You Can Trust the Bible - Part 1

Question to the group: Before we start studying specific books of the Bible, I think its important to think about the Bible, the book.

What questions or doubts do you have about the Bible? About the Bible as a book?

I have some questions: Can we trust the Bible? Can we believe everything it says? Hasn’t science disproved the Bible – don’t evolution and fossils disprove the Bible’s creation account?

Goal of this study: 

• Understand why we can trust the Bible (that it is historically, textually, prophetically and scientifically reliable).

• Understand that the Bible is our standard for truth & is the ultimate authority in our lives.

Questions for discussion:

1. What does the Bible claim about itself? Let us 

Key verses:

• 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV

  16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

• John 17:17 NKJV

  Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

• Hebrews 4:12 NKJV

  For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

• Isaiah 55:11 NKJV

  So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

• James 1:22 NKJV

  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Questions for discussion:

2. What does the Bible claim about itself?

   1. God authored it – it is His word.

   2. It is living.

   3. It is truth.

   4. It is powerful, authoritative, sufficient for the Christian.

   5. It convicts men of sin.

   6. It points to Christ (John 5:39–40, 46)

   7. In summary: the Bible claims that it is the standard for truth & the ultimate authority in our lives.

Consequence: The Bible is exclusive. Since the Bible is true, then every other claim about God is wrong. Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Paganism, Atheism, Pan-theism, every philosophy or world-view is wrong.

Question: Do we really believe this? How can we?

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 NKJV

14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

• We who are saved by faith in Jesus Christ receive the Holy Spirit.

• So we are able to believe & understand the Bible.

• The person who is not saved does not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them and so cannot believe the Bible is true (exclusively), nor understand the Bible.

• Our starting point is that we believe the Bible is true & we believe it. The Holy Spirit gives us this faith! But Christianity is not a blind faith, far from it!

• So we do not need any other evidence or proof that the Bible is true, but since the Bible is true, it will stand up to any scrutiny and we can demonstrate it later.