The Truth About Christianity - Week 1

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- How can a loving God send people to hell?

- Why does Christianity have so many rules?

- If God is all powerful, can He microwave a burrito that is so hot, that even He could not eat it?

- There are big, important questions, important objections, that people raise against Christianity.

- Some of these questions many of us have asked ourselves (especially the burrito one).

- And so, for the next 5 Sundays, starting today, we are going to look at some of these questions, in a series called: “The Truth About Christianity.”

- And this series is based on the topic of apologetics, which means defending the faith.

- Answering some common questions, objections, and problems, that many people have with Christianity.

- And so, just as a way of building the anticipation, I would like to give you the topics we are going to be covering throughout this series (and perhaps you’ll take this opportunity to invite someone to come out who you know has these very questions).

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- Today we’re going to be asking: “Can we trust the Bible?” (although it may be a little bit late to invite someone to come today)

- Next week we’ll ask “Is there only one way to God?”

- In two weeks we’ll ask “Is Jesus God?”

- The week after that we’ll be asking “Why do people suffer?”

- And then finally, in our final week – which also just so happens to be Easter Sunday – we’ll be ending our series with the question “Did Jesus rise from the grave?”

- And so, before we dive in to today’s topic, I would like to give a word of caution for this entire series.

- Because there are some who treat apologetics – defending the Christian faith – like it’s an argument that they need to win.

- It’s almost like we act like we’re in one big spiritual game of dodgeball, and if we hit them with our best arguments and best quotes and best data, then they’ll be forced to join our team since we defeated them.

- And that’s not what this is about.

- Apologetics don’t save anyone.

- Defending the faith doesn’t lead anyone to salvation.

- Jesus is the only One who does that.

- I have yet to ever hear of someone who lost an argument with a scholarly Christian, and they immediately dropped to their knees and repented of their sins.

- However, that doesn’t mean that apologetics aren’t useful.

- Because as we’ve already said, there are some big questions – some serious questions, some important questions – that create barriers and doubts in people’s minds and hearts.

- And apologetics, when done correctly, can help deconstruct these barriers.

- Of course, as we already spent six weeks looking at before this, the best way to deconstruct barriers is simply to obey the one command Jesus gives His followers, to love others the way that He has loved us.

- But, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful for followers of Jesus to have a well thought-out faith.

- And so please, if you intend on listening to this series, and then just adding it to your arsenal of stuff to yell at people as they walk past you on the street, please don’t (if you’re watching on Facebook and just want to argue people on social media, maybe it would be best if you went back and rewatched the services on how to love others and put others ahead of ourselves).

- This is for those of us who want to know how to help real people who are asking real questions.

- This is for those of us who have these real questions, and we are searching for just enough of an answer to help us hold onto our own faith.

- And so I’m hopeful that these next few weeks will help strengthen our own faith, our own relationships with God, and then we will be more equipped and prepared to help those who are far away from Jesus come closer to Him.

- I’ve heard some incredibly misguided Christians say that they can argue for Christianity so well, that you don’t even need to have any faith at all, you just need to listen to their logic and evidence and reasoning.

- And that’s not true.

- But yet, there are others who believe that in order to believe in Jesus, you need to just have blind faith.

- You just need to jump into the deep end, take the plunge, with absolutely no reason or logic behind it, just dumb, blind faith.

- And that’s not true either.

- Being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, will require you to have faith (and faith is having a belief – a certainty – in something that you cannot fully see or understand).

- But it’s not a blind faith.

- It’s a carefully thought out faith.

- It’s a faith that has looked at the evidence and the options and made a rational decision.

- It’s a faith that doesn’t have all the answers, but it does have enough to have reason to believe.

- This month of March, let’s discover the truth about Christianity, and then let’s share that truth with everyone who needs to hear it.

- And so let’s get moving.

- “Can we trust the Bible?”

- Maybe we’ve heard it worded this way (or maybe we’ve worded it this way ourselves):

- “The Bible is filled with old stories and quotes that may be helpful, but how do we know that it actually happened?”

- “Isn’t the Bible just a myth? Just a legend that developed over a long period of time by people who weren’t as intellectually enlightened as we are today?”

- “Can we trust the Bible?”

- And so, in dealing with our question for this morning, the first thing we need to address is “How did we get our Bible?”

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- Because believe it or not, the Bible has not always been so neatly and conveniently organized into one nice book.

- The Bible is made up of 66 different books.

- These 66 books were written over the course of around 1,500 years.

- These 66 books were written by more than 40 different authors, who came from every walk of life.

- Some of the authors were kings, others were fishermen. Some were tax collectors, others were musicians.

- These 66 books were written from a variety of different locations (from inside a prison cell, to inside a palace.  From writing while travelling, to writing while being secluded in exile).

- Not only that, but the 66 books were written on three different continents (Asia, Africa, Europe), as well as in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek – it was not written in King James!).

- Some of the Bible was written as poetry, other parts of it were written as historical narrative. Some is a song, some is a biography.

- Some of the 40+ authors wrote during times of peace and prosperity, others wrote during times of war and need.

- Some wrote to explain with certainty the nature of what they were teaching, others wrote to express confusion and doubt.

- What we hold in our hand – or the app we have on our phones and tablets – is so much more than just one book.

- It sounds silly to say now, but when I was young, one of the biggest problems I had with the Bible was the idea that one day someone would write this big long book, and then all of the sudden people would believe that it was all true.

- Or maybe, I thought, it was discovered through some sort of archaeological dig, and then someone read it and decided it was trustworthy, but what if it wasn’t?

- But that problem I had was entirely based on one huge misunderstanding.

- The Bible isn’t one book.

- The Bible is 66 books that have been brought together.

- And these 66 books didn’t come together until after a period of time had passed when they were being circulated around individually.

- Genesis wasn’t originally written and then immediately paired with Revelation.  A long period of time passed before that happened and what we know as the Bible was actually compiled together.

- And so for this morning we are going to primarily focus in on the New Testament, because that is where the rubber meets the road for followers of Jesus.

- Because there are some who question whether the Christian Scriptures truly are as authentic as Christians claim that they are.

- Because some believe that these writings, that we now know as the New Testament, were written long after Jesus actually lived and breathed and walked on the earth, and so we don’t know which parts are true and which are just legends and myths.

- Some of Jesus’ followers (generations later) started up a church and wanted to consolidate their power, and so they wrote a bunch of books and letters that would help them get people to believe what they wanted them to believe.

- Yet this is not the case at all.

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- The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), that are basically the biographies of Jesus’ life on earth, were all written around 30-50 years after the events of Jesus’ life on earth.

- And the letters written by Paul (from Romans to Philemon) were written 15-25 years after the events of Jesus’ life.

- There are historical, outside of the Bible reasons to believe (quotes and records by early church historians in the first few centuries) that the various books of the New Testament were all written and in circulation within the lifetime of the original eye-witnesses.

- And that’s a major statement.

- Because if it’s true, if the books of the New Testament were written that early, then that is a huge argument in favour of the trustworthiness of the Bible.

- Because you can’t just go around making things up within the lifetime of the actual witnesses who saw these events unfold themselves.

- If you were going to make up an event and claim that it happened at Horizon College and Seminary back in 2006, I will be able to tell if you are lying, because I was there and I know what happened.

- Wait until after I’m gone and then make stuff up and I can’t call you on it.  But if you do it while I’m around, I can determine if what you are saying is actually true or not, because I was an eyewitness to what happened then (or, at the very least, I would know who to ask to confirm or deny that it happened).

- Likewise, if the books of the New Testament were written within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses, the crowds and multitudes who actually knew Jesus and heard Jesus speak and saw what Jesus did, then that’s not enough time to start spreading legends and myths about Him, because those will just be quickly dismissed and forgotten.

- But, all of that is only “if” the books of the New Testament were really written as early as Christians claim they were.

- And obviously Christians, churches, and pastors are biased and have a motive to believe this, even if it’s not true (I walked to our service today, but that’s only because I didn’t want you to see the brand new Mercedes Benz I bought with your offerings).

- So why should we believe that the books found in the New Testament really were written as early as Christians claim they are?

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- The first reason to trust an early dating of the New Testament books is because they are too detailed to be fictional works.

- Ancient fictional works were not like the fiction we read today, where the author tries to paint a vivid picture with words, describing everything from the scenery to the mood to the facial expressions and beyond.

- This is one of the reasons why I have yet to read the Lord of the Rings, because I can’t even make it through the extended edition movies without a nap, and I’m told that the movies are like a non-stop roller coaster in comparison to the actual book.

- Ancient fictional works were far less detailed.

- Yet the books in the Bible record details that just seem unnecessary and irrelevant if the authors were writing a fictional tale.

- Consider this example, written by Mark (who got his information from Jesus’ disciple Peter), written about when Jesus is walking towards the place where He is going to be crucified.

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- Mark 15:21

o A passerby named Simon, who was from Cyrene, was coming in from the countryside just then, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. (Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus.)

- Consider the details that are recorded here.

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- Simon is mentioned by name.

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- Simon’s home of Cyrene was mentioned.

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- Simon is described as coming in from the countryside.

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- And Simon is said to be the father of Alexander and Rufus.

- All of this just to say that Jesus had help carrying His cross?

- This is unnecessary nonsense, unless Mark wrote these words within a few decades of these events, because then these specific details are actually like the “footnotes” that we see in our modern scholarly books today.

- Scholars believe that these details, and the many others like them, were the author’s way of saying “Go ahead and look into this, you can find these men and talk with them yourselves.”

- “Here are their names, here’s where they are from. Check it out yourself and see that what I’m writing is the truth.”

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- Another piece of evidence is that the New Testament books contain negative details that point towards its accuracy.

- Let’s say that the New Testament books were actually written much later, they were written by church leaders who wanted to secure their power and help spread the myth of Jesus that they had been teaching.

- If that is the case, then why would they write down that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed for a way out?

- Why would they record that Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”?

- They would have been claiming that their authority comes from the Apostles/disciples of Jesus who passed Jesus’ authority down to them, so they why would they write the Gospels and make the disciples look confused and foolish at practically every turn?

- Many of us are probably familiar with the Great Commission, where Jesus gives His followers authority to go into the world and proclaim His truth.

- But what about this little details that comes right before the Great Commission:

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- Matthew 28:16-17

o Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted!

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- Did you catch that?  Some of them doubted.

- Even after seeing Jesus risen from the grave, some of them doubted.

- Why record that detail if you were just making it up generations later?

- Why make the founders of your false religion look bad?

- The best reason for why these negative details were written down, is that the authors really were writing to describe what happened as accurately as possible.

- And the authors weren’t as concerned about making themselves look good, as they were concerned with telling the accurate story that they witnessed themselves (or that the eyewitnesses had shared with them).

- This doesn’t even consider the amount of weight the Gospels place on women who followed Jesus and spread His Good News.

- Because a woman’s testimony was invalid in the culture of that time, and so (if you were making it up), why not just make your characters all male so their words carry more authority?

- The only reason to say women were some of the first (and loudest) proclaimers of the resurrection, is if it is the truth.

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- But even then, many people will wonder, what about all of the contradictions that are in the Bible?

- What about the fact that one author writes that Judas hung himself after he betrayed Jesus, but another writes that he fell on the ground and was split open?

- What about one of the gospels telling of a time when one person was healed, while another gospel tells about that same instance but says that there were multiple people healed?

- Doesn’t this prove that the Bible isn’t accurate, that it can’t be trusted, that authors just made details up?

- Not necessarily.

- First of all, many of the apparent contradictions in the Bible can be explained away.

- For example, if Judas hung himself in a tree that was over a cliff or large drop, and then the branch broke and his body fell to the ground, doesn’t that mean that both accounts are correct? (and that may seem like we’re really reaching for an explanation, but there is actually a place in Israel where Judas is believed to have hung himself which fits this description)

- Or if there are a group of people healed by Jesus, and one person just decides to make specific mention of one of them, does that mean they are lying?  Or does it mean they are just emphasizing something else?

- But even if we aren’t convinced by all of these explanations, there is something else to consider here.

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- Because when multiple people tell about the same story, we should expect some differences.

- Lee Strobel has done a lot of excellent writing about this, and how differences are expected when you look at reliable independent testimonies.

- If you were in a courtroom, and you saw witness after witness go up and give the exact same details, you would accuse them of collusion.

- They obviously got together beforehand and planned out what they were going to say.

- When every witness gives only the exact same details as all the others, that isn’t proof that it is reliable testimony, in fact that can be proof of just the opposite.

- The four Gospels that tell about the life of Jesus on earth, all are in harmony regarding the main points.

- And sure, some details differ between Matthew and Mark and Luke and John.

- But the details that differ actually add to the integrity of the fact that these were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

- Because the different eyewitnesses remember different things.

- And they all go together to give us an even more precise, accurate, and trustworthy account of Jesus’ life.

- And if someone was just writing all of this down at a much later date, just to help spread their false religion, then you would expect them to take these apparent contradictions out, because they do add a degree of difficulty in understanding the story, and it would be easier if they weren’t there.

- But the fact that they are there, and that they were left there, is another piece of evidence in favour of the trustworthiness of the Gospels (and the trustworthiness of the Bible).

- And all of this leads us to one of the biggest reasons why we can trust the Bible, and why we can trust that the Bible was written as early as Christians claim it was.

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- The manuscripts.

- Now, before we dive into this, let me ask you a question.

- How many people have heard before that the Bible is inerrant – it is free of errors?

- The Bible is infallible – it will not fail?

- The Bible is inspired by God?

- Christians use words like this to talk about the Bible all the time.

- But, what many people do not understand is these words only refer to the original autographs.

- That means that the only text that is truly, absolutely inerrant, infallible, and inspired, is the one that the actual author wrote down themselves (or dictated to someone who wrote it).

- The disciple John who wrote the Gospel of John, that copy that he wrote is the only copy that is truly and absolutely inerrant, infallible, and inspired.

- Now, here’s where things get a little dicey.

- Do you know how many of the original autographs that we have today?

- Zero.

- None of them.

- They have all been lost to time and history.

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- What we have – and what our modern Bibles are based on – are called manuscripts, which are copies of the original autographs, and copies of copies of copies.

- And this is something that some critics of the Bible sometimes point out when talking about why we cannot trust the Bible.

- Because really, isn’t the Bible just like a really big game of telephone?  Where one person whispers into another person’s ear, and then it goes down the line until it reaches the end but now the message has completely changed?

- And so even if the disciple Matthew actually wrote the Gospel of Matthew, and even if he did write it as early as within the lifetime of other eyewitnesses,

- Even if all of that is true, we still can’t trust the Bible that we hold in our hands today, because someone made a copy of Matthew’s Gospel, and someone made a copy of that copy, and someone made a copy of that copy of that copy, and someone (I’ve got about 3 more minutes of this left, feel free to grab a coffee) made a copy of that copy of that copy of that copy...

- So therefore, we can have absolutely no faith that what we read as the Gospel of Matthew today is actually what Matthew wrote down back then.

- It’s been changed.

- It’s been distorted.

- It’s been corrupted.

- So what do you say to that?

- Some people would just avoid the question, and hold onto their trust in the Bible – by blind faith – because they are scared to think about what it might mean if we really don’t have any of the original autographs and therefore what we hold may not actually be “inerrant”, “infallible”, or “inspired”.

- But I would like to give you another option.  And let’s address this question by looking at the facts.

- We do not have any of the original autographs.

- But we do have copies – we have manuscripts.

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- We have approximately 5,700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (dating from the early 2nd century to the 16thcentury).

- What’s more, is when you consider the manuscripts in other languages (Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, Arabic).  Because then that total goes up to between 20,000-25,000 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament.

- And what’s even more, is that even if all of these manuscripts had been destroyed and never discovered, we would still be able to almost entirely put together the entire New Testament from quotes and teachings from ancient church leaders (over 1 million quotes are known and have been cataloged).

- Athanasius (367 AD) gave us our earliest list of New Testament books that is exactly like our present New Testament.

- Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) quotes from the Gospels and uses the phrase “it is written”.

- These quotes give many confidence that the New Testament was originally written as early as Christians say it was, because within a couple of generations it was already being quoted as authoritative Scripture.

- Now, we are talking about manuscripts here. These are copies. Some of them are small fragments, and others are larger portions of one or more of the New Testament books.

- And because of that, there are differences between the copies.

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- There are variants from manuscript to manuscript.

- In fact, the closest two manuscripts still have approximately half a dozen differences per chapter.

- The Greek New Testament has about 138,000 words, and there are around 400,000 variants.

- And so basically, for each word that we have in the New Testament, there are the equivalent of three different variants for it.

- And that may make some of us uncomfortable, to think about all of those differences and errors, but we’re not done looking at the facts yet.

- Because all of these hundreds of thousands of variants can be broken down into four categories.

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- The first type of variant is what it called spelling and nonsense errors.

- Nonsense errors occur when a scribe wrote a word that makes no sense in its context, usually because of fatigue, inattentiveness, or misunderstanding of the text in front of him.

- Maybe you can relate to this yourself, have you ever been reading a book, a real, professionally published book, and you’ve found a spelling or grammar error?

- And you wonder, with everyone who had to go through this before it was published, the author, publishers, proof-readers, editors, etc... they still didn’t catch this error?

- But yet, at the same time, even though you noticed a small error, it doesn’t mean that the entire book is untrustworthy and should be discarded, because chances are you can understand what the author meant to say – even if there is an error in the text itself.

- Similarly, this is the most common type of error and variant in the manuscripts of the Bible.

- The most common one involves the movable letter “nu”.  This is an “n” that is placed at the end of certain words when the next word begins with a vowel (just as we have “a book” or “an apple”).

- So many variants occur when we basically just have a simple grammar error and it says “a apostle...” or something like that.

- Some of these types of errors are even quite funny, such as one manuscript for 1 Thessalonians 2:7 which, instead of say “we were gentleamong you” (or “we were little childrenamong you”), because a slight spelling error changes the phrase to “we were horses among you”.

- It also should be understood that if a single word is misspelled in 2,000 manuscripts, that is counted as 2,000 variants (not just 1), which also helps us understand why there are so many variants in so many manuscripts.

- This is the most common type of variant. Simply spelling, grammar, and nonsense errors that can be easily dealt with and explained away.

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- The second type of variant has to do with minor changes that do not affect translation.

- This is the second largest group of variants and errors, and includes synonyms and alterations.

- A common variation is the use of the definite article with proper names.  Greek can say “theBarnabas” while English translations will drop the article.

- And so there are manuscripts that vary in whether they have the article or not.

- Also, word order differences account for many of the variants. But in Greek, word order does not affect meaning nearly as much as it does in English.

- For example: In English, it makes a huge difference if you say “Dog bites man” or “man bites dog”, but in Greek is doesn’t make any difference.

- Based on the Greek spelling, you can tell which word is the object and which is the subject (which means you can tell which one is doing the biting), regardless of where it is placed in the sentence.

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- Then we reach our third type of variant, which are meaningful changes that are not viable.

- This is the third largest category of textual variants.

- By “viable”, we mean that a variant has some plausibility of reflecting the wording of the original autograph.

- And so this type of variant is when there is a difference – an error – in a manuscript, but there is little-to-no chance of it being the accurate and original wording.

- For example, in 1 Thessalonians 2:9, almost all of the manuscripts have the phrase “the gospel of God”, yet there is a late medieval copy which phrases it as “the gospel of Christ”.

- Now, this is a meaningful variant, because it’s not just a spelling error, but it’s not viable.

- There is basically a 0% chance that one late manuscript could contain the original wording when the older manuscripts, as well as the majority of the manuscripts are uniformly on the side of another reading.

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- And then finally, we have our fourth type of variant.  These are differences that are both meaningful and viable.

- This is the smallest category of textual variants.

- By “meaningful”, this means that the variant changes the meaning of the text to some degree.

- It may not be terribly significant, but if the variant affects one’s understanding of the passage, then it is meaningful.

- Most of these meaningful and viable differences involve just a word or a phrase.

- For example, in Romans 5:1, some manuscripts read “we have peace”.  While others read “let us have peace”.

- The difference in Greek is a single letter, but the meaning is changed.

- These are the variants that actually matter, these are the ones that aren’t just easily explained away.

- And so should Christians be worried about this fourth category?  Do these meaningful and viable variants undermine the trustworthiness of the Bible?

- Absolutely not!

- When it’s all said and done, when it comes to variants that are both meaningful and viable, out of 400,000 variants, these make up less than 1%.

- And, even more importantly, zero of these affect doctrine.

- No cardinal doctrine, no essential truth, is affected by any viable variant in the surviving New Testament manuscripts.

- And it is also important to note that no reputable version of our Bibles today are trying to hide or conceal these variants from us.

- You will notice, time and time again as you read your Bibles, that you’ll have little footnotes that will say something like “Other manuscripts have...” or contain another wording for that verse or phrase.

- Christian scholars are not trying to cover up the variations between the manuscripts, they are piecing them all together to give us the most accurate – and trustworthy – copy of the Bible possible.

- This leads us to another point when considering all of these thousands of manuscripts.

- Because it can be shocking for Christians to discover that our Bibles were pieced together from copies of the original autographs that are no longer available.

- But, in comparison with other ancient documents/manuscripts, the New Testament suffers from what some call an “embarrassment of riches”.

- Because we need to measure the manuscripts and trustworthiness of the Bible alongside other ancient documents.

- We can’t just go around comparing the ancient Bible fragments with the first draft of the Hunger Games trilogy.

- And when you line the books of the Bible up against other ancient documents, you will see how the Bible blows everything else away in terms of accuracy and trustworthiness.

- Let’s put this into perspective.

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- As we’ve already said, the New Testament has 5,700 Greek manuscripts.  20,000-25,000 when you include other languages.

- Now, the average classical writing has around 20 manuscripts (that’s 1,000 times less than the New Testament).

- It’s been said that the manuscripts of the New Testament create an almost incomprehensible disparity between it and other ancient documents.

- The manuscripts we have for the New Testament also are far superior to other ancient documents in terms of their dates.

- I mean, of course it would be nice if we had the original letter of Paul to the Romans or the original Gospel that Luke wrote.

- But still, 10-15 of the manuscripts that we have were written within 100 years of the completion of the New Testament.

- 4 dozen of the manuscripts we have can be dated within 200 years of the completion of the New Testament.

- 99 manuscripts are dated before 400 AD, and this includes the oldest complete New Testament.

- Over all, the New Testament has a manuscript fragment within one generation of its original composition, whole books appear within 100 years of the original, most of the New Testament within 200 years, and the entire New Testament within 250 years from the date of its completion.

- And that may sound like a pretty significant gap, because nowadays we aren’t waiting 15 minutes to publish a biography of some celebrity that did something interesting (I heard recently that Taylor Swift’s boyfriend got to open for the big Usher concert a few weeks ago), blogs and news sites are reporting on what they’ve done before they’ve even done it.

- But again, let’s compare it to other ancient documents and see how it lines up.

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- The average classical writing has 0 manuscripts for the first 500-1,000+ years.

- Seriously.  Zero.

- So let’s consider how scholars are satisfied that they possess the true text of Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us.

- No one is debating the trustworthiness of Pliny, Caesar, or Plato.

- Yet our knowledge of their writings depends on a mere handful of manuscripts, from nearly a millennium later, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by the thousands (with the text all existing in 250 years).

- And what that means, is that if we’re going to be skeptical of the trustworthiness of the Bible (which we still might feel that way, and that’s fine), but to be fair we need to be about 1,000 times more skeptical about other ancient writings.

- If we can’t trust the Bible, then essentially we can’t trust any of our knowledge of ancient history or any ancient writing.

- So when it comes to the books of the Bible, we may not have the original, inerrant autographs, but what we do have is more than enough to help boost our confidence in the Bible, that what we read in our English translations is the accurate representation of what the original author actually wrote.

- And so, let’s go back to the critic’s complaint that the Bible we have today is just like one big untrustworthy game of telephone.

- This may sound clever, this may sound convincing, but it is absolutely false.

- The experts and scribes who were given the duty of copying the manuscripts, and copying the copies, did it very diligently.

- And sure there are errors and variants, but that’s just because they were human.

- But to compare it to a game of telephone doesn’t work, because in that game the goal of it is to get a funny, different message at the end.

- And so you are only allowed to whisper it into one other person’s ear.

- And in some versions everyone else is supposed to be talking loudly so that it is even more difficult to understand what the one person is whispering to you.

- And you aren’t allowed to see how close or far-off you are until the message has reached the very end of the line.

- So therefore, if you want to compare the manuscripts of the New Testament to a game of telephone, then you need to change the rules of the game.

- Because a more accurate analogy of telephone would be that the message gets spoken, out loud to someone who is listening, and then every person or two who receives the message would stop, look back to the original person and yell out loud “This is the message I’ve heard... Is that what you said?”

- And that game is no fun.

- That game isn’t silly.

- But that is just a simple way to compare how diligent and devoted the scribes were to getting the message right.

- And so today we are considering the question “Can we trust the Bible?”

- And I hope that maybe I’ve given you something to think about, something to look into, something to consider.

- Or maybe, for some of us, now when someone asks “Why should I believe the Bible?”, if we didn’t know what to say before, hopefully now we’ll have something to say.

- The Bible stands alone in terms of how unique it is, with how well preserved it is.

- There is no close second place.

- The Bible is unique, and the Bible is trustworthy.

- And as we close this morning, I’d like to end by challenging you with this thought from Timothy Keller.

- And that is that when we read historical documents and need to determine if they are true, we need to approach them objectively.

- I think we could all agree with that, no matter what we believe.

- We need to remove any biases we have and just look at the document and the evidence and determine whether or not what we are reading is true and trustworthy.

- And this isn’t difficult to do when you’re reading many ancient documents.

- If I gave you a copy of Homer’s “Illiad” or Caesar’s “Gallic Wars”, you would be able to read it objectively and fairly, with no bias.

- Because whether or not these are true has absolutely no impact on your life.

- However, if the Bible is true, or if it isn’t true, then that has a huge impact on our lives – then that changes our lives forever – one way or another.

- Therefore, there is not one single person, whether Christian or non-Christian, who can read the Bible and be truly objective.

- And so the best we can do is to be willing to approach it as objectively as possible, and truly look at what the Bible says, and at what the evidence points towards.

- And this also means that when we look at what the Bible says and we react with skepticism, then we also at the very least have reason to be skeptical of our skepticism.

- And so I don’t believe I’m surprising anyone when I say that I believe that I can trust the Bible.

- I believe that it is the authoritative, living, breathing, Word of God.

- I believe that what I hold in my hands is an accurate representation of what the original authors originally wrote within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of the events that they record.

- And I believe that what is written here will change your life forever, just as its changed mine.

- But I want to encourage you, please don’t just take my word for it.

- Look into it yourself.

- Look at what the Bible says.

- Look at the evidence.

- And see if you can come to find out whether or not you can truly trust the Bible, and whether or not you can take a step in discovering the truth about Christianity.

- Close in prayer

- (*) Now What

- Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21

Now may the God of peace—

    who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,

the great Shepherd of the sheep,

    and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—

may he equip you with all you need

    for doing his will.

May he produce in you,

    through the power of Jesus Christ,

every good thing that is pleasing to him.

    All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

Scripture:

- 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2

- Romans 15:1-6

- Hebrews 4:12

- Hebrews 11:1-12:2

Pray:

- Pray that God would soften your heart, and open your eyes and ears, to His Word. Pray that whenever you read the Bible, God would speak through it to you, in a way that would change your life (and flow through you to touch the lives of others).

- Pray that God would give you opportunities to share about the power and trustworthiness of the Bible with someone this week. Pray that God would help you to listen well, and speak with humility and boldness, to help someone else consider how the Bible might change their life.

Discussion/Reflection:

- When you think of your faith, do you think of it as a “blind faith”? Why or why not? When you read Hebrews 11 (in the Scriptures listed above), what do you notice about the tension between having a reasonable, thought-out faith with taking a leap of faith?

- How would you explain what it means to call the Bible the “inspired Word of God”? What would you say to someone who asked you about the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible?

- Paul writes in Romans 15:4 (in the Scriptures listed above) that the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement. When you think about how you feel when you read the Bible, would you use words like “hopeful” and “encouraged” to describe your relationship with Scripture? Why or why not? What other words would you use to describe how reading the Bible makes you feel?

- How would you answer the question “Can we trust the Bible?”

“Now What” Next Step:

- Get together as a family – or with a group of friends – and take turns answering the question “Can we trust the Bible?”

- The other people can ask follow-up questions, playing the role of someone who is not following Jesus.

- This can be a helpful exercise in preparing to answer the real questions that real people have.