Prodigal: This bible can be confusing.
Me: Yes at first it can seem overwhelming when you are trying to study and read the bible. What happens over time though is that it makes a lot of sense and really helps you through.
Prodigal: People are always saying that it is not true though and just the opinion of men.
Me: Well, a lot of people say that. I do have an explanation of why it is true though that I think explains it well.
Squire Rushnell and Louise Duart in the book Couple who Pray gives a great explanation of the bible and how it came together under the authority of God.
The standards we use to test any information we receive are relatively consistent. Believability rises when we read multiple documents, written at different times, from independent sources. The more independent the documentation, the more convincing it is.
Take a news story. If ten different news organizations, totally independent of one another, each sent an investigative reporter to dig into a story and if without talking to each other or comparing notes they all came away with the same basic information, we’d feel as though we could trust it.
The same thing happens as we view history. Events that took place at a time when we could not possibly have personally witnessed them need to be judged by the independent reports that are available for us to evaluate.
The bible is a collection of sixty-six books, written by forty or more different reporters, over a period of three thousand years.
The first part of the book, the Old Testament, is the basis of the Torah studied in Judaism. The addition of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, written by a half dozen different reporters over a fifty-year period, creates the Christian Bible.
The number of surviving handwritten manuscripts also validates the events and statements of people in history. It is therefore revealing to compare the number of manuscripts written about various historical personalities whose existence we generally accept.
There are seven known manuscripts about Plato, ten about Caesar, forty-nine about Aristotle, and 24,633 written about the life and times of Christ.
So how many of you have quoted from Plato or Aristotle? How many have believed that Caesar ruled in Rome. Yet we question if Jesus lived. We question what was written about him. We refuse to open up the bible that so many people have talked about and written about for years.
One reason people will not read the bible is that they say it is not true. The funny thing is that most of those people have never read the bible who say that. How can someone give an opinion of a book they have never read. Take a look at the best selling list right now. If I told you I have never read the top seller but I didn’t like it. What would be your response? You would not take me serious. Why though if someone who has never read the bible says the same thing and we believe them?
Don’t ignore the facts. There is something about the bible. Start reading it and find out for yourself.
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
