FreeTruth

As I draw this series to a close, I would not want to be misunderstood. In this discussion I have presented reasons for faith. I have done this because throughout the Bible God presents reasons for faith, evidence (to borrow someone's phrase) that demands a verdict. But the reason I believe is not that I am smart enough to see those reasons while others are not.

Let me be clear: I do not believe that God calls us to faith without reason. Faith without reason is superstition. Faith is not a leap into a darkness devoid of evidence, it is a reasonable conclusion drawn from the evidence. It is seeing where the evidence points, concluding that there is clear and sufficient evidence that something is true, and then commiting one's self to that conclusion.

Faith in God and in the Bible as God's Word is not a leap into a dark pit of irrationality. It is simply accepting the fact that there is clear and sufficient reason to believe it is God's Word and submitting accordingly.

But here's the deal: some people are willing to do that and some are not. The evidence can be seen by all willing to look (Romans 1 makes it clear that just nature alone gives enough reason to believe; people know that there is a God). But some believe it and some don't. Some submit; some do not. Some surrender to the facts; others resist them. Why?

I'm asking the question, "Why do I believe the Bible is God's Word?" from a different angle now. What I'm asking now is not what reasons do I have to surrender my life to the Word of God, but why am I willing to do so.

There is only one reason why I am willing to surrender to the evidence: it is the sovereign, electing, regenerating, faith-giving grace of God. It is because the Spirit of God has opened my eyes to see the truth and my heart to make me willing to receive it.

Man's mind can and does comprehend the reality of God and the divine quality of the Bible. But the only way Man's heart will be willing to receive and bow to the authority of that Word is if God gives a new heart by grace.

I believe because God enabled me to do so. There was a day on which my dead-like-Lazarus-soul was called from the grave of its hardened condition by the life-giving voice of God through His Word, and I walked from the tomb of my unbelief.

"Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature's night
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off my heart was free
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."

I am what I am, and believe what I believe, by the grace of God.
I am a debtor to mercy alone.
I stand amazed and weep for joy.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, Election, Faith, Regeneration, The Word of God

To pick up where I left off yesterday, I would argue that all the religions and religious books of the world (except One) have two fatal flaws as they address the biggest need of the human soul: sin, and the separation it causes between Man and God. These "paths to God" are dead ends because they both exaggerate the virtue of man's goodness and depreciate the high holiness and justice of God. They make Man out to be better than he is and God out to be more indulgent and morally wimpy (i.e.-less holy) than He is.

For a "path to God" to be a true path it has to deal with this problem of sin in such a way as to treat both sin and God's holiness with absolute unflinching seriousness. Other faiths simply do not do this, but the Bible does.

The dilemma that sin causes can be described like this: Man is a sinner whose sin must be punished with death. But God loves sinners and wants to rescue them from the death they deserve, the hell that justice requires. So God in His love wants to forgive sinners, but God in His justice must punish their sin. It follows then, that if God punishes the sinners He loves in the way their sins deserve, there won't be any more sinners to love. They will all be damned. Any religion or view of life that does not reckon with this divine moral dilemma is a fraud.

So how does God both gratify His love for sinners and satisfy the justice of His holy nature with reference to sin? How does He damn and save sinners simultaneously?

Or to look at it from Man upward: how does Man find forgiveness with God for sins that God's justice simply cannot ignore? No faith but that of the Bible has revealed a satisfactory answer.

The answer is this: God voluntarily decided to punish Man's sin by becoming a man and bearing the punishment in Man's place. The Cross is the place where love and justice meet and kiss. On the Cross, human sin was atoned for (to satisfy God's justice) so that human beings could be forgiven (to satisfy God's love).

God chose to punish Himself for human sin so that the wrath due to sinners could be satisfied while the love God had for sinners could be gratified. God devised a way to punish sin and save sinners. He chose to die in their place.

John Stott has said that "Sin is man substituting himself for God, and salvation is God substituting Himself for man." There is the gospel, and there is the only truth path that actually gets you to God. Every other path is a bridge to nowhere.

And there you have one more reason why I believe the Bible alone is the Word of God. It alone saves.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, Gospel, The Word of God

In the final analysis, the only real quest of the human soul is to be right with God. Man, being made in the image of God, was made to be in relationship with God. Humans are made to love and enjoy the love of, God.

Not only is this what the Bible teaches from cover to cover, it is what the heart of Man desires from womb to tomb. Man is--to use John Piper's pleasing phrase--"homesick for God". In the words of Augustine's prayer: "Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."

All humanity's restless search for meaning, for true and lasting love, for peace of conscience and soul, is the product of our being made to be in right relationship with the One who made us, but from whom we have wandered in foolish and wicked rebellion.

Sin has ruined Man's soul and come between him and the One he desires. Therefore, it can rightly be said that this sin--and finding a remedy for it--presents humanity's greatest need.

It is at this point that I discover my next reason for believing the Bible is the Word of God: Because the Bible alone provides the answer for Man's deepest need: sin This argument will take two days to unpack.

The Bible proclaims words of eternal life and real reason to hope for forgiveness, declaring a gospel that offers grace to sinners without trivializing human sin on the one hand or divine justice and wrath on the other. No other Book/religion presents a way of salvation in which the justice due to sin and the mercy needed by sinners come together and kiss.

Every other religion and religious book presents a "way to God" that simply cannot be true because it simply cannot work. The way to God presented by these faiths invariably reduces to this in some form or another: "God (or karma, or "The One") wants you to be good. Be good enough and all will be well between you and God. Get it right and you will get peace with God and peace of soul."

The problem with this idea is that it unavoidably commits two errors. First, it exaggerates human virtue. It credits our efforts to be good with too much worth and value. It assumes we can be good, and it assumes that sooner or later we can be good enough.

The problem here is that we cannot be good, never mind good enough. To imagine that a human can be good is to assume that his pitiful attempts at being good--defiled as they invariably are by proud motives, desire for a pat on the back, half-hearted love, and a thousand other imperfections--rise to a level of actual goodness.

But folks, a good work done with a bad heart is at best what one has called--"a bad good work". To think that any human can ever amass sufficient good good works (good not only in external act but in internal motive) to make himself right with God is folly. We must exaggerate our virtue to ever place faith in our efforts to restore ourselves into relationship with God.

We must also trivialize God's holiness and justice. In order for us to think that we can satisfy a holy God with our bad good works we have to minimize God's holiness expectations and we have to believe that God is neither as holy as He really is nor as angry with sins as He really must be if He is holy.

Salvation by human morality forces us to think that God grades on a curve, winks at sin, doesn't really care about perfection, is indifferent to what is really and truly good. If my bad good works are really all it takes to please God, and to appease Him for my bad bad works then God is not really as good and holy as He's cracked up to be. He's a morality wimp; the ultimate Moral Pushover.

All other "ways to God" are dead ends. The Bible alone presents a way that allows God to save and reconcile sinners to Himself without exaggerating our goodness or trivializing His.

Come back tomorrow and I'll explain.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, Gospel, The Word of God

By now you've probably heard about the firestorm surrounding an advertisement to be aired during the Super Bowl. Tim Tebow, by all accounts a remarkable young man of faith and courage--not to mention one of the top-five best college football players ever--is airing a simple positive ad about how his mother chose life over abortion. When this was announced, the fury of the abortion crowd came to an instant boil.

There were exceptions to this rage, and if you want to read a remarkable article about this, written by a Washington Post editorialist, go to CJ Mahaney's blog. But the exceptions are just that. The rule has been a blind, raging, irrational vitriol against this ad.

The question is why? Why do these folks loathe the thought that an opposing idea might get some air time? They have no opposition to ads promoting drinking (which kills millions) or illicit sex (which leads to untold sorrows), or raw materialism (which destroys countless lives) or scantily clad women (which presents women as objects to be drooled over rather than persons to be respected). They oppose only an ad that promotes family and life. Why the rage?

Oddly I see here another reason (one I hadn't planned to offer but I now cannot resist) why I believe the Bible is God's Word: because the wicked hate its light and truth so much. The Bible tells us that people will hate the light (John 3:19, 20). And they do.

People reserve for the Bible a level of hatred that they show to no other book, no other deposit of ideas, no other philosophy or belief system, or code of morals. Although Islam has killed its millions, Christianity is more hated. Although Hinduism has kept women and lower castes in abject poverty for millenia, Christianity is more despised. Although atheism has led to the slaughter of hundreds of millions (in the 20th century alone), people are more afraid of and opposed to biblical faith.

Why the irrational fear of the message of the Bible? Why do people foam at the mouth when a young man wants to take just 30 seconds of their time to present a view different from their own? The answer is simple, but profound: the truth is light that exposes the darkness of their souls.

People know when they open a Bible or when someone opens his mouth to speak simple Bible truth, that they are about to have the reality of their lives exposed under a shining light. The Koran or the Hindu scriptures or even the rantings of an atheist don't scare people--because their ideas pose no threat to man's guilty conscience; truth does.

It may seem ironic, but I'd say that the fact so many utterly despise the teachings of the Bible is one more reason to believe those teachings are true. The Bible gets the human condition right. The fact that people rage against it only goes to prove that it is so.

If God is real and God is holy and God's Law is right and pure and good, one would expect that all that is not holy will despise and want to silence them. And that is what is.

Tim Tebow's shining light and the reaction of those in darkness remind us one more time that the Bible must tell the truth about us. Why else would humans hate it so?

Labels: Abortion, Apologetics, Bible, The Word of God

Romans 11:33 celebrates the inscrutable, inexhaustible, and unfathomable mind, ways, and spoken judgments or decrees of God. Since God's mind is impossible to know fully (Romans 11:34), it follows that His judgments and words will be deep, profound, and impossible fully to fathom.

Here is my next reason for believing that the Bible is the Word of God: Because the inexhaustible depth and profound wonders of the Bible evidence an infinite Mind from which they must originate. The Bible presents a profundity of thought, a depth of insight, a wealth of truth that is simply too deep and too nuanced and too balanced and too unfailingly illuminating to the soul to be of human origin.

When I say that the mind and words of God are unfathomable, I do not mean that they cannot be understood at all, but that they cannot be understood in full. It is possible to grasp the truth of the Bible, but just when you think you've gotten your mind around a biblical idea, you discover that there is more in it yet to be learned.

I wish space would allow some developed examples. But those who've had any time to ponder biblical teachings, will recognize this often repeated thought: "Wow! this truth is amazing--and it's amazing all over again!" They will hear the echo of these words in their own minds: "I thought I understood this idea from God's Word but I just saw it in a whole new light that is even more glorious than what I'd ever seen before."

Serious students of God's Word who are truly seeking to know God through that Word, will have felt this when thinking over such basic Bible truths as:
--God is all-knowing.
--God rules over every last atom and event in the universe.
--God is wise.
--God is holy.
--God is perfectly just.

Pick a truth, any truth, and the result will be the same. Ponder it for a while, and watch what happens to your soul. It'll fill with wonder.

I'd suggest that even the simple truth, God loves me, is a reality that will fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder. You and I will never get to the bottom of it, even if we spend eternity plumbing its depths. To really know what that love is, how great that love is, how personal that love is, how faithful and delighted in us that love is, how secure that love is, how very, very, very perfect and joy-giving that love is, how incomprehensibly deep and strong that love is, is simply too much for our minds to grasp.

And the same is true with every idea in the Bible. Every truth is an unfathomable ocean. Dive as deep as you can and you'll never touch bottom. Go ahead and try. Sooner or later you'll have to come up for air.

When you do, I suggest you take a moment or two to worship and adore the God Whose truth it is.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, The Word of God

I have said that Christianity has done much to advance scientific and creative endeavor throughout history. This is because biblically informed Christians see the world as God's world and therefore to be studied and celebrated in science, song, and art.

Since the world is God's world, it should not surprise us to know that when the world is studied in fine detail (the work of science) it reveals the existence and character of God. This too we have already stated. What has been left unstated to this point is this related reason for faith in the Bible as God's Word: Modern sciences, such as cosmology and archeology consistently validate the historical data of the Bible.

For a fascinating look at how cosmology (the study of the universe) supports biblical claims read the relevant sections of Norman Geisler's Why I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. It will show you how much faith it takes to deny the Bible's claims regarding the origins of history.

Regarding archeology, I'm going to let the following quote serve as a sample presentation of a few of the many facts that could be marshalled in defense of the Bible's historicity. I'm not sure who the author of the following is, but I've checked and verified the claims made:

-- Critics used to believe ...that Moses could not have written any of the books of the Bible because they believed that writing did not exist that early in history... but then ...in 1902, archaeologists discovered the Code of Hammurabi which was written long before Moses was born.

-- Critics used to believe ...the Bible was wrong because they felt that King David was a myth. They pointed to the fact that there was no archeological evidence that King David was an actual historical figure... but then ...in 1994 archaeologists discovered an ancient stone that was inscribed with the references to King David and the "House of David."

-- Critics used to believe ...that the Bible was wrong because there was no evidence (outside of the Bible) that a group of people called the Hittites ever existed. Thus, they felt this proved that the Bible is a mythical creation of ancient Hebrew writers... but then ...in 1906, a German archaeologist named Winckler was excavating in Turkey and discovered the capital city of the Hittite empire, the entire Hittite library and 10,000 clay tablets documenting the Hittite history. Scholars translated these writings and discovered that everything the Bible said about the Hittite empire was true.

-- Critics used to believe ...the book of Acts was not historically accurate. A man named Sir William Ramsay, one of the greatest historical/archaeological scholars in history, decided to try to disprove the Bible as the inspired Word of God by showing that the book of Acts was not historically accurate... but then ...after 30 years of archaeological research in the Middle East, Ramsay came to the conclusion that “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy... this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.” He wrote a book on the trustworthiness of the Bible based on his discoveries and converted to Christianity based on his research. Sir Ramsay found no historical or geographical mistakes in the book of Acts. This is amazing when we realize that in the book of Acts, Luke mentions 32 countries, 54 cities, 9 Mediterranean islands and 95 people and he did not get one wrong. Compare that with the Encyclopedia Britannica. The first year the Encyclopedia Britannica was published it contained so many mistakes regarding places in the United States that it had to be recalled.

-- Critics used to believe ...that the Old Testament could not be reliable because they felt that over a long period of time the Old Testament writings would have been changed, altered, edited or corrupted... but then ...in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. These scrolls contained, among other writings, every book in the Old Testament (except Esther). Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found the earliest copy of the complete Old Testament was from 900 A.D. Scholars compared this copy with the Dead Sea Scrolls (produced around 1,000 years earlier) and found that the Old Testament had been handed down accurately through the centuries.

-- The great Jewish archaeologist, Nelson Glueck (who is known to be one of the top three archaeologists in history) said this... "No archaeological discovery has ever contradicted a single, properly understood Biblical statement."

To add one other concluding summary from an unlikely source (TIME Magazine) note this:

After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived – and is perhaps the better for the siege. Even on the critics’ own terms – historical fact -- the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack. Noting one example among many, New Testament Scholar Bruce Metzger observes that the Book of Acts was once accused of historical errors for details that have since been proved by archaeologists and historians to be correct ("The Bible: The Believers Gain," Time, 30 Dec. 1974, 34).

Ladies and gentlemen: as the science of archeology continues its work the histroical reliability of the Bible becomes ever more sure. How did the ancient writers get it all right about people and places and events--many of which they were not even there to see, if not for a Divine mind who knows history (because He rules it) revealing it to them for them to record?

You decide.

Labels: Apologetics, archeology, Bible, The Word of God

One of the more ironic (if not almost humorous, because it is so patently false) charges made against Christianity is that it leads to oppression, injustice, ignorance, and numerous other social evils. The guilt of all that's wrong with human society--from slavery to the oppression of the poor to the denigration of women to suppression of science and knowledge--has been laid at the feet of Christians and the Bible for centuries. Are these charges true?

Space does not allow a full answer, or anything like it. But I would assert that the charges are not only not true, they are anti-true. That is, they are actually the opposite of the truth. The truth is that wherever the Christian biblical ethic has taken root in any society for any period of time, there has been a marked:

--increase of care for the poor
--elevation of the dignity and honor afforded to women
--increase of commitment to scientific and creative endeavors
--correction of racial and social prejudice
--development of medical care
--improvement of judicial processes
--improvement of economic systems

In short, wherever the Bible goes and takes root, the care of the poor, the elevation of women, the progress of science, the advancement of knowledge and medicine, and the defeat of prejudice are sure to follow.

Wherever the Bible goes, in time, hospitals get built, women achieve new rights and freedoms, the poor gain new dignity and opportunity, the oppressed are set free, institutions of learning are created, society achieves unprecedented new heights of justice and opportunity for all. Wherever the Bible has not taken root, the opposite happens.

Here's one more reason why I believe the Bible is God's Word: it has an unmatched transforming effect on human society. Plant its teachings in the soil of any culture and that culture will soon harvest abounding fruits of justice, knowledge, and opportunity.

In contrast nothing has done more to foster oppression, poverty, and ignorance, and to obliterate common decency, honesty, and respect for human life than when cultures have been ignorant of or have purposefully rejected the Law of God.

Why do I believe in the Bible as God's Word? Because it doesn't just work for isolated individuals; it changes the course of history and society. It works for the world.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, ethics, The Word of God

In the ancient world various people groups believed that there were many gods, and a different god for every tribe, land, sea, planetary sphere, etc. There was no one God over all, but a bunch of side-by-side, often competing gods vying for their territory and space.

We hear whispered echoes of such belief today whenever people tie their faith to their ethnicity or nationality or culture or heritage. Is it possible that we might even hear those whispers in the popular mantras: "I like to think of God like..." and "That view of God may be true for you, but this one is true for me?" People seem to believe that there cannot be any one God for all people.

I'm guessing that one reason for this history of religious thought is that people simply cannot imagine a God big and great and sufficient enough to be one size fits all. Who can conceive of One Person who can transcend every culture, cross every divide, appeal to every type of person, meet the truest needs of every human?

Friends: what man cannot imagine, the Bible reveals. Another reason why I believe the Bible is God's Word is this: the remarkable universal relevance of the Bible’s message and morals which transcends all times and cultures, suggests a single universal Mind behind it all.

The Bible addresses universal human needs like the forgiveness of sin, relationship with God, purpose for life, an abiding Moral Law, and an imperative of love for all peoples that transcends every ethnic, social, and geographical dividing line.

And it does this in such a way as to respect the cultures that exist. It even promises that in the end, various people who have been redeemed by Christ will carry the glory of their cultures into heaven (Revelation 5:9, 10; 21:23-26). God's heaven will be the ultimate multi-cultural event.

The message of the Bible, which is a message of a God who made all humans out of one Man and one Woman, is a message that calls all ethnicites back to God through repentance from sin and faith in Christ. And when they come back to God through Christ they will find an equal standing upon which they may love and worship God in ways consistent with their own cultures and styles.

They do not need to become white or black or rich or poor or Asian or American or free or slave or old or young to belong to Christ and worship God. They simply need to be a humble sinners who know they need a Savior.

The Bible speaks to all without distinction, and what it says can be believed and lived by all without distinction! Its message is universal, because its Author is universal. In it the God Who made everything talks to everybody.

Another pillar under my faith.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, monotheism, The Word of God

We live in a world of talking heads. Watch any news channel and so-called experts line up--people you only see from the shoulders up--to spew their rehearsed viewpoints on every topic under heaven.

What is rare is to hear someone say something that is truly original, unexpected, genuine; something akin to the unvarnished, unpolished, unspun truth. Listen to the various voices and what you hear is rehearsed talking points, all pre-packaged, pre-planned, pre-scripted.

When a political party wants to get its message out it rallies its best talking heads, gives them a few things to say, tells them not to wander from those points, locks them into a few "facts", and makes sure they're all on the same page.

What you cannot have in today's political spin game is someone saying something that is off topic, off script, and in any way even apparently out of sinc with the party's other yapping mouths. The facade of credibility is maintained by a contrived, artifical, polished agreement between all those representing a point of view.

The trouble with all this--at least for a thinking person--is that it has all the look and feel of intellectual fraud. Truth does not have to be contrived or polished; just spoken.

This is another reason why I believe the Bible is the Word of God: the diverse styles, accounts, and records of the Bible are remarkably consistent even though they do not bear the marks of human editing to remove apparent error or contradiction, or of human polishing to buff up its claims, legendize its heroes or give it an artificial sacred look.

For example, read the biblical accounts of the resurrection and you will not detect polished attempts to line up all the details. The accounts even have appearance of contradiction (not real contradictions, but simply separate details given by different witnesses).

Read the histories of Israel and the early church and you will not find legendized accounts of heroic, larger than life, can-do-no-wrong super-saints. Instead you'll find real humans who along with their great feats for God committed great sins against God!

Read the poetry and worship songs of the Bible where you might expect to find soaring expressions of astonishing faith and holy worship, and what do you discover? You will find soaring expressions of faith and holy worship. But you will also find shocking expressions of doubt and fear and near depression and even anger against God.

Read the deep writings of the great theologians of the Bible, those whose job, presumably, is to make truth about God clear for all to understand, and what do you find? You will find much that is clear and plain and easily explained. But you will also find mysteries which the writers tell you simply to accept whether one understands them or not (e.g.-the Trinity or the siamese truths of the sovereignty of God and moral responsibility of man). They make no attempt to explain the mysterious or paradoxical; they simply charge the reader to believe.

Make no mistake: the Bible is beautiful, deep, profound, grand, fathomless. But it is also down-to-earth, gritty, unpolished, unspun, genuine, real.

One thing for sure: it is not is contrived. No one met in a back room somewhere and gave the writers of Scripture their talking points and told them to stay on script. What really happened was that God gave them truth to write and told them to write it without concern for artificial points of agreement or appearance of polish. He told them just to write what He said and they saw.

It's like God said: "Tell it like it is. I don't care about whether people appreciate or can reconcile everything you say or not. I want truth-writers, not talking heads. The truth will speak for itself, vindicate itself, and set men free."

Ladies and gentlemen: in many ways, the Bible is not pretty. Neither is it polite, polished, or politically correct. Some see this as excuse to believe it is not true. For my part, I see it as reason to believe that it is.

What do you think?

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, The Word of God

Another reason why I believe the Bible is God's Word is this: The Bible has been preserved supernaturally against internal corruption (i.e. the integrity/reliability of its text has been maintained for thousands of years), and against external attack (no matter how hard people have tried to destroy it, it still exists today). This attests to its divine Authorship and a divine intervention to preserve it for all time.

To the often asked question: "How do you know that the Bible is the same now as was written by its original authors thousands of years ago?", the answer is in fact quite plain and simple. We have thousands of ancient manuscripts of the Bible (in whole or in part) which can be compared to each other and to what we have today. When these are compared the accuracy of the preserved text is proven.

Let me give you one example. The discovery between 1947 and 1956 of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which include copies of the Old Testament Scriptures written around 100-150 B.C.),has made it possible to compare the text of the Hebrew Bible then with the earliest copies previously discovered, the Masoretic Text (980AD).

A careful comparison analysis shows that the Hebrew text suffered no meaningful corruption or change over that 1,000-1,100 year span! Apart from a letter or word here or there the text is exactly the same. Such comparisons of all the ancient biblical texts reveal astonishing accuracy, an accuracy that lays to rest any serious doubts about the reliability of our Bible today.

What we read in our Bible in 2010 is a careful and accurate record of what the original authors wrote. That claim is not so much a matter of religious faith as it is of established scientific fact. The agreement of today's Bible with ancient manuscripts is so thorough, so substantial, so nearly 100% (right down to the letters of the text) that we can have have absolute certainty that what we read now is what was written then. The text of Scripture has been preserved remarkably from internal corruption.

It has also been preserved from external attack. No book in all of history has faced such sustained attack as the Bible has. People and even nations have tried to undermine and destroy it. Yet today, the Bible is more available and more widely read than at any time in history.

All this leads to another conclusion: the Bible must have been written and preserved by no one less than God. How else does one explain such remarkable preservation of a text written ages ago, a preservation, I might add, accomplished without the benefit of copying machines and modern technologies? For centuries the 1, 000+ pages of the Bible were preserved without internal corruption, by hand, not machine! It defies human explanation.

And how else does one explain the astonishing ongoing existence of a Book so pervasively despised and so often attacked? The best answer? This is the hand of God.

God had something to do with this.

I suppose natural human explanations can be suggested, but in my mind they would have all the markings of a desperation to deny the supernatural! Friends, God wrote this Book, and then preserved it so that humans may hear from Him throughout all generations.

Any other explanation requires more faith than I can muster. When it comes to the inspiration and preservation of the Bible, to paraphrase one author: "I don't have enough faith to be an unbeliever."

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, The Word of God

I read these thoughts from Francis Schaeffer last night concerning the significance of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God:

Does inerrancy make a difference? Overwhelmingly; the difference is that with the Bible being what it is, God’s Word and so absolute, God’s objective truth, we do not need to be, and we should not be, caught in the ever-changing fallen cultures which surround us. Those who do not hold the inerrancy of Scripture do not have this high privilege. To some extent, they are at the mercy of the fallen, changing culture. And Scripture is thus bent to conform to the changing world spirit of the day, and they therefore have no solid authority upon which to judge and to resist the views and values of that changing, shifting world spirit.

We, however, must be careful before the Lord. If we say we believe the Bible to be the inerrant and authoritative “Thus saith the Lord,” we do not face the howling winds of change which surround us with confusion and terror. And yet, the other side of the coin is that if this is the “Thus saith the Lord,” we must live under it. And without that, we don’t understand what we have said when we say we stand for an inerrant Scripture.

I would ask again, Does inerrancy really make a difference — in the way we live our lives across the whole spectrum of human existence? Sadly we must say that we evangelicals who truly hold to the full authority of Scripture have not always done well in this respect. I have said that inerrancy is the watershed of the evangelical world. But it is not just a theological debating point. It is the obeying of the Scripture which is the watershed! It is believing and applying it to our lives which demonstrate whether we in fact believe it. (The Great Evangelical Disaster, by Francis A. Schaeffer, Crossway Books, 1984)

As we reflect on Tim's current excellent, hugely important foundational FreeTruth series on why we have good and sufficient reasons to believe that the Bible is what it claims to be--the Word of God, I deeply hope that we will all purpose to thoroughly absorb and apply what he is saying. I hope that we will make these thoughts our thoughts, to both strengthen our own confidence in the Bible as the very Word of God written, and to help us as we interact with our non-Christian friends and acquaintances, giving them objective reasons for the hope that we have in the Savior, and why they should embrace Him as their Treasure too (1 Pet. 3:15).

And as we do so I pray that for both you and I the implications of the full truthfulness and absolute authority of the Bible as that which is Theopneustos--breathed out by God, will, across the whole spectrum of our lives, in all the details of our lives--in thought, word, and deed--be such that it will truly function with absolute authority over our lives (2 Tim. 3:16-17). May we tremble before God's Word (Is. 66:2)--indeed tremble at the prospect of dishonoring God through disbelieving or disobeying His Word at any point. May it make that kind of a difference.

Labels: Authority of the Bible, Bible, Guest Post, Inerrancy

A quick question for you: If you want to convince someone that there is a bright shiny warm sun, what would be your best approach? Think about it now. You can do this. In fact it's so easy a caveman could do it.

If you want to convince someone that the sun exists, simply tell them to look up. Don't waste too much time building a case, laying out the cosmic facts, citing scientific references and scholars, or reasoning from the history of human thought on the subject. Just tell them to look up and see it for themselves.

You see: the sun verifies itself. By simply shining the sun self-authenticates. It demonstrates its own existence, glory, and brilliant attributes simply by being what it is and doing what it does. The sun proves the sun.

Why do I believe the Bible is God's Word? Simply because it proves itself to be God's Word. The unity, majesty, beauty, real-life relevance, and transforming power of the Bible give to it a self-authenticating quality. It proves itself to be the Word of God just by what it is and does. The Bible proves the Bible.

The more I read and study the Bible (something I literally have been privileged to do for about 35,000 hours of my life), the more I find that it doesn't need so much to be proven as it needs simply to be read. That is to say: if you want to know the Bible is the Word of God, all you really need is an open Bible and open eyes with an open mind. The Bible itself will do the rest, as the Holy Spirit makes it shine into your heart.

Much like the sun proves itself to be the sun simply by shining, the Bible proves itself to be the Word of God simply by being (Psalm 119:130). It's brilliance is too glorious, its truth too compelling, its power too transforming, its effects too deep and satisfying for it to be anything but the Word of God.

This self-authenticating witness of the Word is confirmed further by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit within those who read the Bible with reverent and open hearts. This is what the Westminster Confession had in mind:

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent [agreement] of all the parts, the scope [goal] of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

All that is to say that as the Holy Spirit gives light through the shining truth of God's Word, the need for other arguments diminishes. God authenticates His own Word by the illuminating light and power of that Word for the enlightenment and transforming good of those who read it.

If you're still having doubts can I plead (not too strong of a word, for everything of meaning hinges on your willingness) to do something?

Pray. Pray for the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see and a willingness to look. From that point on the Bible will speak for itself.

Labels: Apologetics, Bible, The Word of God

In view of Tim's excellent and hugely important current series of posts showing us why we have good and sufficient reasons for believing that the Bible is truly the Word of God, I thought it good to respond by saying----- so what? That is, so what difference must this make in our lives in response to the reality that the Bible is indeed the very Word of the infinite-personal God?

I know of perhaps no better succinct description of what our response must be than how it is said in the great Westminster Confession of Faith, where in connection with how true saving faith ---that is, that genuine trust which accepts, receives, and rests upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life--- expresses itself, it says:

"...... a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word, because of the authority of God himself speaking in it. He also responds differently to what each particular passage contains-----obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come." (WCF Chapter 14, Section 2).

And so, 2 questions: Are you? Am I?

Labels: Bible, Guest Post, Our Response

Last week I shared with the folks in the TruthWalk class a quote from J.C. Ryle that hopefully served as a helpful exhortation to us regarding the practical importance of the Bible in our living of the Christian life. In fact, the phraseology "practical importance" may be too mild. Perhaps, something like "vitally needed for our very spiritual lives" might be more like it. At any rate, for those who read this blog but were not present in the class, I thought it good to pass this quote on to you. And if you were present, it will do you good to hear it again (and again, and again), as we always need to be reminded afresh of the things we need to know (2 Peter 1:12-14).

You live in a world where your soul is in constant danger. Enemies are round you on every side. Your own heart is deceitful. Bad examples are numerous. Satan is always laboring to lead you astray. Above all, false doctrine and false teachers of every kind abound. This is your great danger.

To be safe you must be well armed. You must provide yourself with the weapons which God has given you for your help. You must store your mind with Holy Scripture. This is to be well armed.

Arm yourself with a thorough knowledge of the written Word of God. Read your Bible regularly. Become familiar with your Bible.... Neglect your Bible and nothing that I know of can prevent you from error if a plausible advocate of false teaching shall happen to meet you. Make it a rule to believe nothing except it can be proved from Scripture. The Bible alone is infallible.... Do you really use your Bible as much as you ought?

There are many today, who believe the Bible, yet read it very little. Does your conscience tell you that you are one of these persons?

If so, you are the man that is likely to get little help from the Bible in time of need. Trial is a sifting experience.... Your store of Bible consolations may one day run very low.

If so, you are the man that is unlikely to become established in the truth. I shall not be surprised to hear that you are troubled with doubts and questions about assurance, grace, faith, perseverance, etc. The devil is an old and cunning enemy. He can quote Scripture readily enough when he pleases. Now you are not sufficiently ready with your weapons to fight a good fight with him.... Your sword is held loosely in your hand.

If so, you are the man that is likely to make mistakes in life. I shall not wonder if I am told that you have problems in your marriage, problems with your children, problems about the conduct of your family and about the company you keep. The world you steer through is full of rocks, shoals, and sandbanks. You are not sufficiently familiar either with lighthouses or charts.

If so, you are the man who is likely to be carried away by some false teacher for a time. It will not surprise me if I hear that one of these clever eloquent men who can make a convincing presentation is leading you into error. You are in need of ballast (truth); no wonder if you are tossed to and fro like a cork on the waves.

All these are uncomfortable situations. I want you to escape them all. Take the advice I offer you today. Do not merely read your Bible a little--read it a great deal.... Remember your many enemies. Be armed! (J.C. Ryle, from The Most Important 18 Words You Will Ever Know, by J.I. Packer, Christian Focus, 2007, pgs. 40-41)

Labels: Bible, Guest Post, Sanctification

My mind and heart has been especially focused on the Bible in recent months. As has been the case from at least that day in Eden when the tempter made his assault on God's word in the form of a question--"Did God actually say.......?" (Gen. 3:2), the word of God, ultimately coming to written form in Holy Scripture, has been under attack. In one way or another, whether by attempts to physically destroy it, or to undermine its truthfulness and authority, the attacks have come, and they will continue to come until Christ returns. This is not surprising coming from a world that is in rebellion against God, a world that suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). However, as I scan the "evangelical" landscape, one of the most distressing things that I seem to increasingly observe are signs of accommodating to the spirit of the age (and "the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience" - Eph. 3:1, the one whose insidious question has continued to echo and wreak its havoc over the millennia) concerning how we view Scripture in terms of its inspiration and authority. This battle was fought and largely won within the evangelical church a generation ago in the 1970's. At that time leaders representing a broad spectrum of the evangelical church came together in the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and issued its clarion call and confession regarding the Bible in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I am old enough to remember those days well. But here we are in just a relative short period of time seeing indications on the horizon of the erosion of a high view of the Bible in evangelicalism possibly becoming evident once again.

And so, I am especially appreciative of the following thoughts expressed by Francis Schaeffer, who stood faithful in his day for the truth of God's word. They remind us of the foundational importance of the Bible, and exhort us to be faithful to its view, and Christ's view, of its inspiration and authority, and to the watershed importance of this to all of life. And they encourage us to be faithful in our day.

Martin Luther said, "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." In our day that point is the question of Scripture. Holding to a strong view of Scripture or not holding to it is the watershed of the evangelical world.

We must say most lovingly but clearly: evangelicalism is not consistently evangelical unless there is a line drawn between those who take a full view of Scripture and those who do not.... There are two reasons in our day for holding a strong, uncompromising view of Scripture. First, and foremost, this is the only way to be faithful to what the Bible teaches about itself and what Christ teaches about Scripture. This should be reason enough in itself. But today there is a second reason why we should hold a strong uncompromising view of Scripture. There may be hard days ahead of us--for ourselves and for our spiritual and our physical children. And without a strong view of Scripture as a foundation, we will not be ready for the hard days to come.

Christianity is no longer providing the consensus for our society. And Christianity is no longer providing the consensus upon which our law is based. We are in a time when humanism is coming to its natural conclusions in morals, in values, and in law. All that society has today are relative values based upon statistical averages.

Soft days for evangelical Christians are past, and only a strong view of Scripture is sufficient to withstand the pressure of an all-pervasive culture built upon relativistic thinking. We must remember that it was a strong view of the absolutes which the infinite-personal God had given in the Old Testament, the revelation in Christ, and the then growing New Testament which enabled the early Church to withstand the pressure of the Roman Empire.

But evangelicalism today, although growing in numbers as far as the name is concerned, throughout the world and the United States, is not unitedly standing for a strong view of Scripture.... We are back in the days of a scholar like J. Gresham Machen, who pointed out that the foundation upon which Christianity rests was being destroyed. What is that foundation? It is that the infinite-personal God who exists has not been silent, but has spoken propositional truth in all that the Bible teaches--including what it teaches concerning history, concerning the cosmos and in moral absolutes as well as what it teaches concerning religious subjects.

What is the use of evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger if significant numbers of those under the name of evangelical no longer hold to that which makes evangelicalism evangelical? If this continues, we are not faithful to what the Bible claims for itself and we are not faithful to what Jesus Christ claims for the Scriptures. But also--let us not ever forget--if this continues, we and our children will not be ready for difficult days ahead.

Furthermore, if we acquiesce we will no longer be the redeeming salt for our culture--a culture which is committed to the concept that both morals and laws are only a matter of cultural orientation, of statistical averages. That is the hallmark--the mark of our age. And if we are marked with the same mark, how can we be the redeeming salt to this broken, fragmented generation in which we live? (The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, Volume Two, A Christian View of the Bible as Truth, Crossway Books, 1982)

Labels: Authority, Bible, Faithfulness, Guest Post, Inspiration

In my previous post a week ago I shared with you part 1 of the story of Emile Cailliet, who searched and searched to no avail to find "the book that understands me." It is an amazing and wonderful and moving illustration of the supernatural nature of the Bible as the living and active word of God. And it is a wonderful story of a man--an unbelieving skeptic of the Christian faith--who, unbeknownst to him was being pursued by the gracious God of heaven for a rendezvous to meet Him in His word. I would encourage you to go back and re-read episode 1 to refresh your memory so that you may feel the full force of the power of God's word in this man's life. As I expressed previously, when I first read this I was moved to tears--literally.

Here is episode 2:

At that very moment his wife (who knew nothing of the project) came by with an interesting story. She had been walking in their tiny French village that afternoon and had stumbled upon a small Huguenot chapel. She had never seen it before, but she had gone in and had asked for a Bible, much to her own surprise. The elderly pastor had given her one. She began apologizing to her husband, for she knew his feelings about the Christian faith. But he was not listening to her apology. "A Bible, you say? Where is it? Show me," he said. "I have never seen one before." When she produced it he rushed to his study and began to read. In his own words,

I opened it and "chanced" upon the Beatitudes! I read, and read, and read--now aloud with an indescribable warmth surging within... I could not find words to express my awe and wonder. And suddenly the realization dawned upon me: This was the Book that would understand me! I needed it so much, yet, unaware, I had attempted to write my own--in vain. I continued to read deeply into the night, mostly from the gospels. And lo and behold, as I looked through them, the One of whom they spoke, the One who spoke and acted in them, became alive to me. This vivid experience marked the beginning of my understanding of prayer. It also proved to be my initiation to the notion of Presence which later would prove so crucial in my theological thinking.

The providential circumstances amid which the Book had found me now made it clear that while it seemed absurd to speak of a book understanding a man, this could be said of the Bible because its pages were animated by the Presence of the Living God and the Power of His mighty acts. To this God I prayed that night, and the God who answered was the same God of whom it was spoken in the Book (Foundations of the Christian Faith, by James Montgomery Boice, Inter Varsity Press, 1986, pg. 51).

Thank you, O God, You who are really there and are not silent, but who has truly spoken and continues to speak to us in the Bible, Your written voice. Thank you for that Sacred Word, which is "living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). Thank you for the Book that understands me.

Labels: Bible, Guest Post

The Bible, as the living and active word of God, is a supernatural book. When it is faithfully believed, preached, taught, read, and studied, the God whose word it is will be at work supernaturally changing lives. In my preparation for leading our upcoming TruthWalk class on why we believe the Bible, I came across a true story about the Bible's power to change lives that literally moved me to tears as I read it. It is the story of Emile Cailliet. I share it with you in two episodes -------- here is part one:

When we begin to read the Bible and are spoken to by the Holy Spirit as we read it, several things happen. First, the reading affects us as no other reading does.

Dr. Emile Calliet was a French philosopher who eventually settled in America and became a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. He had been brought up with a naturalistic education. He had never shown the slightest interest in spiritual things. He had never seen a Bible. But World War 1 came, and as he sat in the trenches he found himself reflecting on the inadequacy of his world-and-life view. He asked himself the same questions Levin had asked in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, while sitting beside the bed of his dying brother: Where did life come from? What did it all mean, if anything? What value are scientific laws or theories in the face of reality? Calliet later wrote, "Like Levin, I too felt, not with my reason but with my whole being, that I was destined to perish miserably when the hour came."

During the long night watches Calliet began to long for what he came to call "a book that would understand me." He was highly educated, but he knew of no such book. Thus, when he was later wounded and released from the army and returned to his studies, he determined that he would prepare such a book secretly for his own use. As he read for his courses, he would file away passages that seemed to speak to his condition. Afterward, he would copy them over in a leather-bound book. He hoped that the quotations, which he carefully indexed and numbered, would lead him from fear and anguish to release and jubilation.

At last the day came when he had put the finishing touches to his book, "the book that would understand me." He went out and sat down under a tree and opened the anthology. He began to read, but instead of release and jubilation, a growing disappointment began to come over him as he recognized that instead of speaking to his condition, the various passages only reminded him of their context and of his own work in searching them out and recording them. Then he knew that the whole undertaking simply would not work, for the book was a book of his own making. It carried no strength of persuasion. Dejected, he returned it to his pocket (Foundations of the Christian Faith, James Montgomery Boice, Inter Varsity Press, 1986, pg.50).

Happily there is more to the story, but here is where I will leave it until next week's post. I am sorry, but to learn of the outcome you will just have to be a bit patient! And as I think about it, it seems appropriate in a way to leave things here. It may help us feel something of the emptiness and despair that Emile Cailliet experienced, and that we ought to feel if we are left only with man's word. Thankfully, we are not left only with man's word.

Labels: Bible, Guest Post