Did you know that God never tries to prove that the Bible is true? In fact, right from the very first verse of the Bible God just states that: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1). God never attempts to prove this act of awesome creative power; He just states it and then goes on to describe the rest of the creation week without any attempt to prove how He did it. And since no one was around when God created the heavens and the earth, in the last analysis we must accept the biblical account by faith. Since this is a question of origins, the scientific method of observable and repeatable experimentation can’t be applied here since creation is a unique one-time event.
Thus, science and history, our two best ways to validate the truthfulness of an event, such as creation, are not options that are open to us. However, faith is an option, and as I hope to show you that when it comes to accepting the Bible as a book of truth, we need not rely on blind faith, but on what I like to call intellectual faith.
First, it is important to note that all of us live by faith in our daily lives, whether we are conscious of it or not. For example, when we eat at a restaurant, we have faith in the cook, that he won’t put poison in our food. When we take prescription medicines, we have faith in the pharmacist that he won’t give us the wrong medicine. And when we travel in an airplane, we have faith that the pilot knows how to fly the plane, that there is enough jet fuel to get us to our destination, and the aircraft is mechanically sound. So, we live by faith all the time.
Well, what about the Bible. Is our faith in a 2,000 year-old book warranted? If you have been following my website for any length of time, I hope I have been able to demonstrate from history, archaeology, science, ethics, prophecy, and the testimonies of countless famous men and women of their profound faith in the Scriptures, that our faith in the Bible stands on excellent intellectual grounds. Let’s briefly examine each of these disciplines one at a time.
The Bible is clearly a first-rate book of history. It is universally accepted by the vast majority of biblical scholars that whenever the Bible talks about people and places that it is totally accurate. Archaeology has proven so many different accounts found in the Bible that the historical nature of the Bible is no longer open to debate.
When it comes to science, while the Bible is not a scientific textbook, it contains scientific statements that are totally accurate, whenever it touches on the field of science. Not only that, but many of these statements were made hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before we discovered their validity. For example, in an earlier devotion, on leprosy and the Bible, the book of Leviticus speaks about the concept of contagion with isolation, thousands of years before science discovered these concepts as a cure to the spread of many diseases.
The Bible stands alone as the finest book of ethics ever written. It is commonly recognized that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the most perfect ethical treatise ever shared by any human being. The book of Proverbs is also world-renowned for its wisdom. And Jesus’ other teachings have been recognized by believers and non-believers as the best way to live our lives.
When it comes to prophecy, the Bible stands alone among all other religious books, in accurately predicting numerous events in the future. It is the only book of antiquity that accurately details prophecies of events to come. One of the greatest proofs of the truthfulness of the Bible is fulfilled prophecy. It is staggering in its amount and extra-biblical in its verification. The Bible, as I will share in future devotions, talks about and prophesizes the fate of many biblical cities. And the many Old Testament Messianic prophecies and their New Testament fulfillment in Jesus Christ are also well documented.
And finally, countless world-renowned scientists down through the centuries, many United States presidents, and people from all walks of life have cast their votes in favor of the accuracy of the Bible. As a result, we can feel confident that our faith in the Scriptures has another great cloud of witnesses.
There is just no other book on the planet that is as intellectually sound as the Bible. From whatever discipline or angle, we view the Bible, it has not only stood the test of time but it has proven to lift our spirits and challenge our intellects like no other book. As I hope I have shown from my past devotions, and will continue to demonstrate in future ones, that the Bible is the most unique, influential, and intellectually compelling book ever written.
Yes, we still must accept the veracity of the Scriptures, in the final analysis, by faith, but as Christians we have a solid and well earned intellectual basis for doing so.