#Apologetics Tuesday: Can We Trust The Bible?
By Daniel Ogunjimi
Have you heard stories of innocent people who went to prison for crimes they didn’t commit? If not, read about the Central Park Five Tragedy. The story has been reframed in a Netflix Series as “When They See Us.” I cried when I saw it. Suppression of evidence, rather than the lack of it, is at the heart of most wrongful convictions. I promise that’s all the spoilers you’ll get from me.
Many people distrust the Bible and are far from God today because they don’t trust that the Bible is what it claims to be: “God-breathed.” Since the Bible is the most reliable source of information about God, belief in God disappears as soon as the Bible is reduced to just another book. So, are there proofs to defend the divine inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures?
Has the problem with believing the Bible and in God been due to a lack of evidence or suppression of it? I believe it is the latter. There was a time in history when the problem was that people didn’t gain access to the Bible. For modern man, the problem is that pieces of evidence that prove the Bible to be true have been buried by those unwilling to submit to any moral law. It is our responsibility as God’s children to plainly state the truth and leave everyone to their conscience to decide what to do with it. Let’s exhume some of these truths.
1. Many Authors, Same Storyline: Most religious books that claim to have come from God usually involve a single person who reports that they had some supernatural encounter where the book was delivered to them. The Bible is the only book that was written by different people (about 40 authors) from different walks of life (farmers, fishermen, physicians, and lawyers) who lived from one end of the world to another. Their Writings span a long period of time (about 1500 years). Some of these authors lived and died many centuries before others were born.
Yet, their independent records fit seamlessly as though they got their thoughts from the same source. Or did they? Do you know of any other way this could have happened?
Who gave them these messages?
“The prophets did not think these things up on their own, but they were guided by the Spirit of God.”
2 Peter 1:21
WE CAN TRUST THE BIBLE BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY BOOK IN EXISTENCE WITH OBJECTIVE PROOF OF DIVINE ORIGIN.
2. Bold Claims.
There are over 350 instances where the Bible refers to itself as the Word of God. In fact, it claims to be God-breathed (2Timothy 3.16–17). You may ask: Can’t anyone write anything and claim God said it? Well, Yes and there have been many such claims. It is one thing to make a claim, it is quite another to defend or prove it. To Claim to have come from God is to possess the attributes that a Book authored by God is expected to have. Some of these attributes include:
A. Fulfilled Prophecies.
B. Scientific Accuracy.
C. Unique Information or Revelation.
D. Historical Accuracy.
The Bible sufficiently meets all these criteria so much so that the historical and scientific community continues to make discoveries that the Bible already documented thousands of years ago.
WE CAN TRUST THE BIBLE BECAUSE IT LIVES UP TO THE CLAIMS IT MAKES.
Next week on #ApologeticsTuesday, we will uncover more reasons we can trust the Bible.
Remember, it is always a tragedy when people have to be punished for crimes they never committed due to the suppression of evidence that could have exonerated them. A greater Tragedy is to have a book that contains everything we need for life and godliness but fail to follow what it says because of suppression of evidence backing it as a trustable book.
What do you think?
