Can We Trust the Bible?
Lecture notes by Charlie Campbell
The Bible is unarguably an incredible book. It is the best-selling, most quoted, most published, most circulated, most translated, most influential book in the history of mankind. There is no close second.
But why should anyone believe that the Bible is actually true?
Might not the Bible be a fraud?
Might not it be an ancient book of mythology, filled with the fanciful, yet deceitful writings of men?
What about other books like the Quran or the Book of Mormon? What makes the Bible any different than those books?
Those are questions that intelligent, critical thinking people are asking today. Those are the questions I used to ask about the Bible. We need to, as Christians, be able to answer these questions (1 Peter 3:15). So, in our time together this evening I’d like to share with you some of the evidence that I think demonstrates that the Bible is indeed what it claims to be, the inspired, trustworthy Word of God (written by men yes, but men who were led by the Holy Spirit to pen down the words they wrote).
I want to do that by bringing to the witness stand, if you will, ten witnesses or evidences that all testify to this truth. My prayer is that, if you are already a Christian, your faith in the Bible will be strengthened, and if you are a skeptic that you will reconsider your skepticism.
The first witness or evidence for the Bible’s trustworthiness is...
1. FULFILLED PROPHECY
Fulfilled prophecy is something that sets the Bible apart from every other religious book. And the Bible does have some competition today. There are 26 other religious books that people of faith believe are divinely inspired (the Hindu Vedas, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.). Of these twenty-six books, none of them contain any specific, fulfilled prophecies. None.
In stark contrast to these other writings, the Bible is literally filled with hundreds of specific, detailed prophecies that were written hundreds of years before their fulfillment. In fact 27% of the Bible contains what was predictive prophecy at the time that it was written. And the authors of the Bible did not just predict some vague things like Nostradamus or Jeanne Dixon (who have proven to have been false prophets over and over again), they were very specific. Consider a few of the Old Testament prophecies made regarding the Messiah (the Savior that God promised He would send into the world) hundreds of years before they were fulfilled.
For example, the Old Testament prophesied that He would be born of the seed of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3, 22:18), of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10), and in the lineage of David (2 Samuel 7:12f). Micah 5:2 said that He would be born in Bethlehem, that He’d come while the temple was still standing (Malachi 3:1), that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), that He would open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, and cause the lame to walk (Isaiah 35:5-6), that He’d be rejected by His own people (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7). The Scriptures foretold the precise time in history when He would die (Daniel 9:24-26), how He would die (Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53; Zechariah 12:10), and that He would rise from the dead (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27-32).
These are just a few of the prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah. And there are lots of other prophecies about the rise and fall of nations, the regathering of the xxxish people back into their homeland (something that's being fulfilled right now). The fact that these prophecies and hundreds of others have been fulfilled, even though they were spoken hundreds and even thousands of years before their fulfillment is strong evidence that a God who is all-knowing and all-powerful orchestrated the Bible's completion. No other religious writing is able to substantiate its claims with this kind of supernatural evidence.
SKEPTIC: "Hold on a second Charlie. Maybe the disciples just made up all of these things that Jesus supposedly did. Perhaps they read all of those prophecies in the Old Testament and decided to make up an elaborate story about Jesus fulfilling them!"
Ahh, that is a legitimate concern (that the disciples were just lying, just fabricating the whole story about Jesus). Well, I'm going to address that concern and show you why I don't think they were lying later on in the study when we get to evidence number eight.
For further study on fulfilled prophecies, please see: Every Prophecy of the Bible by Dr. John Walvoord.
Lecture notes by Charlie Campbell
The Bible is unarguably an incredible book. It is the best-selling, most quoted, most published, most circulated, most translated, most influential book in the history of mankind. There is no close second.
But why should anyone believe that the Bible is actually true?
Might not the Bible be a fraud?
Might not it be an ancient book of mythology, filled with the fanciful, yet deceitful writings of men?
What about other books like the Quran or the Book of Mormon? What makes the Bible any different than those books?
Those are questions that intelligent, critical thinking people are asking today. Those are the questions I used to ask about the Bible. We need to, as Christians, be able to answer these questions (1 Peter 3:15). So, in our time together this evening I’d like to share with you some of the evidence that I think demonstrates that the Bible is indeed what it claims to be, the inspired, trustworthy Word of God (written by men yes, but men who were led by the Holy Spirit to pen down the words they wrote).
I want to do that by bringing to the witness stand, if you will, ten witnesses or evidences that all testify to this truth. My prayer is that, if you are already a Christian, your faith in the Bible will be strengthened, and if you are a skeptic that you will reconsider your skepticism.
The first witness or evidence for the Bible’s trustworthiness is...
1. FULFILLED PROPHECY
Fulfilled prophecy is something that sets the Bible apart from every other religious book. And the Bible does have some competition today. There are 26 other religious books that people of faith believe are divinely inspired (the Hindu Vedas, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.). Of these twenty-six books, none of them contain any specific, fulfilled prophecies. None.
In stark contrast to these other writings, the Bible is literally filled with hundreds of specific, detailed prophecies that were written hundreds of years before their fulfillment. In fact 27% of the Bible contains what was predictive prophecy at the time that it was written. And the authors of the Bible did not just predict some vague things like Nostradamus or Jeanne Dixon (who have proven to have been false prophets over and over again), they were very specific. Consider a few of the Old Testament prophecies made regarding the Messiah (the Savior that God promised He would send into the world) hundreds of years before they were fulfilled.
For example, the Old Testament prophesied that He would be born of the seed of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3, 22:18), of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10), and in the lineage of David (2 Samuel 7:12f). Micah 5:2 said that He would be born in Bethlehem, that He’d come while the temple was still standing (Malachi 3:1), that He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), that He would open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, and cause the lame to walk (Isaiah 35:5-6), that He’d be rejected by His own people (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7). The Scriptures foretold the precise time in history when He would die (Daniel 9:24-26), how He would die (Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53; Zechariah 12:10), and that He would rise from the dead (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27-32).
These are just a few of the prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah. And there are lots of other prophecies about the rise and fall of nations, the regathering of the xxxish people back into their homeland (something that's being fulfilled right now). The fact that these prophecies and hundreds of others have been fulfilled, even though they were spoken hundreds and even thousands of years before their fulfillment is strong evidence that a God who is all-knowing and all-powerful orchestrated the Bible's completion. No other religious writing is able to substantiate its claims with this kind of supernatural evidence.
SKEPTIC: "Hold on a second Charlie. Maybe the disciples just made up all of these things that Jesus supposedly did. Perhaps they read all of those prophecies in the Old Testament and decided to make up an elaborate story about Jesus fulfilling them!"
Ahh, that is a legitimate concern (that the disciples were just lying, just fabricating the whole story about Jesus). Well, I'm going to address that concern and show you why I don't think they were lying later on in the study when we get to evidence number eight.
For further study on fulfilled prophecies, please see: Every Prophecy of the Bible by Dr. John Walvoord.
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