Sadly, many people believe that Christians, who have put their trust in the Bible, have committed intellectual suicide by taking a blind leap in the dark. However, the Bible, which must ultimately be accepted through faith, has many strong reasons to support its veracity.
In today’s Part I discussion on faith, we will briefly look at three areas where we can, as Christians, feel comfortable that our faith is clearly based on solid evidence. And in tomorrow’s Part II, I would like to share some quotes on just what faith is really all about.
History
Many critics of the Holy Scriptures consider the Bible to be a book full of errors in all fields (including historical matters), and nothing more than a book of fables, legends and stories written and rewritten many times. For a book that claims to be written under the inspiration of God, to contain many historical errors would certainly lessen its credibility. The exciting thing, however, is that our twentieth-century archaeologists have been able, through diligent scientific research and methods, to validate countless biblical narratives as irrefutable and historically accurate.
Back in 1955 a German journalist and amateur archaeologist named Werner Keller in his book, The Bible as History, made the following observation: “In view of the overwhelming mass of authentic and well-attested evidence now available, as I thought of the skeptical criticism which from the eighteenth century onward would fain have demolished the Bible altogether, there kept hammering on my brain this one sentence: ‘The Bible is right after all.’”1
My friends, faith in the historical accuracy of the Bible, is something that archaeologists have clearly put to rest. And because this field of study has proven hundreds of accounts in the Bible to be accurate, I for one am more than willing to believe, even when we don’t have archaeological evidence to support a biblical event, the entire historicity of the Holy Scriptures.
Science
Are the Bible and God the enemies of science? On the contrary the Bible has been inspiring scientists for centuries. British scientist John Lennox states the case as follows: “Far from belief in God hindering science, it was the motor that drove it. Isaac Newton, when he discovered the law of gravitation, did not make the common mistake of saying: ‘now I have a law of gravity, I don’t need God.’ Instead, he wrote Principia Mathematica, the most famous book in the history of science, expressing the hope that it would persuade the thinking man to believe in a Creator.”2
While the Bible is not a science textbook it is always accurate when it talks on scientific matters. Many scientists down through the centuries have discovered scientific facts that the Bible shared hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before scientists discovered them. Many of the greatest scientists of all time such as, Newton, Boyle, Kepler, Faraday, Kelvin, Maxwell, and Dalton were all strong Bible-believing Christians who believed that nature was designed by God for discovery and that the orderliness of the universe was what made science possible.
As a result, I have the utmost faith that this advanced knowledge of the Bible, stating scientific facts before scientists discovered them, makes a very convincing case that the Bible is worthy for me to put my trust in.
Transformed Lives
I have personally witnessed many amazing stories of people who have had their lives totally transformed by accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and embracing the teachings of the Scriptures. The only explanation for these transformed lives from sinner to saint and from bondage to free is that the message of the Bible is true – Jesus does indeed give us a new heart and a new life! And these conversions are not just a matter of thinking positively, but of a total renovation of the inner man which is made only possible through Christ.
The Bible tells us that if we accept Christ into our lives through faith that we will become new creation saints, for we read: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The transformed life to me is one of the clearest proofs of the truthfulness of the Bible.
In tomorrow’s Part II devotion, we will share some wonderful quotes on the power and mystery of faith.
1 Werner Keller, The Bible as History, (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1980), Introduction, p. xxv.
2 Belief in God is the Motor that Drove Science | Come Reason’s Apologetics Notes