I hope you are now prepared to answer the question, “Does God really exists?” That was our topic last week.
More importantly, I hope you truly believe in the Creator God and that belief is not only experienced on Sundays but on a daily basis.
Now, if someone asks you “Why do you believe the Bible is God’s Word?”, what would you say? Think about this question for a moment and write down your answers in your bulletin………….
To have a better appreciation of God’s involvement with the Bible, let’s take note of some facts:
The Bible is actually a book of books written by 40 authors with a time span of 1600 years.
The Bible was originally written in languages appropriate to the people at the time: the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, and both Testaments contain Aramaic (a form of Hebrew).
The oldest copies of Old Testament books go back to 200 BC. Earliest manuscripts of New Testament go back 100-200 AD. Think about this for a moment; I have a copy of the Milwaukee Journal Newspaper Sports Section dated March 4, 1973. It’s acceptable to believe what’s written here isn’t it? You see, just because something written is old, it doesn’t mean it’s not true!
Bible Scholar R. Laird Harris states:
We can now be sure that copyists worked with great care and accuracy on the Old Testament, even back to 225 BC. Although some differed among themselves, it was so little, we can infer that still earlier copyists had also faithfully and carefully transmitted the Old Testament text. Indeed, it would be rash skepticism that would now deny that we have our Old Testament in a form very close to that used by Ezra when he taught the Law to those who had returned from the Babylonian captivity, about 457 BC.
Now, because most people can not read Hebrew or old Greek, the first Bible translation was printed to the English language in 1526. As the English language changed, the need for contemporary English versions of the Bible grew; thus we have today many English translations of the Bible. By the way, Chapter and Verses were not put in till 1214 AD.
The Christian world uses 2 types of Bibles: Fundamental Evangelical Bibles have 39 books in OT and 27 in NT. Roman Catholic Bibles have 51 books in the OT and 27 in NT. The difference is due to the “canon”; a canon is a set of standards. Why is there a difference?
There are 12 Books of Apocrypha in the Catholic Bible which were never included in the Hebrew canon.
Jesus cited most of the books in the Hebrew canon BUT NEVER CITED any of the apocryphal books. NT writers quoted from every other book of the Hebrew canon but never from any apocryphal book. Which Bible to study?
You be the judge; but I go along with Jesus!
The NT canon was established around AD 300 and confirmed many times in several councils!
And so, when we evangelical Christians talk about the Bible as the Word of God, we are talking about the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament.
And so, Why should we believe that these 66 books of the Bible are God’s Word?
1. The Bible is confirmed by archaeology.
More than 25000 sites (digs) have confirmed the Bible.
Here are some examples: show picture of Ebla tablets
The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. The name “Canaan” was in use in Ebla, a name critics once said was not used at that time and was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible. The word tehom (“the deep”) in Genesis 1:2 was said to be a late word demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. “Tehom” was part of the vocabulary at Ebla, in use some 800 years before Moses. Ancient customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs have also been found in clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari.
The Hittites were once thought to be a Biblical legend, until their capital and records were discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey.
The Smithsonian Department of Anthropology has this to say about the Bible. “Much of the Bible, in particular the historical books of the old testament, are as accurate historical documents as any that we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek histories. These Biblical records can be and are used as are other ancient documents in archeological work.”
Historical and archaelogical finds will confirm the Bible, because the Bible is true, because it is the Word of God!
Secondly, why believe the Bible? As we alluded to earlier,
2. Copies of the Bible books, what we actually have today, are so close to the original events that they are like news flashes in a newspaper!
Again, the earliest manuscripts of OT books go back to 200 BC and NT manuscripts back to 100-200 AD!
How significant is this?
The world accepts writings of historians like Thucycides, Aristotle, and Caesar. Aristotle’s earliest manuscripts are 1400 years after his death. Remember that existing Bible manuscripts are only 100-200 years after the actual events; Aristotle’s is 1400 years after the actual events!
Caesar’s earliest manuscripts are 900 years after his death.
The world accepts writings with longer time spans from the actual events than the Bible! Why not accept the Bible?
Now listen to this, historians and librarians rank the New Testament as #1 in manuscript evidence. What’s rank #2?
The Iliad by Homer ranks #2 with only 643 surviving manuscripts. Do you know why they rank the New Testament Bible as #1? The Iliad has 643 supporting manuscripts; the New Testament has 24000 surviving manuscripts to support itself! The Koran, the Book of Mormons, or any other religious writings don’t even come close to the Bible!
God is protecting His Word through the ages! God actually states that the Bible is eternal! The Bible is believable because they are reliable writings very close in time to the actual events and are supported by many other manuscripts compared to no other!
Why believe the Bible is the Word of God?
3. Prophecies are fulfilled or being fulfilled exactly as written!
The Bible, although put in writing by man, is from God. You see, the OT writers did not dare to write anything of their own predictions. The OT writers knew that if what they wrote does not come true, they would be instantly killed! That was the law of the land! This is almost like, but not as severe, as a politician losing his office because he lied. Wouldn’t that be a good rule to have today!
Study Daniel 11 and you will see how accurate and specific the writings are to actual history!
The prophecies of Jesus Christ alone were written in the Bible 500-1000 years before they happened! There are over 400 prophecies of Jesus Christ first coming! The accuracy of the prophecies fulfilled about Christ in detail, can only be done by God!
Now someone may ask, couldn’t the NT writers “cheat” on what they wrote to fulfill Scriptures? After all, they had the OT as a reference! You see, they couldn’t cheat because, there were other historians at the time and if the NT writers wrote something not true, they could easily be found out and their writings would just be thrown out!
Even if those NT writers had computers like we have today,
if their writings didn’t match the prophecies exactly, their writings would be simply trashed! Guess what?? The writings of those NT writers still stand today!! Why? – because they wrote the Word of God!
4. In spite of 40 different authors and a span of 1600 years, the Bible is internally consistent.
The Bible doesn’t contradict itself!
Why do we only have 66 books in the Bible? Because none of the books are contradict because God wrote them and chose only those 66 books! This is why, the Bible says, “do not add anything to what’s already written by God!”
5. The New Testament was accepted as historical records for 300 years! Early Christian writers and non-biblical historians (200-300 AD) made references to the New Testament.
It can be said that “ALL but eleven verses of the NT are found in works of 2nd and 3rd century writers.”
6. Science can not disprove the Bible!
Why can’t science disprove the Bible? Science is based on the ideas of human beings who do not know everything and who often make mistakes. That’s why science textbooks change from time to time, as people discover new evidence and realize that they were wrong about certain things. Science is based on man’s theories which can be wrong! Therefore, science can not disprove the Bible!
Remember when people used to think that it was scientifically correct to believe that the earth was flat?
Isaiah 40:22 and Job 26:10 speak of a round earth!
Man’s science may not always be right but sooner or later it will catch up to what the Bible says because it is written by God!
God knows all; man is a know it all!! Do you really want to completely trust man’s writings rather than God’s?
Why believe the Bible?
7. People are changed because of studying the Bible.
The Bible not only changes individuals but also changes communities! Wherever the Bible goes there is higher education, schools, organizations, governments, hospitals and other caring institutions, and so on an so on…….
If you believe the Bible, it will change you and your community for the better! Why wouldn’t you accept the Bible? God loves people and He gave written instructions on how to live the right way!
And lastly but most importantly, why believe the Bible?
8. The One and Only True God is found in the Bible.
Are personal testimonies in court? – Absolutely!
God testifies about Himself in the Bible!
If an all knowing God exists and He does (we talked about the evidences last time), shouldn’t He destroy what is falsely said about Him if the Bible is not true? God has been protecting the Bible through the ages because it is His words!
From the Old Testament, God calls the Bible God’s Law, God’s Writings, and the Word of God. Please open your Bibles to the New Testament, to 2 Peter 1:19-21…….
Someone will tell that the Bible was just written by men.
This passage in 2 Peter 1 and 2 Timothy 3:16 is what we need to tell them.
The biblical sense of inspiration (God-breathed) means:
God so superintended the writers of Scripture that they wrote what God wanted them to write, disclosing the exact truth He wanted conveyed.
Why believe that the Bible is the Word of God? There are many reasons as shared, but simply, we can believe that the Bible is the Word of God because God exists and He said He wrote the Bible! And ever since the writings of God, there have been many attempts to disprove the Bible as the Word of God and no one has succeeded!
Man can not fight God or His Word the Bible! Are you still fighting God?
If someone tells you they don’t believe that the bible is the Word of God, challenge them to disprove it? If they seriously take the challenge, they will become Christians because they will learn that the Bible is the Word of God and it tells us of a Holy, Loving God, who provides forgiveness of sins and eternal life through Jesus Christ!
The Bible is the Word of God!
The Bible provides spiritual food for the hungry, lamp to guide the lost, joy and delight to the heart, will renew the mind, more precious than gold, sharper than a two-edged sword, it is truth and righteousness! The Bible is sufficient for all our needs.
How will YOU treat the Bible?
Jesus said, “fast and pray” and in Matthew 4:4……
Are you starving yourself spiritually?
The Bible is our daily bread for our souls!!
Don’t know which book to start with? Read the Epistles of John till you fully understand what each chapter is saying,
then learn more about Jesus from the Gospels, then ask God which book He’d want you to read. Read God’s Word daily!
