You Can Trust the Bible - Part 2

RECAP last week

Lets briefly discuss revelation – general revelation & special revelation.

General revelation – that God exists.

Through creation Romans 1:18-20 & through conscience Romans 2:14-15

Special revelation – miracles, signs, dreams, visions, theophanies, Christophanies, prophets & the Bible.

Questions for discussion:

1. Question – Why should we be interested in proving that the Bible is true & can be trusted?

   1. For our own knowledge and benefit – increases our confidence especially in sharing the gospel.

   2. To help others - We are commanded to give a defense of our faith (1 Peter 3:15)

      1. Sometimes people that we share the gospel with may have genuine doubts about the Bible. Not for the purpose of making them believe the gospel and be saved, but to help them overcome any genuine obstacle they may have to the gospel.

      2. It is God who saves, not men! We cannot convince anybody to believe the gospel!

      3. Christianity & the Bible & its claims are today mocked openly by the world. Science vs. Bible. History vs. Bible. Geology vs. Bible. To such people who speak to you in such a way, we can give a logical, reasonable, response that defends our faith and our God. If we truly love God, we will have a zeal to defend His name. But do not “cast pearls before swine”!

So lets also look at how we can respond to the common questions raised about the Bible.

2. Question about (Textual reliability) - How was the Bible created?

a. Didn’t men write it? Who decided which books go into it and which don’t? Why those 66 books only? What about the Apocrypha?

Old Testament:

By the time of Jesus the Old Testament was already ‘canon’. OT of modern Bibles comes from the Masoretic text.

New Testament: 

• All the books of the New Testament were written during the lifetime of the apostles and contain apostolic teaching.

• Scripture agrees with scripture – so those books that do not agree with the rest of the books were not accepted as canon. Paul quoted the gospel of Luke. Peter quoted Paul, Jesus and Paul quoted OT. 

• Churches were already reading the Biblical books such as letters from Paul to the churches. Only the books accepted by all churches as authoritative became canon. Apocrypha fail these criteria.

b. Manuscripts & Translations

1. The original ‘autographs’ written by the Apostles and the other authors were inerrant – none exist today.

2. Copies of those autographs are what we refer to as manuscripts

3. Over 5800 manuscripts exist, way more than many other secular classical texts. The manuscripts themselves agree very closely with each other – there are no differences that affect theology or doctrines.

4. The manuscripts were compiled into texts over time by scholars.

5. We have 3 main texts from which all modern Bibles are translated – Textus Receptus, Majority text, & the Critical Text. 

6. The critical texts differ based on how they were compiled. Still the differences are minor.

PRESENTATION