Validity of the Bible (Part 1)

When I was growing up I lived in a very unstable environment. There was not an expectation to “do right”, there was no parenting to lead us to “do right”, and there was certainly no consequence to either acting out in school or getting poor grades. Lack of parenting, coupled with my hearing loss, it was easier for me to be a problem in school; acting like I didn’t care was easier than saying I couldn’t hear and getting stuck in the front row in every class. Besides phy-ed, the only thing I did well at when I decided to apply myself was math. In hind site I realized it was because I didn’t need to hear, I could teach myself from the book, and that is what I did. In fact, one quarter I got kicked out of class and had to go to “Room 150” – which was a room of tables where you had to sit by yourself because you were a problem. Ms. Stiles would bring my assignments to me and I got a certain amount of satisfaction in doing my assignments well because I think it annoyed her that I didn’t need her to learn this stuff. Yea, I was a real trip – all things I am not proud of looking back.

I only share that story to explain my math background. I have always said, “I am kind of a math guy” – now you know why. 🙂 Long before I was saved, God used math to get my attention. I happened to catch a message on the radio as I was going through the channels driving one day and the speaker was going through the probabilities of the prophecies in the Bible and it blew my mind – but more on that in the coming posts.

The beauty of math is that there is only one right answer, there is absolute truth. That is why I am passionate about “preaching” the Bible, because it is Absolute Truth. Like math, we can exercise logic in many areas of Scripture and arrive at a conclusion.

Today I would like to briefly walk through the first stop in a series of stops in hopes that you would conclude that the Bible is Absolute Truth.

The Bible is considered to be a Book, but it is probably more accurate to say it is a Library. The Bible consists of 66 Books; therefore, as I make my “argument” consider not only this fact, but also the fact that the Bible’s Books were written over a span of 1500 years, by 40 different authors, in 3 different languages, on 3 different continents. As a side note, in that 1500 years, God went silent for 400 years; the time of the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament was 400 years. All this data by itself is amazing, but the much more amazing part is that all the Books speak in perfect harmony with one central message – the way to Eternal Life, and the warning of eternal punishment.

The reaction of many upon reading that last sentence is usually not great. People do not like to hear a message about eternal punishment, eternal destruction, and hell. But, if you will track with me on this, that reaction lends itself to even more credibility of the Bible.

Men throughout history are no different than we are; they want to be thought well of (for the most part). As men like us, I think it is reasonable to conclude that these 40 men wanted to be thought well of, and to be liked by the community; yet they spoke and wrote of unpopular things. Not just unpopular from the stand point that a “shock jock” on the radio would say absurd things to gain an audience. The things these men would say threatened their life; in fact, all of the New Testament authors would ultimately be killed for what they said.

It is not as if they were speaking these things and suddenly they were killed; in most cases (if not all) they were severely warned to stop by those with the authority to have them killed – yet they did not stop.

If a man was NOT convinced he was speaking the Truth, and was under the mandate of God to do so, he would have to be either suicidal or insane to continue.

Before you conclude, “yep, they were either suicidal or insane” – consider the Apostle Paul. Paul was among the elite of the religious leaders – he was powerful, he had wealth, and he had influence. Yet, when Jesus saved him he left it all behind to preach Jesus until they killed him for it. His execution wasn’t without warning; he was imprisoned and beaten several times, but never stopped.

I will never forget my friend Ron. Ron was a child of a prostitute, he bounced in and out of foster homes growing up and never felt like he belonged anywhere. Every time he moved he tried to fit in somewhere, but his rough edge, the “street” way he spoke, and lack of social skill always made him more of a side show for the neighborhood and not really a part of the group. I tried many times to share the Gospel with Ron, and often invited him to Bible Study. He would show up on occasion, but only to mock. Then one day when he came to Bible Study we were talking about Paul. I forget the point we were making about Paul, but what Ron heard was something apart from the main point of the day and he said, “wait a minute, your telling me that this Paul guy was on the winning team, and he left to join the losing team?!?” I had never thought of it that way, but for a guy that always wanted to be on the “winning team”, for a kid that just wanted to belong; this blew his mind. I said, “Yea, I guess so.” God used the life and death of one of these 40 authors to get the attention of my friend Ron and save him 6 months before he died at 32 years old.

People have passed around the age old arguments about the Bible for centuries; “the Bible has been copied and re-copied so many times there is no way we can have the original text”; “men wrote the Bible to have political control over the masses”; etc. The reality is, the arguments against the Bible are easily debunked; but don’t worry about that right now; only consider the information here. Does it seem more logical or less logical that the Bible has Divine power and authority based on this information alone? The time, the authors, the language, the continents, the harmony, the message, and the commitment unto death are very persuasive arguments, but we are just getting started – see you next time.