John 21:24
This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
There are critics who say that you can’t trust the Bible because it has errors. One common objection goes like this, “it just seems reasonable that we can’t trust that some medieval monk didn’t mess around with the text. It just seems likely that those aren’t the actual words of Moses, Jeremiah, John, or Paul.” This type of statement has the appearance of intellectual honesty, even sophistication and has swayed many an unbeliever. But here is your great joy, privilege and duty, Christian. You must never tire of pointing out that such critics are relying on nothing more than pure prejudicial conjecture. “Seems likely” is merely an evaluation that rests upon no sure foundation whatsoever. It’s pure and unabashed speculation. In fact, it begs the question (the very thing to be proved) that the Bible is like every other book in history. It’s not.
You’ll note that the unbelieving critic doesn’t mention a particular monk by name. The burden of proof isn’t that some monk didn’t mess around with the text but that a specific someone did. Don’t forget this simple truth and your encounters with critics will be far more productive.
Another way to see their arbitrary standards in action is to show that the earliest extant manuscript of Plato comes to us from just before 900 A.D. (known as Oxford B). That’s around a 1200 year gap from the life of Plato, by the way. How does the Bible compare? Well, the earliest fragments date less than 50 years after the original writing. The bulk of the manuscripts date from 200-300 years after the originals. If the critic is consistent, therefore, he’d have to omit all ancient history from consideration since nothing else comes close to the historical credibility of the Bible.
Or what of the claim that there’s no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth even existed? Bertrand Russell himself made this crazy claim in “Why I Am Not A Christian”. Two things to note about this objection is that, first, it omits the New Testament as reliable history and, second, it ignores the extra-biblical evidence from Jewish and Roman sources. As for the reliability of the Bible, the critics’ great guns have been trained on it for generations and they’ve found nothing. For years skeptics mocked the Bible for mentioning the Hittites. They were said not to exist until archeologists discovered, alas, that they did. And non-Christian sources like Josephus, the Jewish historian, and Tacitus, the Roman, directly mention Jesus and corroborate key details of the gospels including His crucifixion under Pilate. To claim, therefore, that there’s no evidence of Jesus actually living speaks not to the evidence but to the prejudicial attitude of the critic.
We could go on like this and answer every objection. The issue isn’t that, though. The heart of the matter is that you, the believer, must understand that the mind that’s set on the flesh already knows that God exists and that He’s righteous, but is actively, willfully suppressing the obvious. The Bible literally says that “they’re without excuse or defense”. No one will be able to stand before Christ and plead ignorance on that Day when He judges the secrets of men. The Lord has made His divine nature and eternal power clear to everyone through creation and every wonderful thing that’s been made. But rebellious man is a hostile witness and works hard to repress and stifle God’s revelation all around him the same way a defense attorney would scramble to get damning evidence of the guilt of his client thrown out of court.
We are not to walk timidly among the unbelieving world. We aren’t to be contentious or abrasive, but neither should we be appeasers of unbelief. All men know God and His righteous decree that those who sin will be judged (Romans 1:32) and we must not entertain their fantasy. This is the tragic failing of modern apologetics. It assumes with the non-believer that there isn’t enough evidence and that the sinner is neutral and just does’t have enough evidence to make up his mind. To accept this falsehood is dangerous for your faith because it allows into the room a fatal error – that God’s revelation isn’t true and authoritative. Don’t miss what’s at stake. God is true and every man is a liar. If God’s revelation isn’t completely clear to all, then He isn’t completely sovereign and His word is just another book among many. That’s a little god and sinners aren’t afraid of that. What they hate is the true and living God, the sovereign God who will judge them in the age to come.
In all, these accusations hurled against the Bible must not find root in our hearts. They’re simply stones thrown by children against the impenetrable fort of Christian philosophy – a fort armed with the mightiest cannon. Why should you come down from such a post, leave the fort, and go throw stones with them? Do you think this is severe? Well, consider that every charge against the Lord and His Word is based, in one way shape or form, on Christian premises in the first place. To claim, for example, that there are errors in the Bible is to say that contradictions can’t exist. Why? When an atheist makes such a claim he’s standing on Christian foundations. If all the universe came into existence through an accidental explosion, for no reason, with no purpose, and with no goal, then why should anyone care about truth at all? To even bother to point out a contradiction is to affirm the Christian philosophy that truth exists and it matters. An atheist simply cannot be true to his premises of a materialistic world created by chance and insist that immaterial things like logic and truth matter.
I write all this so that you won’t be afraid and that you’ll never waver in your understanding of the authority of Scripture. After all, the authority of Scripture is sweet to the soul of the Christian as it cements in our minds the reality of the promises of God. A Christian with a low view of Scripture, weakened by the world’s subtle, incessant and arbitrary attacks, is like a great race car with no engine. What’s meant to speed along the roadway will sit idly, collecting dust, taking up space. To follow Jesus Christ is to submit to His Lordship in every area of life which is why the line of demarcation between believers and unbelievers is that of ultimate authority. We are to rest humbly but confidently upon His word. Unbelievers, on the other hand, and watch for this, will never identify their ultimate and final standard of authority. They cannot because they will not – and they will not because they dare not. The reason for this is that their final authority is their own mind; it’s their reflection in the mirror. They worship themselves while calling Christians arrogant. This is why they never want to hear from the God of the Bible and want us to lay down our sword (the Word) and meet them on the false ground of neutrality.
So, you’ve been saved by the blood of Christ. But now you must follow Him. To sit idly isn’t a possibility. He simply won’t allow it. The Jesus Christ that saved you hates sin and He will continually discipline those He loves. James Boice wrote: “The early Christians knew that neither obeying the state, getting along or sharing the life of those around us justifies idolatry or immorality”. We are to be transformed into the image of God’s Son. We follow Him to righteousness and away from sin; we follow Him away from the idolatry of using our own mind or anything else in all creation as our final standard rather than the Bible.
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