It seems to me that one of the fundamental cores to Christianity would be the Bible itself. To my surprise last week, I came to the realization that I have never written a blog on why you should believe your Bible.
If we share God’s Word at all, eventually we will come across people that will present such arguments as “you can’t believe what it says because it’s been translated so many times”, “A bunch of old men got together and just put this together to control people” or “Science proves the Bible wrong, so there’s no real point in reading it”. Of course none of those arguments are based on facts, they are just excuses people give to dismiss Scripture.
The question is, how do we answer these people when they give responses like that? Today, I’m going to give you my standard answer as to why I believe the Bible, but then over the next few weeks, I’m going to get a little deeper into some of these answers, and possibly look at some others, so that when you are faced with such questions, you can find the answers that resonate with you.
When people ask me why I believe the Bible, I basically have a standard answer that I’ve used so many times that I pretty much have it memorized, you may have even heard me use part or all of it from the pulpit a time or two. “The reason that I believe the Bible is because you have 66 books written by over 40 different authors over a span of over 1500 years, from people of all walks of life. From Royal officials to shepherds, and those in-between. And it tells the same story from beginning to end, it all points to Jesus. You can’t get 3 reporters (same occupation), today (same timeframe) able to tell the same story. That has to be God.”
Depending on the situation, or who I’m talking too, if the Spirit leads, other things that I often add, would be that it spans 3 continents, it uses 3 different languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek), I might also include that it portrays a lot of stories that show the brokenness of man, even Spiritual men, and that is not something that most religious texts do. That’s not to mention, the over 300 prophecies that were fulfilled in Christ, the proof of their accuracy demonstrated by the dead sea scrolls, or the fossil records that have pointed to the accuracy of Scripture over and over again, or what Scripture says about itself. (Those are some subjects that we’ll look closer at in the next few blogs)
Basically, it doesn’t take long for anybody who uses one of the above excuses with me, to get to the point that they probably wish that they hadn’t. Why? Because I truly believe that the Bible is God’s Word, that it is true and accurate, and it is our only real source of truth. I’m sure I get a bit over zealous in those conversations, and present myself as a bit of a Bible fanatic, and while that’s not my intent, I will admit that it is something that I am very passionate about.
Here are some things that I always encourage people to think about when questioning these things. 1. If God is God, (obviously I believe that He is, but for those questioning, make the assumption for a minute that He is) the wouldn’t He be able to make, and preserve His Word to say whatever He wants it to say? It seems that something along that line would not be an unreasonable expectation out of an all-powerful God. So if we go so far as to accept that possibility, then here are some things in His Word that jump out at me.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
If God is involved in our lives, and “All Scripture is breath out by God” wouldn’t it make sense for us to live by it? And He tells us that it’s not man’s words, but “men spoke from God”
2 Peter 1:20-21
20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
While there are more Scriptures that I could draw from to demonstrate what I’m trying to say, you have above two separate authors indicating that Scripture itself comes from God, and if it comes from God, what do we have to lose by listening to it? I feel that we have a lot to lose if we choose not to.
Ultimately, we have to make a decision, do we choose to believe the Bible as God’s Word, and make a conscience decision to make it our standard to attempt to live by. Or do we see it as a moral guide, and not God’s Word at all, so we’ll pick and choose the parts that we want to obey. That decision, says something about our view of God and effects how we live our lives, so it’s a decision that makes sense to put a lot of thought into. We will spend the next few weeks looking into more details as to why the Bible is credible, so until then, I hope this helps.
Thank you for reading this, as always, I would encourage you to spend time in His Word, in prayer and in the fellowship of other believers. And if you haven’t visited already, I would encourage you to come visit our little church on the hill, it’s worth the drive.
Bro. Jason
❤️
Thank you!