Today I was watching one of James Merritt’s sermons (dated June 12, 2005), which I just had to share. If you’re a Christian many unbelievers will come to you and say that the Bible is full of fables, hold your ground and get the facts.
Why believe the Bible, simply put, Jesus said in John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
- The Bible is historically reliable.
- The Bible is scientifically realistic (principles of modern science were already recorded in the Bible!)
- The Bible is prophetically correct
- The Bible is personally relevant
1) The Bible is historically reliable – The Bible was written in a period of 1500 years, by 40 different authors in 3 different continents, whom spoke 3 different languages but these books of the Bible all profess the same message.
Genesis speaks about paradise, 1500 years later Revelations (Revelation 21:1) speaks about heaven. In Genesis, there is river flowing out of the garden (Genesis 2:10), in Revelations, a river flowing out of the throne (Revelation 22:1). The entire Bible speaks about the fall of man as a result of sin and that our Lord wants to get right with us, and that blood sacrifices are necessary for the remissions of sins (Old Testament: non-defected bulls, goats, lambs…: New Testament: Jesus Christ).
Folks are quick to believe that Julius Caesar lived without questioning the reliability of his life recordings even after the earliest of these recordings have been obtained about 1000 years after he lived.
Now back to our Bible:
New Testament: Over 5300 manuscripts, earliest manuscript 35 years after last book in New Testament was written.
Old Testament: Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the year 1947, dated back to 150BC, just 200 years old after last recorded event in Old Testament, contains fragments of every book in the Bible and the entire book of Isaiah.
When we put all the ancient manuscripts (Greek, Latin, Aramaic..) together we get over 40 000 manuscripts that contain the Bible. When we line all the manuscripts together and examine every one of them, 99.5% of the time they AGREE with each other. No other historical piece of script can make such a claim.
Jewish archaeologist Dr. Nelson Glueck stated that not one single archaeological discovery has ever clearly contradicted the Bible. Even non-believers can account for the reliability of the Bible!
2) The Bible is scientifically realistic – Now the Bible is NOT a science book, but the principles of modern science were already recorded in the Bible. Christopher Columbus believed the earth was round (Isaiah 40:22). Also, in early days of surgery many patients were dying because the surgeons washed their hands in a bowl of water, when they should have in running water (Leviticus 15:13). If these doctors and others had just read the Bible many problems faced would have been avoided altogether.
3) The Bible is prophetically correct – The Bible tells many future events. One out of every three verses predicts the future. In the OT, over 2000 prophesies came to pass. There are 26 other books (besides our Holy Bible), that claim to be the word of God, but not one contains prophesy…obviously cause God didn’t write theirs.
4) The Bible is personally relevant – Much needn’t be said on this, simply put, the Bible has an answer to any question/problem in life. The answer is correct, righteous and sensible.
Now one can believe in other books if they so desire, but with all that evidence (and what stated above is not even the whole of it) I don’t see how anyone could believe otherwise.
My friends, the Bible is the definition of truth.