Why trust anything the Bible says?

GaveMeJoy said:

Without the gospel* the good news of Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. The Bible isn’t necessary for salvation, Jesus didn’t hand the disciples bibles, he gave them the gospel. The Bible’s came later, as the inspired words of the apostles and early NT authors dispensed wisdom and instruction to the churches.

The good news is God loves the person who started this thread as he loves all of us. My experiences with God, and the illumination of his word in my mind and spirit are Why I believe in scripture.

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Look up every time it was said in the New Testament: "According to the Scriptures". You will find that the gospel that was preached by the Apostles was clearly based in the written Scriptures of the Old Testament. Jesus Himself showed the two disciples at Emmaeus every reference in Moses and the Prophets that referred to Him.

If you have your faith in experiences instead of the written Scriptures then you cannot please God because your faith is in what is in you instead of in the Christ of the Bible.

ChristopherHays said:

As a Christian, I honestly and sincerely poured my heart out to god... and he pretended he didn’t exist. That was my relationship with god. I thought something was wrong with me because many of my Christian role models really seemed like they had a two way relationship. Looking back, I’m now confident they only had an imaginary friend like me. Nothing I’ve ever experienced in Christianity is worthy of the word ‘relationship’

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Maybe read my testimony thread - Jesus's Ministry

Oscarr said:

That is pagan Pantheism and not the God of the Bible. That belief belongs to those on the broad road, and not the narrow path to salvation.

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vegan pantheism?
of all the insults!!

Godlovesmetwo said:

vegan pantheism?
of all the insults!!

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Huh??

ChristopherHays said:

What good is a book that doesn’t make sense to intellectuals?

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See John 4:24... Even the late Steve Hawkings himself failed to comprehend the deep mysteries of God... I believe he went as far as declaring that God doesn't exist.

ChristopherHays said:

Have they ever tried to look at the ‘evidence’ from an unbiased perspective?

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So, right now I can be still and quiet and trust God to do whatsoever He pleases with me.

"unbiased", you say? Then I need to not be biased by what you dictate to be evidence and reasonable!

Jesus says I need to deny myself . . . and take up my cross daily and follow Jesus.

"'Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" (in Matthew 11:28-30)

What if there really is God, and He is not interested in us learning how to argue for the Bible? If we try to do what is not God's commitment, we will get into trouble. God's word says to submit to Him. To me, this means to personally submit to howsoever at any moment God pleases to change me and guide me . . . and all of us, of course > I must not try to be with God, all by myself!!! It is not only about me. If we personally submit to God, really, in us, we are personally sharing with God in His own love with His own guiding creative and all-loving, so we do exactly what He has us do to love each and every . . . any . . . person. And this love of our Father has us sharing as family with one another children of God while also we reach to any and all people . . . in prayer and personal sharing or our example, included. There is example that communicates better and deeper than words.

So, word fighting with you is not going to work.

Your father told you he is your father, possibly. What if you spent time trying to get evidence that he is your father . . . and this got your attention away from him? What if you have a child and he or she decides you have to prove you are your child's father? Can you prove the people doing the genetic testing are honest and not only in it for the money? The only way you can get your child to believe you is if you give your child what your child dictates to be evidence and then the child accepts it. But have fun proving it really is reliable evidence!!

God knows what is true. But we humans have our tendency to accept what our character and our motives make us able to accept. Only God is able to change our character so we can live in His love and see the way love has us seeing.

One thing that helps me a lot is now I understand a main point of early scripture is to show how nothing can work, without Jesus. God proved Himself in various ways, to people, during the Old Testament time. God perfectly blessed and perfectly punished, but none of that worked in people who did not have Jesus. Adam and Eve are perfectly created; yet, they failed because they were not like Jesus.

So, God could perfectly prove Himself to you, but your own character could invent ways to get out of it.

Jesus proved Himself to evil people, and they crucified Him. And His own disciples ran out on Him.

And the New Testament includes how things work, how we become and love . . . because of Jesus living in us. This is the best way for God to prove Himself . . . in us . . . by changing our character so we can share with Him and stay submissive all the time with Him in His own peace > this is a basic, by the way, of our Christian calling >

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful." (Colossians 3:15)

But we can not do this as long as we are dictating what we have to have for ourselves. People want to use other people; so their loving is selfish. Others have failed to use God and people for what they want; so they isolate themselves and depend on their own selves.

But our God is our Father > about family. First, we need to trust Him, trust in Jesus and fully depend on God. But God has us able to help each other; and so with God we find how He has us helping each other, trusting each other, and even depending on one another . . . to help us get real character correction, by means of God's grace which favors Jesus in us and favors that we love any and all people in sharing with God who is all-loving and personally sharing in family love.

If we are not personally caring in sharing with God and one another, we are elsewhere, and without Jesus we can do nothing > John 15:5 < and so we can be evidence of how things work without Jesus.

ChristopherHays said:

Former Christian and recent Atheist here. I used to read and trust everything in the Bible until about a year ago. If I try to look at it now from an unbiased view (which is harder than it sounds) I don’t see the appeal. What is it exactly that appeals to Christians? What makes them think any of it is true? Have they ever tried to look at the ‘evidence’ from an unbiased perspective?

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You can check for the internal cohesiveness of 40 plus writers spread over fifteen centuries.

And you can check to see if the Spiritual claims made are reflected in the society around you. Or External Cohesiveness.

For example Paul wrote that he did not do the things "that he knew was the right thing" to do. He and others explained that this seems to be an inherited "sin condition" that people must fight against. So you observe if well raised children ever hit others. They do. This seems to fit the "Sin condition" that the Bible writes about.

ChristopherHays said:

Former Christian and recent Atheist here. I used to read and trust everything in the Bible until about a year ago. If I try to look at it now from an unbiased view (which is harder than it sounds) I don’t see the appeal. What is it exactly that appeals to Christians? What makes them think any of it is true? Have they ever tried to look at the ‘evidence’ from an unbiased perspective?

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I’m not sure what an “unbiased” perspective means in this discussion. Or what it even looks like.

But why trust the Bible? For me, a big part of it comes down to the New Testament. It was written by men who would go on to be martyrs. In particular, they would be martyred in some pretty gruesome ways.

It didn’t have to be that way. All they needed to do to save themselves was say they were lying when they claimed to have seen Our Lord come back from the dead. If they’d just said that one simple thing, they would’ve been allowed to live.

But they stuck to their guns. They swore they were eyewitnesses to miraculous events. They were willing to give up their lives (and in some pretty awful ways) because of what they claimed to have personally witnessed.

Their testimony was given in their own blood. Christians willingly died in terrible ways because of what they claimed to have seen. Not because of what they believed (although that came later). But specifically events they claimed to have personally witnessed.

Even Christians who weren’t martyred for the miraculous things they witnessed were still socially ostracized by friends, family and society for those same reasons: they couldn’t shut up about the amazing things they witnessed. They lost everything that meant anything in the society of their time based on their testimony.

People might be willing to die for the truth. Or even for what they believe is the truth. But nobody will die for what they know to be a lie. These men claimed to have witnessed certain things. They told anyone who would listen what they saw. What they saw (e.g., not their beliefs) cost them everything.

And they still kept preaching.

That testimony means far more to me than any 21st century skepticism. I believe the Bible because the human authors of it paid dearly for writing it and for telling others what they witnessed.

Oscarr said:

The Bible is God's sole communication to mankind. If we didn't have the Bible...

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Or not....

Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.

Romans 1:18-20
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Hebrews 11:3
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Hebrews 1
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Hebrews 1
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

Colossians 1
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

2 Corinthians 3
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

ChristopherHays said:

What good is a book that doesn’t make sense to intellectuals?

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I don't think God was catering to those who felt they were too intellectual to allow themselves understand his word. And in answer to your main question, to me, the bible simply makes perfect sense in explaining everything, it's wisdom is unmatched. And though I hate to go with comments such as "It just is" when it comes to it being trust worthy, still...It just is.

"Faith" as you probably know is a huge partof all this, faith to realize "it just is" because God said it was. A message to the simple minded? Some would say so, but isn't that always the way? "Those Christians are just a bunch of insecure, small minded people who need the security banky they call God...very simple minded.". We have to get past all that in order to even stand a chance.

There were times in the past where I found myself questioning much of the bible, until I realized it wasn't that I was too smart to believe such nonsense, but not smart enough to realize I had to stop looking at it through the eyes of the haughty. We all know what happens when people get haughty/over confident in themselves, and thinking they're all that, things can go bad real fast.

Our not trusting God, in that he got his trustworthy word, his message, to us fully in tact, but instead, reasoning out by our own understanding we cannot trust that word, might be the worst mistake of our lives.

The first verse of the following helped me a lot...that and the faith to just believe it. The point of rest of the quotes are evident.


Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

1 Corinthians 1:19
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

1 Corinthians 1:20
Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

1 Corinthians 1:20
Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

ChristopherHays said:

I suppose I first questioned my belief that the Bible was inerrant after reading the two David’s census stories. After that I spent allot of time praying and searching for answers. No prayers were ever answered, and all my research lead to more and more questions rather than answers... after about a year of research and misery, I gave it up and accepted atheism as the best explication of reality.

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What was it about the two stories that caused your faith to falter?

What kind of evidence? Like evidence you can see and hands down know it proves something? Well, this is a tricky subject because there is evidence, but some claim its not evidence. So most often whether or not evidence is legit or not is just in the eye of the person reading it.

Seeing a woman who had end-stage cancer that was eating her brain away, then after seeing a "christian healer", she stopped being sick. So the doctor scanned her and did blood tests and found the cancer was gone. Something which is impossible. Now to me that is evidence. To others they don't believe it. Even if shown the documents or if the doctor himself talked to them.

There's also evidence of the prophecies that have been fulfilled in the bible. And there are only a few left until His return. How does one refute this? Or what about Israel existing? It's a tiny country surrounded by nothing but enemies that should have no problem wiping it off the planet, and yet as hard as they try, they cannot. It that proof or just coincidence?

People often tell me that science has proven God does not exist. But if you talk to scientists, even the most hardcore atheist ones, they say they say they cannot say He does not exist. They say if He is supernatural, science has no way to prove or disprove something in the realm of supernatural because it's outside the "natural" world as we know it. It's why science can't really say anything about ghosts and other such things (not that I believe in ghosts), because science is not capable of exploring the supernatural.

So even if one wants to dismiss evidence provided, they cannot dismiss the fact that the supernatural exists and thus God could exist.

I'd ask the question of what made you stop being a christian? All to often I find it tends to be because one of these things:
1. People expected some magical change that makes their life perfect.
2. People saw God as a genie and got upset He didn't grant their wishes.
3. People got mad at other christians and left, thus they lost focus on God.
4. They may have never had their heart in it from the start.

As for what draws peoples to this journey. Well its usually the message of heaven/hell. Knowing Someone died for all the sins they have and ever will commit. Knowing that there is more past this life. A wonderful place or a horrible place. We strive to see God one day. To hug Jesus. To be free of pain, stress...etc.

Oscarr said:

The Bible is God's sole communication to mankind. If we didn't have the Bible, we would not know anything about God, His plan of salvation, how He developed it through the millennia, and that Jesus Christ came to the world to show what God is really like, what He did on the cross for mankind, and how people can get through the narrow gate to eternal life. Without the Bible we wouldn't even know that there is eternal life available to us.

We would end up living lives based on cause and effect with no hope after death - that death will be end of everything and nothing beyond. Religion would be based on superstition, ritual, ceremony, human sacrifices, worshiping bits of wood and stone, and other unknown gods.

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Jesus Christ is God's communication to mankind. The Bible is witness to Him.

I think the Bible is a mere set of documents reflecting the views of the authors, much of which lacks credibility.

Aussie Pete said:

The Bible is a spiritual book for spiritual people. God never intended for it to make sense to intellectuals. It is intended to confound them. You demonstrate that it works as it should.

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"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream....."

ChristopherHays said:

It would be dishonest of me to show unnecessary respect to something I don’t believe in....

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harry potter is displeased with us.

ChristopherHays said:

It would be dishonest of me to show unnecessary respect to something I don’t believe in. Frankly, I’m not concerned who it offends. The biblical languages don’t even have capital letters.

Fun fact: “allah” is just the Arabic word for god. Both Christians and Muslims in the Middle East worship “allah”

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Another fun fact: English is complicated, and nouns are too, and whether one believes in English does not determine the best way to write it

i.e. English doesn't care if you believe in God, a god, or no god.

ChristopherHays said:

Former Christian and recent Atheist here. I used to read and trust everything in the Bible until about a year ago. If I try to look at it now from an unbiased view (which is harder than it sounds) I don’t see the appeal. What is it exactly that appeals to Christians? What makes them think any of it is true? Have they ever tried to look at the ‘evidence’ from an unbiased perspective?

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I approach it as a message from God buried under layers and layers of cultural, historical and literary materials. So it must be carefully considered and discerned, reflected upon. How does it speak to you? What grabs your heart? Naturally a lot of it wont but a lot of it can.

Oscarr said:

That is pagan Pantheism and not the God of the Bible. That belief belongs to those on the broad road, and not the narrow path to salvation.

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Then how is it that "in God we live and move and have our being?" Acts 17:28

And what does it mean to say the Holy Spirit can well within us? 1 Cor 3:16