Click here to listen to an audio version of this material.
The most telling test of any belief comes when one meets adversity in life. In other words, adversity distinguishes between beliefs that sound good in theory and those that truly offer hope, perseverance, and assurance in the crucible of life’s inescapable difficulties.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdown was at its strictest and unknowns were at their highest, my counselor asked how I was coping. I told him I couldn’t understand why I was so tired. He explained it’s due in part to our not being able to find relief in some of the things everyone needs after a trauma. The first two he mentioned were good information and social interaction or personal touch—neither of which was available to us at that time. Those needs are not unique to the pandemic, however. Any time we face adversity in life, we need good information and personal touch.
I want to propose to you that the Bible can be trusted in the COVID pandemic and any other adversity we face in life, because it provides our greatest needs in those times—good information and personal touch. In this post, we will look extensively at why we can be sure the Bible provides us with good information, and in the next post, we will explore personal touch.
Good Information
In part 1 of this series, we examined what the Bible claims for itself. Let’s take a look at a few more reasons we can be certain that the information contained in the Bible is good. Specifically, let’s look at how it is both reliable and relevant, as we need both.
Reliable
Through the years, I’ve had many conversations begin this way: “How can we find comfort or direction in a book full of so many factual and historical untruths, not to mention so many errors made while copying manuscripts?” I love that question, because the answer is awe-inspiring! Because of limited time, I am only going to give brief examples of how the Bible distinguishes itself as the most reliable book of antiquity in the world.
Historical accuracy: First, the Bible’s historic accuracy is constantly affirmed regardless of persistent attack. An enduring scholarly work on the New Testament’s accuracy is The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? In it, F.F. Bruce comments on Luke’s New Testament books. In addressing his gospel and Acts to an apparently important man named Theophilus, Luke said he “compiled a narrative” and “orderly account” from “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” so that he would “have certainty concerning the things [he had] been taught” (Lk. 1:1-4). As an example of Luke’s historical accuracy, Bruce describes the precision with which he mentions proper titles of notable persons in his gospel and Acts:
This was by no means such an easy feat in his day as it is in ours, when it is so simple to consult convenient books of reference. The accuracy of Luke’s use of the various titles in the Roman empire has been compared to the easy and confident way in which an Oxford man in ordinary conversation will refer to the Heads of colleges by their proper titles – the Provost of Oriel; the Master of Balliol; the Rector of Exeter; the President of Magdalen, and so on.” [1]
Prophecy: The second proof for the Bible’s reliability is fulfilled predictions or prophecy. There are 1,817 prophecies recorded in Scripture. Most of the fulfillments are also recorded. One famous example is Isaiah’s prediction that a future king named Cyrus would authorize and pay for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple’s foundation (Is. 44:28; 45:1). This was amazing given that Jerusalem was inhabited and the temple still standing when Isaiah made his prophecy in 700 BC. One hundred years after Isaiah’s prediction, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Babylonians. Forty years later, the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, and a king named Cyrus gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple (2 Ch. 36:22-23; Ez. 1:1-8).
The Old Testament also made very specific prophecies about Jesus. For instance, it predicted the exact time of his coming, the exact place of his birth, the family into which he was born, the condition of his family at the time, the manner of his reception by Israel, and the details of his death, burial, and resurrection (Isaiah 53; Mi. 5:2; Da. 9:25-27; Je. 23:5-6; Ps. 16:18-11). At the time of Jesus’ resurrection alone, twenty Old Testament predictions were fulfilled within a twenty-four-hour period![2] These prophecies were all made at least 400 years prior to their fulfillment.
Moreover, those long-term prophecies were only recorded because every prophet had to be validated by the fulfillment of short-term predictions. To claim to be a prophet required making a short-term prediction. If that prediction did not come about, the false prophet was executed (Deuteronomy 13:1-5; 18:21,22). This is why Peter can say the prophets’ claims about Jesus are even more certain than his eyewitness testimony.[3] The prophets’ claims had been vetted hundreds of years before his testimony by the fulfillment of short-term predictions, and now the fulfillment of their long-term predictions made their veracity doubly certain. So reliable was written prophecy that an audible voice was referred to as a bath qol, or “the daughter of the voice,” that is, a lesser voice.
Archaeology: The third proof is a gift that keeps on giving: archaeological discovery. There has yet to be an archaeological find undermining the reliability of Scripture, and there are too many to list providing confirmation. To get into this subject, you may read any number of readily available books with titles like Top Ten Discoveries in Biblical Archaeology (2016) by Timothy Kimberley. My friend David Chapman has also edited The ESV Archaeology Study Bible which includes discoveries enlightening every book of the Bible. So frequent are affirming archaeological finds, Christianity Today lists the top ten every year. I’ll just mention two random archaeological confirmations.
About a hundred years ago, scholars accused the Bible of making an error when it identified a king of Assyria in 2 Kings 15:29 named Tiglath-Pileser. However, archaeologists later excavated his capital city and found his name engraved on one of the clay tablets.[4]
There are numerous examples of scholars falling on their own swords as they set out to prove the Bible historically mistaken (West, Lyttleton, McDowell, etc.), but let me give you just one. In 1895 a professor named William Ramsay wrote a book called St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen. It is the fruit of many years of hands-on study of the places Paul traveled. Ramsey originally set out to prove that Acts was riddled with mistakes regarding geography; however, the more he investigated, the more amazed he was to discover not only that Luke was precise in his geographical details but in all his descriptions of customs and titles for the day (as F.F. Bruce noted above). The result was his own conversion as well as the production of a book that remains unsurpassed and irrefutable 105 years later!
Preservation: The fourth proof – which was covered in more detail in the previous part of this series – is the miraculous preservation of the manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments. Though we have yet to find the original Bible, every additional manuscript copy predating the earliest thus far only affirms the near perfect accuracy of our present Bible.
Unity: The fifth proof is the unity of the Bible. My friend Senator Jim Talent said he was converted after reading the Bible. After reading the sixty-six books of the Bible, written by forty different authors over a period of fifteen hundred years, the unity of the Scriptures struck him as miraculous, and thus he had to commit to the Savior presented.
Over 10% of the New Testament is made up of quotations or allusions to the Old Testament. Though there was a four hundred year gap in the events recorded, there is a remarkable unity in the story told and the teaching presented.
Relevant
Secondly, for information to be good, it must be relevant. Relevance may sound subjective, but I think we have a uniform sense of relevance determined by our basic needs as human beings. These were famously defined by American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) as a “hierarchy.”[5] They are typically represented in a pyramid graph with “physiological needs” at the bottom of the pyramid and the need for connection to the “transcendent” at the peak. In between are needs for safety, love and belonging, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and transcendence. [6]
For the sake of space, let me just provide passages for the first and last categories of Maslow’s hierarchy. Maslow said, and I think we would all find this obvious, that before a human being can be expected to grow toward “self-actualization” (we might say “flourish as a person”), his or her basic creaturely needs must be met: air, food, drink, shelter, health etc. Through story and sermon, the Bible frequently acknowledges that humans need these provisions. The Bible also promises that God will supply them for those who look to him for them. Jesus once preached a sermon in which he pointed out God’s provision of food for birds and “clothing” for flowers; he thus assured his disciples that his Father cared even more for them and would provide food, shelter, and clothing as long as they lived in dependence upon him (Matthew 6).
At the pinnacle of the hierarchy, Maslow says full realization of our humanity will be achieved as we find a motivation outside of ourselves, even outside of this world, to live for. The Bible explains that this insatiable thirst that we have to be connected to something bigger than this life is a desire implanted by God, who made us in his image. The New Testament author Paul said every person basically knows there is a powerful, invisible God who created the world. Each person also has a conscience, argued Paul, convicting them of right and wrong. This knowledge is left in us in order to draw us into a personal relationship with a God we must ultimately perceive as very kind. So, the Bible can be trusted because it provides relevant information to the full range of our personal needs.
That takes us to the next point—the Bible can be trusted because it touches us personally. This is because the Bible is primarily about a person.
Click here to read the final part of this series: "What is the Main Point of the Bible?"
–––
[1] James Montgomery Boice, Does Inerrancy Matter? (Oakland, CA: International Council for Biblical Inerrancy, 1979), 59.
[2] E. Schuyler English, A Companion to the New Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 26. Quoted in Boice, Standing on the Rock, 61).
[3] The NIV translates echomen bebaioteron as a passive, “made more certain.” If Peter had wished to say that he would have written echomen bebaiothenta. Instead he simply says, “We have a more certain word.”
[4] James Montgomery Boice, Does Inerrancy Matter? (Oakland, CA: International Council for Biblical Inerrancy, 1979), 21, 22.
[5] Maslow originally proposed a hierarchy of five needs (1943, 1954). Three more were later added: cognitive, aesthetic and transcendence (1970).
[6] 1. Biological and physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
- Safety needs- protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
- Love and belongingness needs- friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).
- Esteem needs- which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).
- Cognitive needs- knowledge and understanding, curiosity, exploration, need for meaning and predictability.
- Aesthetic needs- appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
- Self-actualization needs- realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire “to become everything one is capable of becoming” (Maslow, 1987, p. 64).
- Transcendence needs- A person is motivated by values which transcend beyond the personal self (e.g., mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, service to others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.).