Transcript & Slides: Trusting the Bible

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Trusting the Bible
By David Feddes

Why should we trust the Bible? To answer that question, let's reflect on seven other questions:

1. Why was the Bible written?

• Reveal God in Christ
• Save for eternity
• Guide in goodness

Let's begin with what the Bible says about itself in two key passages:

One reason the Bible was written, and the main reason, is to reveal God in Christ. We cannot know God as he wants to be known simply by looking at other things he has done. The creation he has made, though it speaks of God and of his beauty and power and splendor, has also been affected by sin and brokenness. Our own hearts have been affected by sin and brokenness, so we're not always very good at getting the message of creation. On our own, we also are not going to get the full message of God's character, his righteousness, and his salvation in Jesus Christ. So, the Bible is given mainly to show us who God is and how he has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

That's important to know because we need to understand the focus or purpose when we read the Bible. The main question we should always be asking is: what's it telling us about God? What's it telling us about Jesus and his purposes in Christ? In some passages, we might not see that right away, and sometimes it's okay to leave aside a passage that we don't grasp for a while and go to the ones that are a little more obvious in showing us what God is saying about Christ and who he is.

If you want to know Jesus, it is absolutely vital that you listen to the Bible because that is the purpose of the Bible, and it's the only source that you can be sure of when you're hearing about Jesus. It makes us wise in relation to Jesus Christ and, in particular, it makes us wise for salvation through Jesus Christ. According to the Scripture itself, it makes us wise for salvation.

What is salvation? It is to be rescued from sin and death. It is to be rescued from the sin, guilt, and punishment that we get because we fall short of the glory of God and go against God. The only way to be forgiven for that is through Jesus and through his blood, through his death on the cross to pay the penalty of our sin, and through his rising again to give eternal life. The Scriptures are written to tell us mainly about Jesus and, in particular, about his death and resurrection and all that he did for our salvation so that instead of being lost and damned in hell, we would be forgiven and saved and given eternal life in Jesus Christ. It's the book that gives life because it points us to the Christ who gives life. Without him, there's only death. The Bible is given so that we could be saved for eternity by hearing the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Having revealed God in Christ and shown us how we can be right with God and live forever, the Bible also shows us how we can be good. You might say, "Doesn't everybody know that?" No, we don't. There's a lot of different opinions about what goodness is and about what a good life is. Sometimes when we talk about "the good life," we mean flourishing, experiencing life as we really want to. Another sense of "the good life" is being a good person and doing good things. What is it to have a good life in terms of flourishing? What is it to be a good person? The Bible gives us instruction on "the good life" in both senses: what pleases God and what doesn't, as well as  what's going to make you flourish and what's going to wreck your life. The Bible teaches, rebukes, corrects and gets you back on track, and gives you training.

Those are the great purposes of the Bible: to reveal God in Christ, to get us saved, and then to help us to know what a good life is and to live that good life.

2. Who authored the Bible?

• God’s Spirit
• Human writers

There's a double authorship to the Bible. The main thing to know is that God's Spirit authored the Bible. All Scripture is "God-breathed," breathed out or spirited out by God; that's what the apostle Paul tells us. The apostle Peter says that "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." The primary author of the Bible is the Holy Spirit of God, who gives us what God wants us to know. 

But there are also many different human authors of Scripture, and they're the ones who were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write down what's in those books. The Bible is divine, and at the same time, it's human. God comes to us in human words, with stories that happened in human lives, with very human problems being addressed, and God's message for humanity. It's a human book, but it comes from God.

We bless God for both of those things. We're thankful to God that he gave this book and inspired it, directed its writing, and carried along those writers, because then we can have confidence because God doesn't lie. If the book comes from God and its content comes from God, it's going to come to us without fooling us, without making mistakes. At the same time, it's going to come to us at our level, not as something distant, as if God would not speak in human language. In a sense, the Bible is baby talk; God is talking at our level, and he does it so we can know him to the degree that we're able. So, the Bible has double authorship: God's Spirit and human writers.

3. When was the Bible written? 

• First: 1,446 B.C.
Also looks back
• Last: 95 A.D.
Also sees ahead

The earliest document of the Bible dates to 1446 BC. That document was originally not written by a human hand at all. It was written by the finger of God in stone: the Ten Commandments, written in 1446, the year of the Exodus, when God brought the Israelites to Mount Sinai.

Now, the Ten Commandments aren't the first thing that you read in the Bible. After God gave Moses the Ten Commandments written in stone, God guided Moses to write the first five books of the Bible. The events described in the Bible do not start with Moses' life. There's a whole book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, that describes events long before the time of Moses. Although Genesis was written by Moses, it looks back to the time of Abraham 4,000 years ago, 2,000 years before Jesus. It looks even further back to the Tower of Babel, further back to the flood that covered the Earth, and all the way back to the creation of the world. In short, the Bible looks back to the very beginning of the world, but the first books of the Bible were written by Moses sometime after 1446 BC.

The last book, the book of Revelation, was written in 95 or maybe 96 A.D. (A.D. means Anno Domini, "year of our Lord.") Revelation sees ahead to the end of the world and the new creation, but John wrote it near the end of the first century after Jesus' birth. All of the God-breathed books of the Bible were written by authors who lived in that period of about 1,500 years between Moses and the writing of Revelation. 

4. Which books belong in the Bible? 

• 39 OT books.
Not Apocrypha
• 27 NT books.
Only apostolic

How did some books make it into the Bible and other books get left out of the Bible? When we look at the Bible in its current form, we have 66 books: 39 books in the Hebrew Bible, often called the Old Testament; and 27 books written in Greek, what we call the New Testament. How did those books become part of the Bible, and other books not become part of the Bible?

39 Old Testament books

The 39 Old Testament books made it into the Bible because God had spoken to these writers and because their words were recognized as messages from God. One reason something was included in the Bible as a message from God, while other things were left out, was because what they said came true. When Isaiah wrote down prophecies and things turned out exactly like he said they would, people knew his writings had to be from God. 

Most prophets in the Bible were very unpopular in their time; most people didn't listen to them. But you know the old saying: hindsight is 20/20. Those prophets may have been unpopular, but 50 or 100 years later, people looked back and said, "Wow! Those writers understood what was going on in their time, and they predicted the future accurately as well." 

Prophecy has both of those things. We often think of prophecy as predicting what's going to happen, and it is impressive when somebody predicts the future in advance. It's impossible to know the future without God's help, but it's also hard to know what's going on right now. You say, "Well, duh, anybody knows that." Really? Then why do people fight like crazy over politics? Why do family members fight like crazy over who's to blame for this or that? It's very hard to know what's going on right now, what's really going on. In fact, if you understood your own self perfectly, you wouldn't have half the problems you do. We have a hard time knowing what's going on right now, and a prophet is someone with a vision from God to see what's happening now and to help other people see it too. The Bible books have that unique character of helping you to understand yourself and understand the times you're living in, as well as looking into the future and telling you things that are going to happen.

When Jeremiah was prophesying, he said that Jerusalem was going to fall. Jerusalem had stood for centuries and had not been conquered. Many prophets in Jeremiah's time said, "Smile, God's on your side. His temple's in Jerusalem. Nothing bad could possibly happen." But after the temple was burned and the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, people said, "You know, that Jeremiah guy was onto something. As for those other prophets who said everything was fine, why would we keep their writings? They were dead wrong!" In short, a big part of why some books made it into the Old Testament was simply that some people told God's truth and events proved them right, while others didn't tell the truth or have a genuine message from God, and their books were dropped.

Not Apocrypha

The Apocrypha refers to a number of books that were written between 400 years before Jesus and shortly before the time of Jesus.The Hebrew Bible never included the Apocrypha. Catholic Bibles and some other editions of the Bible include the Apocrypha. Does the Apocrypha belong in the Word of God? The Jewish people never accepted the Apocrypha as the Word of God. It was never part of the Hebrew Bible. The early Christians did not accept it as part of the Word of God. They recognized the Hebrew Bible as Scripture and knew that the books of the Apocrypha didn't belong there. Later on, around the time of the Reformation, Protestants and the Catholics disagreed sharply over a many things. Previously the Apocrypha had not been insisted on as Scripture, but suddenly Catholics insisted it was Scripture because Protestants said it wasn't. The Protestants did not say these books of the Apocrypha were wicked or bad. Most Protestants said that the Apocrypha contained many excellent things. Some is helpful history. Other parts offer good spiritual insights. Even so, it's not God-breathed and doesn't belong in the Bible and was never accepted as part of the Hebrew Bible.

There's a big difference between the genuine Old Testament books and the Apocrypha. When you look at the Old Testament books, you'll find that they are quoted again and again by Jesus and by the New Testament writers. There's not a single quote from the Apocrypha in the entire New Testament. That should tell us what standing the Apocrypha had in the mind of Jesus and in the mind of the New Testament authors. Again, that is not to bash those books as being useless. After all, there are many good books today that are worth reading, but they don't belong in the Bible. They are not without error, and they're not directly from God.

27 New Testament books

Most of the 27 New Testament books were recognized almost immediately by the early church. The writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those four gospel accounts, were accepted very early, and so were the letters of Paul and letters by John and Peter. The main standard, was simply this: Is it apostolic? Is it linked to the apostles of Jesus Christ? Jesus chose apostles to be eyewitnesses of what he taught and what he did and of his resurrection. They were all people who had seen him alive after his resurrection. A writing, no matter how good, wasn't even considered as possible New Testament Scripture if it wasn't from one of those witnesses or from a very close associate who was writing on the basis of what the witness told them. 

Matthew and John were among the twelve apostles. Mark and his mother were part of the Christian group from a very early time, and Mark was a very close associate of both Paul and Peter. The book of Mark, according to early church history, was written based on what Peter told Mark when they were both in Rome. Luke was a very close associate of the apostle Paul, and Paul was an eyewitness who had seen Jesus after his resurrection from the dead and had been called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.

A book made it into the New Testament if it had that firsthand sourcing. "We were eyewitnesses of his majesty," is how the Apostle Peter puts it in 1 Peter 1:16. The apostle John says in 1 John 1:1-2: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it."

That was the flavor of the New Testament witness. There were a few books that weren't accepted by all the churches right away, partly because some of them were in one area of the Christian world but not yet in another area of the Christian world. The word Bible, by the way, just means book. It's the book of books. It has a lot of different books in it, and these were circulating as separate books for quite a while but were widely recognized as belonging to the Word of God.

There were a few books that weren't accepted right away. For instance, Jude and James were not accepted immediately, but again, Jude and James were not apostles at first. They had the qualification of being Jesus' half-brothers who had seen him after his resurrection and had grown up with him, so they weren't exactly strangers! They were qualified to write New Testament books under the Spirit's inspiration.

The book of Hebrews was thought to have been written by Paul. It might not have been written by Paul himself; it might have been written by a very close associate of Paul, such as Barnabas or Apollos. Still, it was recognized that the book of Hebrews was consistent with the other New Testament Scripture and had the authority that comes from being the Word of God.

The various books of the New Testament were known to be written by an apostle or by a very close associate. Which books belonged? The ones that came from eyewitnesses. Which books didn't belong? The ones that were written later. There are some excellent books from the early Christian era. I've read some of those early Christian books  written in the second century, and some of them are wonderful. However, they weren't written by the eyewitnesses. Other books are pious and have mostly good stuff about Jesus, but you can tell there's stuff that's made up. One of those early books has a story about Jesus when he was little. Wouldn't we all like to hear what Jesus was like when he was little and get a few more stories from when he was a kid? In this particular one, young Jesus makes some birds out of clay. Then some mean kids come along and start picking on him, threatening to smash those birds he made out of clay. Jesus claps his hands, and the birds fly away. Now, wouldn't you love to do that when a bully comes after you? There's another version of that story where little Jesus has those mean kids struck dead. A few little kids might like to do that too! But you read that story and you say, "Nah, that was a good tale, but come on! That was not part of the early witness that God wanted us to know, and it's contrary to what we know about Jesus." 

One short answer to which books belong in the Bible is to really read them for yourself. You'll soon see a difference in the quality of the inspired books versus the ones that weren't inspired by God.

5. How do we know the Bible is true? 

• Accurate predictions
• Findings of archeology
• Reliable manuscripts
• Spirit’s inner testimony

First of all, we know the Bible is true simply because God is the author! But if you doubt that or doubt particular books, it's worth asking whether there is evidence that the Bible is true. Jesus himself is a great place to start. Jesus said, "Scripture cannot be broken." We saw earlier that the Bible is mainly about Jesus and salvation through Jesus, and Jesus said of the Scriptures, "They all point to me." If we are people who take Jesus Christ seriously at all, then we should take the Bible as seriously as Jesus took it.

Another reason that supports confidence in the Bible's truth is the fact that it made so many accurate predictions. You read Psalm 22, written a thousand years before Jesus, saying, "They've pierced my hands and my feet," and "I'm thirsty," and "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." You read Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Jesus, about somebody suffering in place of others and then after all that suffering, he sees the light of life and is satisfied. You read of a king riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while people are shouting "Hosanna!" Those things were written centuries before Jesus actually came. When something is predicted long in advance and then it comes true in somebody's life, that must be a special person, and that must be a special book.

Another supporting line of evidence for taking the Bible seriously, though not a line of evidence as reliable as the Bible itself, is archaeology. There are many, many examples of archaeology corroborating historical characters and details in the Bible. It was fashionable a hundred or so years ago to doubt whether somebody named Jesus of Nazareth even existed. Such extreme skepticism has fallen out of favor; it's hard to deny that Jesus lived. But there were also people who doubted that King David ever existed. How could they doubt that? Well, David wasn't mentioned in any historical documents except the Bible, so the Bible must be making all this up! Stop for a moment. Imagine 2,000 years from now, how much evidence of you is going to be left? How much evidence of most of the governments of the world is going to be left? Probably not much. Still, you never know what archaeologists are going to dig up, and sometimes it's very inconvenient for skeptics. They were digging around and found an artifact that refers to Israel as the House of David. Oops! Maybe David did exist! A couple of David inscriptions have been found, literally etched in stone.

At one time skeptics said there was no evidence outside the Bible of any Roman ruler named Pontius Pilate, no proof the guy ever existed. Then a stone was dug up with an inscription dedicating a building to Tiberius Caesar in the name of Pontius Pilatus. Archaeology can't teach you that Jesus is the Son of God or the deep mysteries of the Trinity, but it can tell you that Pontius Pilate was real. It can tell you that King David really lived.

Here's another example: at one time skeptics doubted that John, the author of the fourth gospel, had ever lived in Jerusalem or in Israel. They said he just made up all the details. John 5:2 refers to a pool in Jerusalem with a porch of five pillars. Skeptics scoff, "Oh, come on! There's no such pool! This verse proves that John had never been to Jerusalem and was just writing fiction. Then those inconvenient archaeologists dug up an empty pool with a porch of five pillars, exactly as John had described. Should we be shocked that John knew what Jerusalem was like in his time better than people 2,000 years later trying to guess what it was like back then? That's what much scholarship is, you know: trying to piece things together with little clues. If you're going to doubt the New Testament documents, then you're always just trying to piece together things from a few artifacts, and that's very hard to do. It's wiser to accept the writings of the biblical eyewitnesses, especially when archeology keeps confirming what they wrote.

There's also manuscript evidence. Having lots of manuscripts doesn't prove that the contents are true, but if you don't have any ancient manuscripts at all, you might question how accurately the books were transmitted from one generation to another to another. Scholars study Plato's writings. There are seven manuscripts of Plato remaining in existence, and those date to many centuries after him. There are about 5,700 manuscripts or parts of manuscripts from the New Testament and from the Old Testament. The amount of biblical manuscripts you have to work with in piecing together the original text is much greater than for any other ancient writings. If skeptics were as hard on other writings as they are on Bible writings, they would not know anything or believe anything. There would be no Julius Caesar; he never existed. The Roman Empire didn't exist. Alexander the Great never lived. If you're going to dismiss all of the things that got written down back then, you're not going to have any knowledge of history left. There is an entire discipline of study called textual criticism, which pieces together what the Bible originally said based on those very ancient texts. The point is, there is a greater level of accuracy and manuscript evidence that we have for the Bible than for any other historical writings of the ancient world.

Copying things by hand is hard. You misspell something or write "the" instead of "that." This kind of thing could happen in the copying of manuscripts too, but it's very easy to compare them and see where a mistake was made. When you compare various manuscripts, you can tell with greater than 99% accuracy what the original text was. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late 1940s near an area in Israel called Qumran. A shepherd found all kinds of clay jars that had scrolls and manuscripts in them, preserved and untouched for about 2,000 years. There was an entire scroll of Isaiah, dated from before the time of Christ. Guess what? It almost perfectly matched the later manuscripts of Isaiah that were passed down through the years. Physical evidence, archaeology and manuscripts show that the Bible was transmitted from century to century with a high degree of reliability.

And now for the most important reason to believe the Bible: the inner testimony of God himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, "Scripture cannot be broken." Whatever different authorities might say, Jesus said, "Scripture cannot be broken." And he sent his Holy Spirit, who inspired the Bible, to impress the Bible's truth on the hearts of his people. When you read the Bible, something happens. It shines with its own light, and a light goes on inside you. As the Bible puts it, "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). That's the Spirit's inner testimony, the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the Bible to be written, also works in your heart to recognize that it's true and powerful, shining light into your heart and shining light onto your path.

6. Where else is final truth? 

• Experiences?
• Other books?
• Sacred tradition?
• Modern ideas?

Where else is final truth besides the Bible? The short answer is nowhere. This doesn't mean that there's no truth anywhere else, but when you seek final truth, especially truth concerning God and Jesus and the way of salvation and what God expects of us, you don't need any other source, and you can't rely on any other source except to the degree that it points you to the truth of the Bible and is compatible with the truth of the Bible. 

What about experiences? Experience is an important part of life and walking with God: the joys that you feel, the sorrows that you feel, and the repentance that you feel. Sometimes people even have visions or a visit from an angel or an experience of an angel at work in their life. Some of those experiences may be very real, but they do not substitute or have the same standing as the once-for-all Word of God. Some people say, "I'm not going to believe something that's just written down. I want God to talk to me." Maybe you've seen the meme:

Other things may confirm or help us, but the Bible is the standard.

What about other books? There's certainly no lack of attempts to add other books to the Bible. Muhammad said that the Old and New Testament writings were true. He hadn't read them, but he considered them to be true and just thought that if they disagreed with him, they'd been corrupted over time. He added the Quran, another book, to the Bible. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed to have been given the Book of Mormon by an angel. He said the Old and New Testaments belonged in the Bible but then added the Book of Mormon. When there's a discrepancy, you must re-jigger your interpretation of the Bible to fit the Book of Mormon. Others have also added to the Bible. Ellen White's writings added much. In the Seventh-day Adventist tradition, you you listen to what Ellen White wrote and give it a very high level of authority. Mary Baker Eddy's writings became authoritative for Christian Scientists. In one case after another, the notion is, "The Bible is good, but we're going to add to it." However, the Bible says, "Every word of God is flawless. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar" (Proverbs 30:5-6).

Another place where some people seek final truth is sacred tradition. In the Roman Catholic Church, sacred tradition has a standing equal to that of the Bible itself. For instance, the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary and the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope became part of Catholic tradition and therefore are considered to be absolute truth at the level of the Bible. Why? Because at some point, a church council or authority said so. Sorry, that doesn't cut it. We need to recognize that the Bible alone is the final truth. 

More commonly nowadays, people aren't looking to other books or sacred tradition; they're just looking to modern ideas, or post-modern ideas, or meta-modern ideas, or whatever "expert" happens to be talking. So, if you're a Christian, it's the Bible plus science. Some people "two books": the Bible is one book, and science is the other book. They might even refer to the Belgic Confession, a great Reformation document, which at one point says God's glorious creation is "like a splendid book." Well, to say creation is like a splendid book as a passing metaphor must not be equated with saying science books are on the same level as the Bible. They're not. Science books change. I'm not knocking science; it's the very nature of science that it changes. The Bible is a once-for-all, unchanging revelation. Take the Bible alone as your standard, not the Bible plus something else. Evaluate everything else by the standard of God's Word. The final authority is the Bible alone, not the Bible plus science, not the Bible plus psychology, not the Bible plus sociology, not the Bible plus critical theory, not the Bible plus whatever favorite opinion you've been reading lately on the internet (although the internet is always right!).

Where else is final truth? Don't look elsewhere for final truth. We can look elsewhere for truth on some matters. If you want to know how to fix your dryer, get it on YouTube. The Bible will not tell you. Remember what we said about the purpose of the Bible: there are some things the Bible isn't telling you, and it's not trying to tell you. So don't go to the Bible for answers to everything. Go to it for answers to the big questions: how to be right with God, how to be saved, how to live a life that's pleasing to God. Feel free to Google or check out YouTube for some answers on lesser matters. But for matters of ultimate importance, matters of final truth, the Bible is the only authority. 

7. What changes if we trust the Bible?

• Alive forever in Jesus
• Hearing God daily
• Equipped for impact

We're alive forever in Jesus if we receive the gospel that the Bible gives us—the gospel of our own sin and of salvation in Christ, of repentance and turning away from sin and putting our trust in Jesus. We're alive forever in Jesus. That's a pretty big change—from being dead and lost to being God's children and living forever!

Another benefit of trusting the Bible is that you can hear God daily. All you've got to do is open your Bible and read it and listen and meditate on it and then talk to God and pray to God. Put it into practice. Walking with God daily—that's what changes if you trust the Bible. If you really believe what the Bible says about itself and what we've been saying about the Bible, then you're not going to let it collect dust. You're going to go to it expecting and wanting to hear the voice of God--and you will! You'll experience the presence of God and learn to hear from God and talk with God and have a relationship where you're talking to God and listening to him repeatedly.

What else changes? You are equipped for impact, "thoroughly equipped for every good work," as the Bible puts it. You accept the Bible's teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training, so that you're able to live a life that more and more reflects God's will for you. More and more, you're maturing in God's mission for you. God has a mission for each believer, and he's equipping each of us for that mission with his instructions in the Scriptures, so that we may get to know him better and understand better how to live for him and serve him.

What changes if we trust the Bible? Think of some ways the Bible pictures itself. The Bible is a light on your path, so instead of walking in darkness, you can see where you're going. The Bible is like food, so instead of starving, you're well-fed. The Bible is like a sword, so instead of being defenseless, you can defend yourself against the devil as Jesus did by quoting the Scriptures. In so many other ways, you are equipped for impact to change the world you live in.

If you study church history, you find that the churches and individuals who strayed away from the Bible ended up not making a positive impact for the Lord. Those who stuck to the Bible and held firm, even in the toughest times, were like those Bible writers themselves. When others fell away, they stood strong, and in hindsight, it turned out that they were right. When you hold to the truth of God, even when it's not very popular, you will be vindicated on that final day when you stand before God, having built your life on Jesus and on the Word of God. You will not be shaken. Scripture itself says God is going to shake the earth and the heavens so that only what cannot be shaken will remain (Hebrews 12:27). What can't be shaken? "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). He says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

Prayer

We thank you, Lord, for your Word, and we thank you that you have given it to us in our own words that we can grasp and understand and know something of your wonderful Being and your wonderful ways, of your Son our Savior, and of the path you mark out for us. Lord, help us to walk that path of life. We pray that we will be more and more confident in your Word and that we will not just be hearers of the Word but doers as well. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Trusting
the Bible
Slide Contents
By David Feddes

Bible FAQ

1. Why was the Bible written?
2. Who authored the Bible?
3. When was the Bible written?
4. Which books belong in it?
5. How do we know it’s true?
6. Where else is final truth?
7. What changes if we trust it?

No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1 Peter 1:20-21)

¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Why?
Why was the Bible written?

• Reveal God in Christ
• Save for eternity
• Guide in goodness

Who?
Who authored the Bible?

• God’s Spirit
• Human writers

When?
When was the Bible written?

• First: 1,446 B.C.
Also looks back
• Last: 95 A.D.
Also sees ahead

Which?
Which books belong in it?

• 39 OT books.
Not Apocrypha
• 27 NT books.
Only apostolic

How?
How do we know it’s true?

• Accurate predictions
• Findings of archeology
• Reliable manuscripts
• Spirit’s inner testimony

Where?
Where else is final truth?

• Experiences?
• Other books?
• Sacred tradition?
• Modern ideas?

What?
What changes if we trust it?

• Alive forever in Jesus
• Hearing God daily
• Equipped for impact

Bible FAQ

1. Why was the Bible written?
2. Who authored the Bible?
3. When was the Bible written?
4. Which books belong in it?
5. How do we know it’s true?
6. Where else is final truth?
7. What changes if we trust it?