How Can We Trust The Bible?

In establishing a Christian worldview the common denominator, even above being well read and understanding cultural issues is to be actively seeking after Jesus by staying in His Word. Even Jesus Himself stated that if we love Him, we’ll keep His Word (John 14:23). How can we keep His Word if we do not know it and how can we know it if we do not read and study it? “The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” ~Jen Wilkin

There are several reasons for which to continuously stay actively involved in reading and studying Scripture:

1. The Bible has the most direct information for us to gain knowledge of who Jesus is; the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

The Bible is separated into two parts: the Old Testament (or Old Promise) and the New Testament (or New Promise). The picture drawn in the Old Testament is an overall image of what the Messiah looks like. There is sin that occurs that separates humanity from His Creator God and God puts a plan in place to send a Rescuer (a Messiah). But many things take place before He arrives. All of those things give us a clear picture of Him. The entirety of the Old Testament shows humanity what they should be looking for in a Rescuer from the things that separate us from the Creator.

The New Testament tells us about Jesus the Christ, from before the beginning, to His birth and even the end of days. But when you look at the picture given to us of the Messiah from the Old Testament and Jesus from the New Testament, they are One in the same! Jesus is the Rescuer that the world had been waiting for and that the world must turn to in order to be reconciled to God. Jesus is the fulfillment of Scripture from the Old Testament and is waiting for all to see Him for who He is today!

2. It is literally the Words of God, being breathed out of (inspired by) Him, given to the man authors to be written down for us to read now.

Second Timothy 3:16 states that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Through Scripture, God has given us the Words that we need to know in order to serve and in order to obey Him. Many have found it difficult to understand how God could be the author yet there still be men who wrote the words, but this is no issue when you consider who God is and what He has done. He is the Creator of the universe! Has He not the power to inspire an individual to write something specific? Have you never been inspired to write something down that you didn’t want to forget? Where did that inspiration come from? Might the Words of Scripture be inspired by God, the Creator of all things? Is that too far-fetched a thought when considering His other works? No! It is a simple thought indeed that the Creator God of the universe could inspire Man to write about what they had seen and heard and to pass those Words on to others.

3. It is reliable and without error!

Biblical scholars have to look at their manuscripts with the same technical eyes that they view every other manuscript in order to critique properly. They use many bases of testing in order to verify reliability. One of those tests is dissimilarity. In other words, with Scripture, it is unlike the Judaism that preceded Christ and unlike the Christianity to come after Him so it is highly unlikely that it is a product of the earlier Judaism or that it was written afterward and put back into the record later by the Christian church. Another test is honesty in testimonials. This can be found in many different ways in the gospels especially! But I will provide two specific examples. The first is that they don’t completely match. When multiple eyewitnesses are testifying in a case, their stories never match completely because they viewed everything from their own point of view with their own background and their own perspective weighing into the testimony. The only way that stories align themselves perfectly is if they have been rehearsed before they are presented. It is actually a sign of honest testimony if they don’t completely match! Another way that we can see honest testimony in the gospels is that they didn’t conceal embarrassing facts. The two greatest examples of this would be when Jesus called Peter, Satan! (Matthew 16:23 and Mark 8:33). Peter was acting out of line and not thinking of what was proper in terms of the gospel and Jesus corrected him with a swift admonition. That kind of name calling toward one of the most popular Disciples would never have been recorded if they wanted to keep from embarrassment. Another example of embarrassment would be the discovery of the empty tomb by WOMEN! A woman’s testimony wasn’t even admissible in a court, furthermore, the men were all in hiding! (John 20:19). The tomb being discovered by women is ridiculous to include if you want people to believe a lie! Unless they were telling the truth.

Additionally, there are 24,000 manuscripts of 27 books of the New Testament alone, dated just decades from the original (the book of John, the oldest fragment). The oldest complete copy of the New Testament is less than 300 years from the original! Let’s compare this to the second best and most complete manuscript, the Iliad by Homer which has 643 copies with the oldest at 500 years from the original. Then there’s Sophocles with 193 copies at 1400 years from the original and Aristotle with 49 copies at 1400 years from the original. Yet no one questions anything from the Iliad, Sophocles or Aristotle!!!
There have been many things published about textual variants, including that there are as many as 400,000 variants found in the New Testament records! What can the followers of Christ say against such an accusation? Critics and manuscript scholars use a system called Textual Criticism to pinpoint variations within the text to determine what they are and if they are a problem for the current text. They work like this:

Colors=Pinpointed And Affected Areas

They just pinpoint where the changes were made and then they are able to tell what the original looked like. Of the 400,000 variants, the majority are spelling, grammar, and other Scribal errors. Less than 1% affect the meaning of the text itself! But not one of these variants affects Christian doctrine or changes the doctrine! That means that the reliability of Scripture holds up to incredible scrutiny and can be trusted at its word!

4. It equips us for serving God.

As mentioned previously in 2 Timothy 3, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God… that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The Bible helps us identify the gifts and talents that God has given to us and how they might be used to further His kingdom. And it gives us specific instruction for Jesus Himself about where to go and what to do: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20). Taking time to study this passage means learning about what was happening at the time Jesus made this statement. To whom was He talking? What was going on in history? What’s the cultural situation? Is there anything significant that sticks out in history/culture/etc. Then bridge the gap! What does it mean for us today? Authority still lies with Jesus and it is still our task to make disciples as we are going along in our lives, whether here or across the world to all different nations. When individuals have made the decision to follow Jesus as Lord of their life, it is our responsibility to help them show the world by baptizing them as Jesus was baptized and then teaching them the Scriptures and that Jesus will never leave them or us!

We make so many plans in our lives, but none compare to what God has in store for us. Even when we think we know best, if we honestly pursue knowing God, we quickly discover that we know nothing compared to the Creator God who takes away the sins of the world to make us into something so much more. He loves us while we are still sinners but His love is so great that He would never leave us as the sinners that we are! His Word, if taken seriously, will transform our minds and lives into something that looks more like Himself!

5. Finally, it gives us answers to the difficult questions in life!

I have been asking “why” since I could talk! There is an ongoing joke that I never left that stage of childhood! Apologetics is a reasonable and justified response, argument or writing for a position held. Essentially, the study of apologetics is the “why” of the Christian faith! It seeks to discover the truth behind the questions that everyone has in regards to the faith. Jesus states that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life in John 14:6, so Apologetics is a Sacred Search for Jesus – the Truth.
In my own studies, and in teaching apologetics and speaking in area churches, I’ve discovered that there are many questions that continue to resurface and there are many questions that can always be found in Scripture and in books that were written about Scripture! You don’t have to look far! The articles that follow will hopefully offer some answers and will help to guide you in your search!

All Scripture is New King James Version unless otherwise stated.