As Christians, we want to be disciples who are shaped and formed by the Gospel. One of the distinctives of Bible-believing Christians is we not only believe the Bible is God’s word, but we also believe it is inerrant. There are a lot of Christians who don’t think that it’s inerrant, or that it is perfect. Their lives often reveal this, as they handily set aside any teaching of the Bible that goes against their desires.

Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teaching.

We believe that we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God. We believe we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God and we believe we have a perfectly trustworthy Bible because we have a perfectly trustworthy God.

I think this is what First Peter is teaching in chapter one verse 13. Peter writes to these elect exiles who are in the dispersion and he says this, 1 Peter 1:13-25 “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”

Verse 23 says, “since you’ve been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God for all flesh is like grass in its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls. But the word of the Lord remains forever, and this is the good news that was preached to you.”

Some of Peter’s audience here, in all likelihood, were at his sermon at Pentecost. So you think about this group of men and women who have seen Peter and seen his face, perhaps some of them were actually converted under his proclamation of the Gospel in Acts chapter two as he teaches the incredible grace that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they come to this incredible knowledge of God, the salvation of God, this miraculous spiritual moment the Holy Spirit descends and thousands of people get baptized.

They believe Jesus Christ is Lord and he has died for the forgiveness of their sins. They’re believing in the gospel. They’ve seen the spread of the Gospel to the nations. They’re watching the gospel go from Jerusalem today, into Judea, to Sumeria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth. They have seen the power and might of God on display, but years have past decades have passed, trials have come. The storms of life have begun to creep in. Their life situation has changed perhaps for some of them, just life as it is every single day, unchanging. And they begin to look, Peter says to other stories of the world, other ways to make sense of their human experience.

So here’s what you’ve got to catch. This is a group of people who are in danger of having had a spiritual experience at genuine, legitimate spiritual experience, but then untethering their lives from God and his word. This is a group of people who have experienced one of the most miraculous moments in human history, Pentecost. But Peter now warns them to set their hope on Christ because they’re living according to the passions of their former ignorance. So look at verse 13, “set your hope on grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your ignorance.”

Peter is saying, set your gaze, set your horizon, set your trajectory on the grace of God that’s coming for you in Jesus Christ in the future. Look towards this horizon. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

What are these passions of your former ignorance? Well, for Peter’s audience, these were, we can maybe call them false stories or false ways of understanding the world. That was the stories that they believe to be true about the world before they had come to Christ.

It was these ways of making sense of the world before they had believed the gospel before Pentecost. It was these ways of making sense of the world, reference points of goals and priorities, and stories they wanted. Not so much to reject the Bible, but they wanted the Bible and something else.

They didn’t so much want to reject the gospel. They wanted the gospel and something else. They’re in danger of affirming the Gospel, but also affirming these stories or these passions of their former ignorance at the same time. So Peter is trying to warn them.

There is this phenomenon that a lot of pilots and underwater divers will endure. It’s called spatial disorientation. It’s this kind of phenomenon or this thing that when pilots take off if they’re not taught to use the instruments, what are you supposed to do? Keep your eyes on the horizon.

That’s right. You keep your eye on the horizon. You watch the horizon because the horizon is a steady guide to get you where you need to go. It will make sure that you’re not tilting your playing too far to the right or too far to the left.

It will ensure that you don’t set your trajectory too high and going into a tailspin. It will ensure that you don’t set your trajectory too low and crash and burn. Set your eyes on the horizon. But lots of pilots aren’t trained necessarily to use their instruments. You have a certificate to use the instruments.

The instruments are there so that when you can’t see the horizon in front of the plane, that you will be assured that you’re still on the right trajectory, that you’re still on the right course.

Because what will happen is, is during blackout conditions or whiteout conditions or the storm that has set in, or perhaps it’s just darkness and there are no city lights for you to see, pilots will tell you it’s one of the most disorienting times of their life because they genuinely do not know up from down or left from mine.

They could not tell you if the plane is pointed straight up to the air or straight down to the ground. It feels the exact same. They couldn’t tell you if they’re upside down or right side up. So there are tons of stories of pilots either emerging from clouds, totally upside down or emerging from clouds heading straight into the ground.

So if you’re not trained to set your eyes on the instruments, you’re in danger of setting your hopes, setting your trajectory on the entirely wrong thing.

So this is what Peter’s talking about here. Not so much spatial disorientation, but spiritual disorientation. That we who have experienced the might and the power of God are in danger of not setting our hope accordingly and properly so that when the storms of life begin to creep in when night has set in during blackout conditions or during blizzard conditions, we could be entirely disoriented if we don’t set our hope on God’s instruments of keeping us on the right trajectory.

So these passions of former ignorance for these people, for Peter’s readers and for us are these other ways of making sense of the world get. I call these false stories of the world, other visions of the good life, other ways of setting up priorities or goals for yourself. And I want to talk about a few of those that I think are, are so powerful for us.

There are all kinds of competing visions of the good life that are after your attention, that are trying to get you to live according to whatever story is being told. And these powerful stories have a way, like these passions of former ignorance, creeping into our lives without us even knowing it. So here are some of the false stories I think we can tend to live in.

The first false story is the story of Romanticism.

This is the story that tells you that you are your emotions. The more intense the emotion, the more real or true it is. The idea is your emotions, your feelings can be trustworthy.

So you are about living a life that is raw, authentic, and transparent because you just want to feel and you want to feel deeply. So you live a life feeling these romantic feelings, hoping that this is setting you on the right trajectory, that your feelings are the instruments that will ensure that you come out of the clouds right side up.

The next story is the story of consumerism.

This is the story that tells us that we are what we have. Worth is based upon the value and the quality of the things that belong to me. So we spend our entire lives accumulating more valuable things.

We’ll buy a car that’s a certain value, but in four or five years we’ll try to buy a car that is more valuable and will discard the car that we thought at one time was so valuable. Or perhaps it’s clothes or a bank account or your 401k.

We are about accumulating valuable things and discarding things that have lost their value. So romanticism and consumerism can derail our thinking.

The third story is the story of individualism.

Individualism. This is a story that tells you that you and I are at the center of all things. Everybody else is just a supporting actor. We are at the center of the stories that we are telling because we value and prize individualism.

The good life for us is the authority of independent individuals. So we’re gonna spend our entire lives trying to become self-reliant, self-dependent. We’re going to self-actualize ourselves. We want to be personally responsible and personally reliant.

The next false story is the story of progressivism.

This is a persuasive story and our culture today. This is a story that tells you things are continually getting better. That today is better than yesterday, that tomorrow will be better today that advancements in science, technology, economics are constantly improving the human experience. But what if the story is what if the world isn’t progressing and continually getting better? Are we prepared for hard times both physically and spiritually? Are we preparing our children?

The next false story is the story of American civil religion, Cultural Christianity.

I call it moral therapeutic deism. This is the story that tells you that Christianity should be compatible with American ideals. This is the story that wants to baptize Christianity into Americanism, but it ends up looking far more American than it does Christian.

We live in this incredibly persuasive story in our culture today of American civil religion that tells us that our Christianity should look far more American than it does distinctly Christian.

This is a story I think that many of us would want to reject, at least on its surface, but just to briefly show you how persuasive I think it is in our lives, is to be reminded of this. How many of us could confess the apostle’s creed and how many of us can confess the pledge of allegiance?

The final story is this. This is a story of perfectionism.

This is the story that tells you that something isn’t worth doing unless it’s done perfectly and according to your standards. You’re either going to do something perfectly or you’re not going to do it at all.

This story is characterized by our striving for flawlessness. The setting of, high-performance standards, setting self-critical evaluations, being concerned with how other people want to evaluate us.

What is this person gonna think of me? Are they gonna think I did a good enough job? Are they going to value me because I’ve performed this activity perfectly? Too many Christians live in this story. Their Christian walk is not walking close to Jesus, but trying to meet a standard so others will think you are walking with Jesus.

Can I remind us just briefly, none of those stories is the gospel.

None of those stories is the good news that’s revealed for us in scripture. But these passions of our former ignorance can so easily begin to seep back into our lives. They can so easily begin to influence the way we view God, the way we view ourselves, the way we view scripture.

Here is one of the greatest challenges that you and I face. It’s the challenge of realizing that these persuasive stories are so persuasive because we don’t realize they’re stories. We just think they’re reality. You live in these stories, and I live in these stories because I just take them every morning as I get out of the bed as default reality.

I’ve forgotten that these stories, along with me have been crucified with Christ and I’ve been raised to walk in new life, not the old life.

So which one of these stories do you live in?

One of the most challenging aspects of discipleship in the 21st century is beginning to identify these passions of our former ignorance and be reminded that these are false stories, not true stories.

This is absolutely essential for you to get because Peter’s readers were in danger of doing the exact same thing that we’re in danger of, of having a genuine spiritual experience, but then living lives that are untethered from God and untethered from his word.

They and we are in danger of flying through the storms of life, flying through our exile, flying through a cloudy night or through the darkness of night and we can no longer see the horizon. We can’t see the grace of God that’s coming for us in Jesus Christ in the future.

And so we’re not looking to the instruments of God and his word, but rather we’re looking to these other instruments or these other stories to help us make sense of the world.

And this is why the doctrine of inerrancy is so important because Peter is trying to tell us that God is giving us two reference points or two instruments that are absolutely trustworthy, that are absolutely perfect, that we can put all of our hope and faith in, that one day we will emerge from the clouds having trusted the instruments set on the grace of God and Christ that’s before us.

All that is an introduction to sharing about these two instruments that are totally trustworthy, God and his word, we have a holy God, and we have a holy word.

“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:15-16

So Peter’s first reference point is the holiness and the trustworthiness of God.

He’s saying if you’re flying through the storms of life, if you’ve been disoriented, if you’ve lost your way, the first place you look is the holy, trustworthy character of God. He is your instrument. You look to his trustworthiness.

The term holy is used throughout the scriptures. So you can think of Isaiah chapter six, “Holy, Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Jesus is described as the holy one of Israel. What does it mean for God to be holy? The most fundamental thing that Peter’s listeners would have heard is this. God is completely different than any other relationship you’ve ever had before. He is totally set apart. He is totally pure.

So the psalmist says it this way. In Psalm 12:6 “the words of the Lord are pure words.” There is no impurity in the word of God. There are only pure words.

The Bible also describes God as perfect. The word it uses to describe God’s perfection is the word “Teleios.” It means that God doesn’t meet some standard of perfection. It means that he is the standard of perfection. There is no external standard of perfection that God somehow measures up to, but rather he as the holy one is the standard of perfection.

What Peter is trying to do when he shows his readers that God is holy is he’s trying to show them he is holy trustworthy. That when you set your gaze on the holiness of God, you’re setting your gaze on a trust where the instrument you’re setting your gaze on is an instrument that will get you through this storm, that will get you through the darkness of night.

A W Tozer says it this “Why do I insist that all Christians should search the Scriptures and learn as much as they can about this God who is dealing with them? It is because their faith will only spring up naturally and joyfully as they find that our God is trustworthy and fully able to perform every promise He has made.”

So many people, and I understand this because it’s been me too, are afraid to learn more about God because they’re afraid that they’re eventually going to learn something about God that they don’t like. They’re afraid that if they really dig into that book in the Old Testament, if they really dig into to these portions of scripture that they’re not as familiar with, they may find something that they just don’t know how to deal with. They just stay with the books of the Bible that are palatable to their sensibilities.

But I’ve really good news for you today. You will never learn bad news about God. You will never find something about his actions or his character or the way he engages with us in a way that isn’t pure and perfect and lovely. Why? Because he’s holy.

He is the trustworthy one. But I understand why we question entering this relationship with God. It’s because every single human relationship that you and I have had up until this point hasn’t been like this.

That’s what it means for him to be set apart and holy and completely different. I know that for many of us thinking about trustworthiness is challenging. Why? Because you’ve trusted in the past and you’ve been hurt. You’ve been lied to, you’ve been deceived, you’ve been abandoned, you’ve been neglected.

People had their own motives in mind, not yours, not your best interests at heart, and more often than not, at least in my life, sometimes the people that we put the most trust in will also hurt us the most.

The people that we say, this person’s got my back, or this person will never leave. This person will never forsake me. This person has me. When they don’t, what happens? We grow skeptical, cautious, cynical,

Peter understands that. He understands what it’s like to be engaged in human relationships and to not be able to trust, which is why he’s trying to point us back to the holy, trustworthy character of God saying there is nobody else like him that you can have a relationship with. He is the one who will always be holy.

• Consider these other scriptures
• 1 John 1:5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” He’s never shady. God is never shady in his dealings with you. There is no darkness in the God of Israel.
• Look at Psalm 93:5 “Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.”
• 1 Peter 2:22, speaking of the incarnation, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”

I want you to hear this. God has never been deceitful. He has never lied. He has never abandoned. He has never neglected. He’s never left anyone that he loved. He is the holy, trustworthy God of Israel.

He isn’t this far off distant God who has kept his holiness himself, but rather he has engaged us. We are to address him as “Father,” and he calls us sons. And one of the closest, most intimate relationships possible is that a father and sons and daughters.

We can now set our gaze, our instrument on this trustworthy father who is totally wholly, who is totally set apart, who is pure and who is perfect and we can do so how without caution, without skepticism and without reservation, not because of who we are, but because of who he is.

He is the holy one who is holy, trustworthy, but Peter doesn’t just say that. He doesn’t just say, look to God. He says what? Look to God’s word because God’s word reflects his character. God is holy and perfect and his word is holy and perfect. Look at 1 Peter 1:23 ” Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. In this passage here, Peter is reminding us that there is no such thing as a spiritual life that’s untethered from God’s word. Look what he says right there at the beginning of the passage in 23 “you’ve been born again through the word of God.”

There is no spiritual life that’s untethered from God’s word. We are born through God’s word and we are sustained through God’s word that all of the Christian life is sustained by the Holy Spirit in God’s word.

There is no true spirituality outside of the word of God. There is no true spirituality that’s untethered from God’s authoritative and inspired word, but he also says it’s imperishable living and that it endures forever.

So what does it mean? It’s kind of some interesting words, right to use for God’s word. What does it mean that God’s Word is imperishable?

Peter is again connecting the nature of the Bible with the nature of God. To say that God’s Word is imperishable or incorruptible is to say that it has experienced no decay. It is not perishable. It is not fading away just like God is imperishable. His word is imperishable. So here’s the application point there. What scripture says, God says, this has not decayed or perished in any way.

You can’t have a view of God and a view of the Bible that are disconnected. What the Bible says, God says, because it is the imperishable word of God. We don’t get to have a relationship with God, which is disconnected from his words. So what we’re saying is this, we are saying that to believe God’s Word is to what? Believe God.

To disbelieve God’s word is to disbelieve God, to obey God’s word is to obey God and to disobey God’s Word is to disobey God. The imperishable God has given us an imperishable word. And this word, Peter goes on to say, is not just that what you’re born through and sustained through, it’s also living. To say that God’s word is living, Peter is trying to tell Christians something very, very important.

It is alive. It is active communication from God in the Bible. It is meant to spark communion with God. But this isn’t just some book revealing God’s acts in the past. But it is God actively meeting us here by the spirit that it is sharper than any two-edge sword. That it pierces our hearts, that it pierces our soul, and that it gives us the bread of life.

Matthew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

You cannot have a healthy spiritual life if you’re not eating. You cannot walk with Christ if you’re not devouring and eating and being nourished by his word. This is the living word of God. But I also think Peter uses this word living really intentionally.

Are you the kind of disciple that comes to God’s word for good advice or for an encounter with the Living God? When you open your Bible, are you looking for a quick piece of wisdom or to be confronted with the Holy God of Israel, Jesus Christ.

We demonstrate a high view of the Bible, not just with our words, but with our lives. We demonstrate that we trust God’s authoritative word, not just with our words but with our actions, not just when we say yes, I believe, but when we live according to this story, it’s not simply enough to have a high view of the Bible with your mind. We can’t just read the Bible, we must be readers of the Bible, but we also have to let the Bible read us.

When was the last time the word of God read you? When was the last time you were confronted by this God and forced to be transformed and changed? When’s the last time you said, “oh, this is a hard teaching and I’ll follow?” We can’t just master the message of the Bible.

We have to let the message of the Bible master us. In other words, I could care less if you tell me you have a high view of the Bible, if you don’t even bother to read it and be read by it, that’s what we’re after with the doctrine of inerrancy.

I could care less if you tell me you have a high view of the Bible, if you don’t even bother to read it, much less be read by it. So a simple question is this, do you want to follow Jesus? Do you want to follow Jesus? If you do, you can’t just love Jesus and neglect his word.

If you love Jesus, you must love his word. Why? Because his word gives life. There is no life in Christ apart from his word. Peter goes on to tell us not only that God’s word is imperishable and that it lives or that it’s living, but that it endures forever. God’s word endures forever. It talks about the flesh being like grass. The flower of grass is withering and falling and fading.

What is Peter saying? He’s saying all these former stories of ignorance, all these false stories, American civil religion, materialism, perfectionism, or perhaps it’s a totally different one for you that I didn’t even mention. These are the stories that are fading and disintegrating away, but what story will endure forever?

God’s word, the story that God is reconciling the world to himself. In the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, what Peter is trying to teach us and tell us is that the Bible is not an assistant for your old way of life. It is the doorway to your new life in Christ.

If the Bible is simply coming along in order to support whatever life you want to live for yourself, you’ve misunderstood what the Bible is. The Bible crucifies these former visions of the good life and gives us a good life in Christ that these former visions of the good life are fading away. They’re falling away like the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord willing, doer forever.

Your old way of life is dead, but the word of God remains. The extent to which the Bible has authority in your life is the extent to which God has authority in your life and that is really good news. Perhaps it’s convicting, but you know what else it is. It’s good news because we have an instrument in the midst of life’s storms in the midst of the darkness.

We can look at this and say, as best I can, I’m believing and obeying the Bible. I’m putting my trust in Jesus Christ. We can know, we can know, that this is God’s will for our life to shape and form us into the image of Christ.

Because as we set our eyes on the trustworthiness of scripture or setting our eyes on the trustworthiness of God himself, we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God. We have a perfectly trustworthy Bible because we have a perfectly trustworthy God and this is really good news.

1 Peter 1:18-19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

Peter is reminding us that these false stories that have such an easy way of creeping back in our false stories and he’s trying to tell them, you have been redeemed. You have been bought back. You have been bought back out of your bondage and your slavery. It is not up to you to ransom yourself again out of these false stories, but to simply look to the cross of Christ where you have already been ransomed.

God has set his affection and his love, not just on us, but on you. You have been redeemed. It’s not up to us to ransom ourselves out of these futile ways, but to simply trust in the blood of the spotless lamb.

What he is trying to do is to remind you that it’s now not up to you to live into God’s story, but to simply look into God’s story. In Christ, friends, there’s only one true story of the world. It’s the story that the triune God is the king of the universe and that for our sake and for our salvation, the son of God put upon human flesh.

For our sake, he was crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended where he now reigns in the heavens as the living Lord, and he will come again in the future to do what? To judge the living and the dead.

The reason inerrancy matters is because it’s trying to perfectly preserve this story for us, this story of the Gospel which is immovable, unchangeable that God has set his affection and love on you, that you’ve been bought with a price.

In other words, Biblical inerrancy and authority is not some kind of a dead doctrine. It’s a life giving truth that the inerrant perfect word of God, Jesus Christ suffered for your sake, that he became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.

Martin Luther said, “We need to study the Bible because it tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the son of God has done for me.”

You do not study the Bible in order to find some kind of a truth or check off some kind of a box that you’re supposed to do now, but rather to look to the saving activity of the Triune God on your behalf. We look at this perfect story, not so that we can learn what to do, but rather learn what God has done for us and proclaim it to the ends of the earth.

Biblical inerrancy has everything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pilots will tell you that there is nothing more relieving and in the midst of spacial disorientation of what feels like flying upside down, but trusting your instruments to emerge from the storm, to emerge from the darkness to emerge from the whiteout conditions and see that the whole time I was trusting my instruments when I was having to put faith and trust and he’s trustworthy instruments that felt so disorienting. It felt like I was flying upside down, but I trusted my instruments. It is so relieving to emerge from the clouds emerged from the storms and the whole time. Where have you been? Right side up.

This is the good news of the Gospel, of the holiness of God and the holiness of his word, that as we set our lives according to God’s trustworthy instruments, the storm will pass. Darkness will give way to dawn and we will emerge from the clouds of this life and our hope will be set on the horizon of God’s grace and his faithfulness and his gospel.

God has not left us here according to our own visions of the good life, but rather he has invited us into his perfect story, this story of the spotless lamb of God suffering for our sake and for our salvation.

We are grateful for your scriptures that we are not left alone without a word from God, but we have an authoritative inerrant Bible that we can look to for our source of hope are a source of encouragement, are a trustworthy guide. As we wait for the grace of Christ that’s coming, let us read the Bible, love the Bible, and to be transformed by its message.

What about the variances in the manuscripts the Bible is translated from? Can we be sure we have God’s Word today? I wrote an article about this and you can read it HERE.