building up or are you tearing down?” Meaning are you being an encourager, a good friend, a good sibling or a good son or daughter with the words that you speak or are you being destructive?

If you have your Bibles and I hope that you do, please open up to .

As always we’ll bounce around a bit but this is where we will plant our flag this evening.

As you turn there in the New Testament I want to ask you have you ever had someone break a promise to you?

Or even worse, have you ever been the one who has broken a promise you have made to someone else?

I mapped out where all we were going throughout this semester in terms of teaching back in the Summer and I love that this message coincides with where we are as a church at large.

If you were with us this past Sunday you saw that we are in a brief little sermon series called, Words Matter, and boy is that ever the truth.

Words absolutely matter.

You hear Mark Satterfield say its not uncommon in their household to ask, “are you building up or are you tearing down?” Meaning are you being an encourager, a good friend, a good sibling or a good son or daughter with the words that you speak or are you being destructive?

Words absolutely matter.

Whether we are taking into account how we speak with one another or we are taking into account whether or not we are men or women of our word.

We are circling around something incredibly profound.

Words absolutely matter.

Why is that?

Why do words carry with them so much power?

I think that ultimately it is so because we see a biblical truth when we talk about communication, promises, teaching, correction, and our dealings with one another.

So we look to our Bibles, we look to Scripture and we see these 66 books, revealing God, his promises, is communicating to us by revealing himself through these words.

We pour over its teaching and how it is to instruct our daily life and the foundations of who we are, but we look to this book differently.

It is different than your biology text book.

It is different than your favorite novel or the books you read as a child.

Because we, as Christians call this book, inspired.

Inspired by God, without error, perfect.

Words absolutely matter.

Whether we are taking into account how we speak with one another or we are taking into account whether or not we are men or women of our word.

We are circling around something incredibly profound.

Words absolutely matter.

Why is that?

Why do words carry with them so much power?

I think that ultimately it is so because we see a biblical truth when we talk about communication, promises, teaching, correction, and our dealings with one another.

So we look to our Bibles, we look to Scripture and we see these 66 books, revealing God, his promises, is communicating to us by revealing himself through these words.

We pour over its teaching and how it is to instruct our daily life and the foundations of who we are, but we look to this book differently.

It is different than your biology text book.

It is different than your favorite novel or the books you read as a child.

Because we, as Christians call this book, inspired.

Inspired by God, without error, perfect.

Others would argue different, they will raise questions about the truth of the Bible.

They will look at you and ask you, “do you really believe that nonsense?

It’s so outdated.

Irrelevant.

Wrong.”

Others would argue different, they will raise questions about the truth of the Bible.

They will look at you and ask you, “do you really believe that nonsense?

It’s so outdated.

Irrelevant.

Wrong.”

So with that said where we find ourselves tonight in this series that aims to prepare us for the tough questions.

We ask,

So with that said where we find ourselves tonight in this series that aims to prepare us for the tough questions.

We ask,

[Slide]

[Slide]

"Can we really trust the Bible?”

There are a lot of people who will raise issue with the Bible.

That surely you can’t take it seriously.

It’s regressive.

It’s outdated.

And it doesn’t agree with itself.

"Can we really trust the Bible?”

There are a lot of people who will raise issue with the Bible.

That surely you can’t take it seriously.

It’s regressive.

It’s outdated.

And it doesn’t agree with itself.

I went to seminary in Wake Forest, NC.

Not Wake Forest University which is located in guess where….

Wrong, Winston Salem.

But Wake Forest is located in what is known as “The Triangle” which is an area outlined by 3 major college towns.

Raleigh (NC State), Durham (Duke), and Chapel Hill (UNC).

Southeastern Seminary is all of about 45 minutes or so from Chapel Hill where at UNC there is a professor by the name of Bart Ehrman.

Bart Ehrman has made an entire career out of trying to get you to doubt the Bible.

This field is called textual criticism.

And in one of his more notable works (Misquoting Jesus), he makes the bold claim that between all the manuscripts of the Bible, not a single one lines up word for word, line for line.

Striking fear into the hearts of college students everywhere.

He will even go so far as to say, their are 400,000 textual variants (differences) between Biblical manuscripts.

That is more differences than there are actual words that compile the New Testament.

Now that seems to be a problem….