How do we know it is real?
Possible objections to the authority of the Bible
If we reject the authority of the Bible, then we appoint someone or something else as the authority for your own faith. We can usually agree that some parts of the scripture are true, but which ones will we accept, and which ones will we reject? We need to pray to the Lord that He will show us what is the truth in the Bible.
At this stage, new believers will come to understand that their view of the scriptures will be directly affected by their view of God. If you think that God is distant, and never speaks directly or communicates with people then you will doubt that he communicates through the Bible and directly with us. We need to realize that God both speaks to mankind and that he has written a book specifically for his children i.e. the Bible. The Bible is self-consistent all through its 66 books since it is God who wrote it in tandem with the human authors (see study 2 for more details).
God communicates with humans.
A few examples of God speaking to humans.
Genesis 1:28 God speaks to Adam and
Genesis 3:9 God asks Adam, where are you?
Genesis 6:13 God tells Noah the technical specifications of the ark.
Genesis 12:1 The Lord speaks to Abraham.
Deuteronomy 5:22 Two million people heard God, and we learn that the finger of God performs the writing of the ten commandments on the tablets.
Exodus31:18 We can read the ten commandments written by God.
God is a communicating God. Are you listening?
God is a God who intervenes, like in our salvation experience.
What do we believe about the Bible?
2 Timothy 3:16 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.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the authors were moved by the Holy Spirit, we therefore believe that the Bible in its original manuscripts (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) is without error and therefore it is historically and scientifically true. This view is less popular nowadays. You may wish to look up the lower and higher critics to see how they (former) defend or in the latter case attack the Bible (the JEDP authorship of the Pentateuch). The Bible says in many places that Moses wrote the Pentateuch [1].
In other words, we believe in the verbal, plenary, infallible, inerrant inspiration of the Bible.
Why verbal? Some people came along and said, well, the Bible contains truth, but It is not the real words of God that God spoke. Oh yes, it is. We believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible i.e. that God spoke these very words.
Why plenary? The Bible was spoken by God. Did he just miss a little bit out? No all of it (the full scripture in the OT and the NT) was spoken by God. The Bible is filled with the words of God.
Why infallible? The Bible is the good rule for our lives. It is the only rule that we have for our lives although this is unpopular with many people.
4. Why Inerrant? This means it is without error, in the original manuscripts. By the way, if you say any part of this has error in it, then why should you believe any of it?
So that is what we believe. The Bible is the verbal, plenary, infallible, inerrant, and inspired word of God. God breathed it. That is the word of God that we believe.
It is OK to get excited about the Word of God. What a wonderful book. The Bible has 66 books, 1189 chapters every one of them given by God. That is what we believe. Written in three languages. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and written over a period of 1600 years. That is the time span between the books written by 40 authors over 60 generations, and the authors are all entirely different types of people. And yet they all agree the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
Amen
Full text for print and video version at
Questions to be answered in Part 2 Why should I read the Bible?
Is there any indication in the Bible that it is the Word of God? We will consider some of the science in the scripture that was known to the writers of the Bible thousands of years ahead of the relevant scientific discovery.
How did God give the bible to us?
[1] Romans 10:5 "For Moses describes the righteousness, which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.