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Amen, Father.

You have made it crystal clear in this song we've just sung, and in your word

that you receive your highest honor and your right when you are our fullest delight.

All things for your glory and because of Christ all things for our final and everlasting joy.

So we praise you and we thank you for this stunning truth.

And now I ask for help as I unfold your word

and seek to exalt its functional authority in our speaking and in our writing. In Jesus' name,

Amen. My topic is how do we give the Bible functional authority in our speaking and our writing.

Let me begin by clarifying some terms in that title.

By authority I mean God's right or anyone's right to direct another to guide another, to guide another, the right to decide for someone and for ourselves

what is good and bad, what is right and wrong what is true and false what is beautiful and

ugly if you have a right to decide that you have authority. And of course there are degrees of authority.

There's the absolute authority of God above which there is no other.

And then there's the authority say of a six-year-old whose mother has authorized him to take

the three-year-old to the park and he has authority to bring

him home, get him there, tell him what to do and what not to do.

So there's a whole range of degrees of authority in life. We do not

contrary to what the title sounds like, we do not give the Bible its intrinsic authority.

We don't give the Bible its intrinsic authority. It has its intrinsic authority because it's from God. God is absolute

authority and when he speaks therefore he speaks with absolute authority.

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