Big Questions . . . Living Answers
“Why Should I Trust The Bible More Than Any
Other Religious Book?”
In
times like this, people want things to be secure in their lives. They especially want some security in
relation to their core beliefs. I mean,
what if the Muslims are right and Christians are wrong about their faith? What if Bill Mahr is right about his
atheistic beliefs? How can we know that
what is recorded in the Bible is trustworthy, more trustworthy, than what is
found in any other religious book?
Does
it even matter? The culture has shifted
in the past few decades to suggest that it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long
as you are sincere about it and as long as you are tolerant of the views of
others, not suggesting that your belief is somehow exclusively true. In other words, what is most important is the
sincerity of your faith. In fact, this
is a fundamental tenet of Oprah Winfrey’s teaching to millions of viewers.
But
that is not true. The truth is that
sincerity is important but it is not what makes one’s faith valid or true. What makes one’s faith valid or invalid is
the object of that faith. For
Christians, the object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Our faith is worthless if Christ is not the
Son of God who came to earth, died on the cross and rose from the grave. If the object of our faith is not worthy of
trust, then our sincere faith in that object is not well placed.
If I
place my faith in something untrue, it will not do me any long term good. Take a walk on a Saturday afternoon down
Pearl Street Mall in
Two
glasses of liquid – one water and one cyanide.
Both clear, tasteless and odorless.
Come choose. If you get the wrong
one, your sincerity will not be of much help (drink one). It matters critically what the object of your
faith is at that moment.
A
Christian is not saved because of the amount of his or her faith, but because of
the object of their faith, (Jesus being who He claimed to be). The value or worth of our faith is not in the
one believing but in the one in whom we believe.
Ephesians,
2:8 – “You are saved by grace through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is a gift of God.”
We
are saved by God’s special favor, His grace in Jesus Christ, not by our
faith. We are saved by grace through
faith. Faith is a necessary arm that
reaches to receive the work that Christ did for us on the cross, but it is
Christ who saves, not our faith.
So
the question arises, how trustworthy is the object of our faith? How trustworthy is Jesus? Is our faith in Him going to accomplish what
we trust it will? Is our faith a
reasonable faith or just a blind one? I
propose to you that our faith is not a blind one, at least it need not be. God Himself desires that we love Him with all
of our heart, soul, MIND and strength.
The mind, the intellect is not to be abandoned in blind sincerity (Mark
12:30).
1
Peter 3:15 – “If you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to
explain it.” Can you do that? Can you do more than just say, “You just have
to believe?” Can you give a reasonable
answer to why Jesus is the appropriate object of your faith? It is your responsibility.
Where
do you start that pursuit? You start
with the source of your information about Jesus – the Bible. Is this book (hold up Bible) an accurate
record of what Jesus said and did and claimed?
I
believe so. I believe that the Bible is
more than just words of men about God and about Jesus. I believe that the Bible is the Word of
God. I believe that it is a revelation
from God to us through human agents about His will for us, His provision for
us, His commands for us. He used human
agents to record these things, but they originate from Him. But this morning I want to limit myself to
this question. Is the Bible a reliable
and trustworthy source or record of the life of Jesus?
I.
The Bible is unique.
Webster
– “unique = one and only; different from all others; having no equal.” The Bible is certainly all of those things.
A.
Unique in its continuity.
-
written in a span
of over 1,500 years
-
over 40
generations
-
by over 40
authors – kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen
-
from a desert, a
dungeon, palace and many more places
-
it times of war,
peace
-
by people in
various moods of joy and despair
-
on three
different continents; Asia, Africa and
-
three languages;
Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
Yet,
the Bible speaks with amazing continuity on dozens of controversial
subjects. Most of all, it speaks on one
continuous story from Genesis to Revelation; that of God’s plan to redeem
mankind from sin through His Son Jesus.
B.
Unique in its circulation.
No
other book has been circulated even a fraction of the amount the Bible
has. More so than McDonald’s can say of
its hamburger, the Bible can say billions upon billions sold . . . or given
away.
C.
Unique in its translation.
-
First major book
to be translated into another language.
The Septuagint (70) – Egyptians translated the Hebrew Old Testament into
the Greek language.
-
By 1981, the
Bible had been translated into 1,602 languages.
Translation has so accelerated since then that there is no count I could
find. Teams of translators still labor,
but are left now with very small tribal languages to translate the Bible into.
D.
Unique in its survival
-
Through
time. Ancient writing materials were
very inferior to what we are used to today.
They wrote on papyri (reeds smashed together) and animal skins known as
vellums. They used primitive inks, and
these materials together wore easily and decayed over time. So the manuscripts of the Bible had to be
copied often and replaced. However,
providentially, many of these ancient manuscripts of the Bible have survived in
part or in whole to this day. They
attest to the carefulness and the accuracy with which those who did the work of
copying did their job. No other ancient
writing is backed up with such a wealth of ancient manuscript evidence. In fact, there are over 25,000 ancient
manuscripts which have survived until this day.
Some are a whole book of the Bible.
Some are just a fragment of a book.
But they provide us with a wealth of surviving material to use in
translation and research.
-
Through
persecution. No other book has been
attacked like the Bible has through the centuries.
Diocletian – emperor of
Voltaire – French philosopher and skeptic who
predicted that within 100 years of his life that Christianity would be wiped
from existence. Instead, fifty years
after his death, the Geneva Bible Society bought his house and his printing
press to publish stacks of Bibles.
The Bible has withstood attack after attack. They have tried to undermine its
trustworthiness, questioned its authorship, but time and time again, the Bible
has withstood these criticisms.
This uniqueness should at least grab our attention;
cause us to take a serious look at it. Then we will find that . . .
II.
The Bible is a reliable witness of history.
This
can be confirmed by common tests that all books of history are subjected to for
reliability.
A.
Bibliographical Test
Ask
this question: Since we do not have the
original writing of the document in question (called the “autogragh”), how
accurate are the copies we do have? How
many ancient manuscripts or copies are available to us. Also, how much time is there between the
earliest copies and the time of the original writing? How much variation is there between the
copies we have? Is the Bible we have
today the same as the originally penned books written thousands of years ago?
Joke: In an ancient monastery, a new monk arrived
to dedicate his life to join others in copying ancient records. The first thing
he noticed was that they were copying by hand, books that had already been
copied by hand. He had to speak up. “Forgive me, Father Justinian, but copying
other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren’t copying someone
else’s mistakes? Are they ever checked
against the originals?” Father Justinian
was startled. No one had ever suggested
this before. “Well, it’s a good point my
son. I will take one of these latest
copies down to the vault where no one else can enter.” There he studied for hours. Later in the evening, the other monks were
beginning to worry about Father Justinian.
Finally, the new monk made his way down to the area of the vault and
could hear sobbing from within. “Father
Justinian?” he called. The sobbing was
louder as he came near. He finally found
the old priest sitting at a table with both the new copy and the ancient
original. It was obvious that he had
been crying for a long time. “Oh my,”
sobbed Father Justinian, “the word is celebrate, not celibate!”
Ok,
but has that kind of thing been happening with the Bible throughout the
centuries?
Let’s
put it in a contemporary setting. Let’s
say that another plane had been successfully hijacked on September 11, 2001, and
that its target was the Smithsonian Institute.
That attack then destroyed the original manuscript of the Constitution
of our
The
same process holds for the Bible. And in
this process, we find that over 98.5 percent of the Bible is textually
pure. In other words, in all the
thousands of manuscripts available, they agree on over 98.5 percent of the
text. The parts where there are
variations are not in doctrinal matters but instead minor grammatical
differences.
B.
Internal Evidence Test
Says
that in the event of an apparent inaccuracy, the benefit of the doubt is to be given
to the document (innocent until proven guilty).
But
more importantly, the nearness of the witness, both geographically and
chronologically to the events recorded greatly effects the writer’s
credibility.
In
other words, when the writers of the New Testament record the events of Jesus’
life and His death and resurrection, are they simply saying, “I heard from a
friend who heard from a friend that this is what happened?” Or are they saying, “these are the things I
saw with my own eyes.”
How
does this affect the New Testament accounts?
The events of Jesus’ life were recorded by those who were either first
hand eyewitnesses or related the accounts of eyewitnesses.
Luke
1:1-3 – “Many people have written accounts about the events that took place
among us. They used as their source
material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other
eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of His promises. Having carefully investigated all of these
accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you,
to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught.”
So
Luke does not claim to be an eyewitness himself but says he got his information
first hand from many eyewitnesses. In
other words, he worked as a compiler for eyewitnesses.
Most
writers were eyewitnesses.
2
Peter 1:16 – “For we were not making up clever stories when we told you
about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming again. We have seen His
majestic splendor with our own eyes. . . we ourselves heard . . . we were with
Him.”
1
John 1:3 – “We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen
and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us.”
Interestingly,
when the apostles were preaching and teaching, even to the enemies of their
faith, they often appealed to the first-hand knowledge of those people. These were people who could have instantly
discredited the message if they had heard any lies. But they couldn’t and didn’t because the
apostle’s were relaying well known facts.
Especially on the Day of Pentecost, as Peter recounted the events of the
past weeks – Jesus’ death, the empty tomb, and as he demonstrated that they
were fulfillments of the O.T. prophecies, no one stopped him and said, “these things
are not true. That is not how it
happened at all.” No, instead, the crowd
knew all these things to be common knowledge and it helped to convict them of
the truth of Peter’s message. Peter was
giving meaning to well known events. The
disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies or exaggerations with such
hostile audiences. They would have been
exposed by those who would have been only too glad to do so. In fact, one of the strong points of the
preaching of the apostles is their confident appeal to knowledge of the
hearers. They not only said, “we are
witnesses of these things,” but also said, “as you yourselves know.”
Acts
25:23 through chapter 26 – Paul has an opportunity to make a defense of his
faith before a large gathering of officials.
But the most important people there are Governor Festus and King Herod
Agrippa. As he made his defense of his
faith in Christ, Festus interrupted and called him insane. But Paul replied to him (Acts 26:25) “I am
not insane, Most Excellent Festus. I am
speaking the sober truth. And King
Agrippa knows about these things. I
speak frankly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they
were not done in a corner!”
C.
External Evidence Test
Asks
this: Do other historical documents
attest to the claims of the writing in question?
Eusebius
– Early 4th century. He
preserved the writing of Papius, who was taught by John the apostle
directly. In these writings, he records
how John told that Mark wrote his Gospel account by following Peter in his
journeys.
Irenaeus
– 2nd century, who quotes his teacher Polycarp, who was martyred in
156 A.D. Polycarp was also taught
directly by John the apostle. He wrote
this, “So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest that the very
heretics themselves bear witness to them, and starting from these, each one of
them endeavors to establish his own particular doctrine.”
Even
the heretics did not dare to question the accuracy of the Gospel accounts
because they knew they were too well established as factual.
D.
Confirmed by Archaeology.
Though
both the O.T. and N.T. have been confirmed as historically accurate by
archaeology, let’s stick to the N.T. And
for the sake of time, I will just pick on Luke.
In
the NT, Luke’s accuracy as a historian in Acts and the Gospel of Luke has been
time and time again confirmed by archaeological finds. Prominent archaeologist Sir William Ramsey,
once doubted the reliability of Luke and even wrote that he believed Luke did
not write the Gospel of Luke. However,
after many years of his own research and site excavation, he did an about
face. He even said, “Luke is an
historian of the first rank. Not merely
are his statements of fact trustworthy, but this author should be placed along
with the very greatest of historians.
Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness.
Luke
2 - events surrounding the birth of Christ.
Skeptics contended, “There was no census taken at the time of Christ’s
birth. Quirinius was never even the
Governor of Syria. Not everyone had to
return to his ancestral home. There is
no evidence for this.” Modern finds, however, have shown all these facts to be true,
concurring with the biblical accounts.
Even the little, seemingly insignificant historical facts contained in
the Bible are accurate. And we would
expect no less, really, from a book that calls us to trust its claims about how
one can be saved from sin and secure eternal life.
Living answer – Judd and Sharomee Payne
With a fair and comprehensive look at
the reliability of the Bible, you can draw the conclusion that it is a trustworthy
witness of history. If a person
discredits the reliability of the Bible, they must in honesty discredit the
validity of virtually all historical works of antiquity.
The
Rocky Effect – Jr. High experience - fired up by fiction or by fact? God has given us so much evidence to place
our faith in Jesus and the reliablility of the Bible is one of those lines of
evidence. No other religious book can
claim truthfully this kind of reliability to its claims.
Fired
up to believe. Fired up to share our
faith. The power of my faith is not in
it’s sincerity but in the Jesus.