If we agree that there is a supreme being that created everything, we should be asking ourselves "What is it like?" Christians claim that the supreme being is God and that he revealed himself in the Bible. But how do we know that we can trust a book written by men thousands of years ago?
The Bible says we can trust it. Paul writes to Timothy and reminds him that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."(2 Timothy 3:16-17) Being God-breathed means spoken by God, and therefore trustworthy. Peter explains in 2 Peter 1:20 that, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." In other words, according to the Bible, the men who wrote down the Bible were actually just writing down what God told them to write. (We'll get more into that next week.) But isn't that circular reasoning? If I wrote a book and said in it that God wrote it, it wouldn't be trustworthy.
The Bible isn't just a book. It's a library; a collection of 66 books. And it wasn't written by one or two guys in a couple of months. It was written by 40 different authors over 1500 years on three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa) in three different language (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek). In other words, when Paul talks about "all scripture" he's not talking about something else he wrote. He's talking about books written by men inspired by God throughout history; kings, servants, shepherds, politicians, preachers, fishermen, lawyers, captives, rich, poor, young, and old. And the truly amazing thing is that despite the amazing variety of the authors and the circumstances in which they wrote, the Bible has incredible unity. It's as if it was written by one God. And if it's written by God, you'd expect it to be accurate.
The Bible is historically accurate. Throughout history, people have been skeptical about the Bible's authenticity because it talks about some things that couldn't be confirmed by a non-Biblical source. 2 Kings 18-19 tells about Sennacherib of Assyria invading Judah, conquering several cities, and laying siege to Jerusalem but not being able to take it. For years, no one could confirm this story, until in 1849 an archeological dig unearthed a clay prism with writing on it that described in detail that very account, including Sennacherib's failure to conquer Jerusalem. This pattern plays out several times, including accounts of King Sargon of Assyria (Isaiah 20:1) being questioned until his palace was uncovered in 1843, and King Cyrus letting the Jews rebuild the temple in Jerusalem being completely out of character for the historical understanding of Cyrus until a clay cylinder was discovered in 1880. In fact, unlike other "religious" books, such as the Book of Mormon, all the historical claims of the Bible are again and again proved true.
The Bible is scientifically accurate. Speaking of other "religious" books, ancient writings make ridiculous claims about the nature of the universe, including that the earth is flat, that it rides on the back of a giant turtle, that it's the center of the universe, or that there 3000 stars. The Bible makes no such claims. In fact, it paints a much more realistic picture: Isaiah 40:22 says "[God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth", Job 26:7 says that "[God]suspends the earth over nothing", Genesis 15:5 suggests that there are innumerable stars, and Psalm 8:8 even talks about the "paths of the sea" (oceanic currents). But what about miracles? Some are skeptical of the Bible because miracles are scientifically impossible. This kind of silly reason to doubt the scripture because it is the fact that they are scientifically impossible that makes them miraculous. They are demonstrations of God's divinity and authority over his creation.
So how did the authors know what to write? And can we really trust that we've got the original words that were written down all those years ago? Check out next week's notes.
Other Verses:
2 Peter 3:15-165 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
