Saturday, July 14, 2007

THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORD

Absolutely everyone is a believer. The most devout Christian and the most passionate atheist believe things they cannot prove. It’s not a matter of whether or not you have faith. It’s just a matter of what you decide to believe. The Christian has an argument and so does the Atheist. The Christian can’t “prove” that God exists and the Atheist can’t prove that he doesn’t exist.

The main difference between dedicated, committed Christians and “nominal” religious church members is what they believe about the Bible. Many “nominal” (meaning in name only) church members never read the Bible. They depend on the Preacher to tell them what to believe. The old "cracker barrel philosopher" Josh Billings said: "Truth is what has got itself believed by me."

One of the reasons I know the Bible is God’s word is because for many centuries it has survived so much ignorant and bad preaching by ignorant, false teachers and religious con men. My Grandson asked me years ago: “How do we know the Bible is not just a bunch of stories made up by men?” I gave him as many reasons as he could handle and he seemed to be satisfied.

Here’s how to be scientific in your study of the Bible. First there are many things that cannot be proven by electron microscopes, test tubes, electronic gadgets, or experiments done on rats or monkeys. You can't use any of these things to prove that George Washington ever lived, or that you attended the third grade, or that you ate lunch on the first Tuesday of last October.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those things did happen. Those things are proven by universally accepted methods of legal and historical proof. This method depends on three types of testimony. They are written manuscripts based on eyewitness accounts, exhibits, other manuscripts and oral testimony that give credibility to the written manuscripts in question. Then there is something called the “continuity of history.” The facts were repeated over and over again all down through the ages and no one can disprove them.

College history classes all across America and around the world teach as a fact the history of Thucydides who lived about 471 BC to 400 BC. He was a Greek scholar, statesman and one of the world’s greatest historians. He wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war. There are only 8 existing “copies” of the earliest manuscripts of his work and they are dated 900 AD, or about 1300 years after they were written.

In one of them Thucydides gives his account of the funeral oration given by Pericles for the burial of soldiers who died defending the Greek city states from Persion Invasions. With only 8 existing “copies” written 1300 years after the fact, college history professors have no trouble teaching this history as absolute truth.

Aristotle who lived in 384 - 322 BC was the student of Plato and the third member of the great intellectual triumvirate of ancient Greece. His “Poetics” was written in 343 BC. Today only five of the earliest “copies” are in existence and they are dated 1400 years later, or about 1,057 AD.

The original manuscripts of Caesars “Hstory of the Gallic wars” written in 58 BC are gone, but we have 10 “copies” dated 942 AD, or about 1,000 years later. Historians all over the world have absolutely no problem with teaching college students that these manuscripts are absolutely authentic and unquestionable true.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE There are over 20,000 accurate copies of the New Testament dated only a few years after the death of Jesus and many were written by eye-witness observers. Others took down the testimony of those who repeated the story of the resurrection of Jesus until they were put to death for doing it. Sir Frederic Kenyon, the director of the British Museum and the world’s foremost authority on manuscripts stated flatly that the New Testament is authentic beyond question.

World famous Philosopher Will Durant, trained in historical investigation, and who was not a Christian said: “Mere inventors of the Bible would have left out the squabbles of the Apostles for first place - their cowardly flight at the arrest of Jesus, Peters denial, the despairing cry of Jesus on the cross. That a few simple men could have invented so powerful and appealing personality of Jesus, such lofty ethical teaching, and such an inspiring vision of brotherhood - that would have been a far greater miracle than any recorded in the book.”

This is just a tiny fraction of evidence I have from years of studying the Bible, History and modern science. I could fill a very large book with amazing facts about the Bible. The most convincing evidence for me is the large number of Godly Christian believers who believed it, lived it out one day at a time, and told me it was all true as they breathed their last breath.

If you would like to have more of the “evidence” then contact me at www.pastorken.com An old Christian lady had died and her family was going through her things. They picked up her Bible and noticed that in hundreds of places she had written in the margins by verses “TP”. Finally an old friend told them what it meant. She said: “She would only write TP by a verse when she had relied on a promise and it worked for her”. It was tried and proven in her daily life. Pretty good evidence!

What have you decided to believe?

1 comment:

  1. Thank you Brother Kenneth for this very interesting Bible report. Very well stated. J. Charles.

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