Why I Trust the Bible and You Can Too Part 1

A single lecture in a college classroom can shake someone’s faith for years. We start with a story that hits close to home: a respected Christian student hears that the “wrong books” made it into the Bible, the “real books” were hidden, and church power plays invented the faith. His conclusion is blunt and painful: he no longer trusts the Bible, and he walks away. That moment sets up the big question we tackle head-on: is the Bible a human document shaped by agendas, or a trustworthy Word from God?

From there, we open 2 Peter 1 and follow Peter’s response to the accusation that Scripture is myth. He points to what he saw and heard at the Transfiguration, then he goes further and calls the prophetic Word “more fully confirmed” than even his unforgettable experience. We slow down over 2 Peter 1:20–21 to clarify what it actually means: not that regular people are forbidden to read or interpret the Bible, but that the message did not originate in human will. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, which is why Christians speak about biblical inspiration, authority, and reliability.

We also get practical about why you can trust the Bible’s credibility, walking through evidence like New Testament manuscript support, archaeology, internal unity across centuries, and the Bible’s record of prophetic accuracy. Then we address the canon question with clarity, including why the Council of Nicaea did not choose the 27 books of the New Testament and how early believers recognized what God had already given. We close with two heart-level reminders: we love the Bible because we love its Author, and we want more than information, we want real transformation.

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Transcript

Setting Up The Trust Question

SPEAKER_00 0:26

William Mounza, a Greek scholar, New Testament Greek scholar, served as the chair for the translation committee of the New Testament for the English Standard Version. I was asked last week what Bible I use. I use the English Standard Version. William is a true Greek scholar, a believer, served as a teaching pastor, also very practical in his approach to ministry. After having taught for several decades, nearing the age of 70, he wrote a fascinating little book that I've enjoyed reading entitled Why I Trust the Bible. You might want to pick up a copy, Why I Trust the Bible. Now, what prompted this book was something that troubled him way back in his college days, where he was studying at Western Kentucky University, and one of his friends by the name of Tim was a leader, a Christian young man, leading in crew and in navigators. He was also the president of the Baptist Student Union. Very well looked up to, admired as a believer. In Williams' sophomore year, he noticed that Tim was not coming to any of the Bible studies and wondered, and then he didn't see even some of the classes and wondered even if he'd dropped out of school, or maybe he was just too busy with all of his activities. He had no idea that Tim was experiencing a crisis of faith, a crisis that revolved around trust in the Bible. Mounds writes, I ran into Tim several months later and I asked where he'd been and why he'd stopped attending crew and navigators. And he proceeded to share that one of his professors had told his class that the books we have in the Bible are not necessarily the right ones. He taught that several sacred books had been left out, others included, because church leaders, church councils didn't like what these books taught. So early church councils and leaders kept certain books secret out of the public eye. And included only the books that supported their views. Tim looked at William and he said, I no longer trust the Bible. And with that, he walked away from the faith. Mounds writes how he's observed over the decades, and I would agree over these 40 years of ministry that supposed supposed scholars who are really nothing more than skeptics who want to destroy the faith, especially those in college, like New Testament pseudo-scholar Bart Ehrman, who just retired, by the way, from teaching at the University of North Carolina, just down the street. Glad he's retired, although the effects will last a long time. An agnostic, he taught for a time at Moody Bible Institute, a graduate of Wheaton, and so everybody kind of viewed him as, oh, you came out of that world and now you've seen the light. And he made hay out of that perspective. But Ehrman, like others, have the same arguments. They argued that the Bible is a human document. The belief that Jesus, the views about Jesus sort of evolved over time, carefully constructed by these secret councils and church leaders. These are common arguments. Jesus was just another prophet. The Bible is no different than any other sacred writing, the books of the Bible selected carefully to support this patriarchal, male-oriented church governance. The Bible was selected in its book selections to promote a narrow view of morality. The Bible is not the product of God, it is the product of man. That's exactly what I want to deal with today. Next Lord's Day, also, Lord willing. I want to simply call our study why I believe the Bible is true and why you can too. Just as simply as I can. Why I trust the Bible and you can too. Now the subject has become center stage because these arguments, by the way, are as old as the Apostle Peter. He was dealing with them 2,000 years ago, primarily over the Old Testament. Same arguments over the New. He's going to address head-on this primary accusation that the Bible is a man-made collection of fairy tales and myths. So open your copy of Peter's second letter. We're in chapter 1, where we have been since the dawn of time. We're now at verse 20. Now, while you're turning, if you're new to our study, Peter's been accused of teaching the myths and fairy tales. His defense is twofold, and we began on packaging that defense. First, the first exhibit is what he saw, what he heard on the Mount of Transfiguration, where he saw the glory of Christ brilliantly emanating from the body of Jesus, turning everything white. He heard the voice from heaven that declared the deity of Christ and pulled from Psalm 2 that Jesus would be the returning king of the kingdom of light. So this is what he saw. This is what he heard. Now Peter knew that people could easily say, Well, you know, I didn't go up that mountain with you, so I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything, so I'm not buying it. Well, Peter knew that his experience would be insufficient, and any experience is insufficient. But Peter's not finished. He moves to exhibit number two, his second defense. He's convinced that Jesus is the king of a coming kingdom, not just because of what he's seen and what he's heard, but because of what we all have to read. He says next, verse 19, let's dive back in there. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. In other words, we have a more stable, more sure foundation to stand upon than any experience, including my experience, amazing as that was. And I pointed out in our last study that Peter didn't keep running back to that. He didn't keep taking us back there. He only mentioned it one time, the Mount of Transfiguration. James never mentioned it, John mentioned it once. We have this more sure, more fully confirmed prophetic word. This stable, solid defense of our faith. So Peter writes on in verse 19, you will do well to pay attention, that is, to this book, as to a lamp shining in a murky, a dark place. That word is used by New Testament writers or early century writers for a swamp until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. In other words, the world is a confused, murky swamp. God's word will guide you through the swamp until the light of Christ's dawn, like the sunrise, returns to earth, sets up his kingdom. Now, with that, Peter anticipates somebody saying, Yeah, okay, I hear you, but you know, all that prophecy stuff, well, that's just a collection of interpretations from well-meaning people. I'm sure we'd like them, I'm sure they're nice, but it was their own imagination. It came from their own will. They made it up because they read the room. Well, Peter anticipates that argument too. So he moves further into the second defense, verse 20, knowing this, first of all, of primary importance, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. It's not from them. It's sourced outside of them through them. Now, taken out of context, this might sound like we're we're being told not to privately or personally interpret the Bible. A clearer translation would read, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. Peter actually isn't even talking about interpretation, he's talking about inspiration, the source. Did the prophets make up their own prophecies based on personal interpretations? Did they write down their own personal feelings? Did they read the room and think, well, this will be a bestseller? I'll write this one down. Well, the next verse, it settles that here. Verse 21, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Peter isn't forbidding personal study, devotions, interpreting the scriptures, applying them. He's verifying that the prophecy of Scripture wasn't made up by the prophet's personal agenda. It came from God. They took verse 20 out of context and used it to deny anybody the ability to interpret Scripture on their own. Back in those days, the medieval days, leading up to the Reformation in the 16th century, Bibles were printed in Latin. Nobody could read them anyway, and they were often chained to pulpits. Only church leaders had the right to interpret. Only the church had the right to interpret scripture. And ordinary people like you and me were way off the rail track to even be meeting today and be interpreting the Bible together like this. We're erring. Well, this is what got Martin Luther in so much trouble. He's a monk in the 16th century. He's sent to the University of Edinburgh to teach. He's teaching his students through the book of Romans, and he becomes a Christian. He comes to understand the gospel that it is not merited, it is not earned, it is a gift. Justification by faith alone. So he starts teaching then a gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone. No verses anywhere, as he points out, on purgatory, on the exaltation of Mary, praying to saints. And he just keeps on teaching, and the more he teaches, the more trouble he's getting into. And it starts causing major trouble. Eventually, if you're newer in the faith, you might not be aware that he's called into the highest court in Germany to defend the audacity of interpreting Scripture for himself. Especially when it went against church councils and papal decrees. And at that trial, he makes that famous statement that unless he is convinced by sacred scripture, he is bound in his conscience to what it says. And he will not recant. Well, out of that trial comes the beginning of a protesting movement, a Protestant Reformation. And it's based on a call to personal study and personal interpretation and application. In fact, one of the first statements of this movement 500 years ago that caught on with the public was this slogan. It was a rather dramatic, a rather daring slogan. It simply said, sola scriptura. Maybe you've seen that somewhere before. It meant that the final authority that governs the conscience and the life of the believer is the scriptures. That was radical. I mean, we we kind of take it for granted. That was radical. It was actually life-threatening. So he's hidden away after that trial. And Martin Luther begins another radical step by translating the New Testament into German. Well, let me tell you, the Apostle Peter is no less radical. In fact, the scripture started it all. He's defending the gospel against the powerhouse religions, the pantheon of the Roman Empire. They think he's out of his mind. Against Judaism, which is the prevailing view of his world. He's going against all of that. And he's saying we're going to defend the gospel on the basis of an inspired, reliable word from God that we did not make up. Verse 21 again. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. That word prophecy is a categorical term, the word of prophecy for the Old Testament. And it will come to apply to the New Testament, canon. God is the author, the Holy Spirit is the superintendent of the process of inspiration, which means then that God's word is infallible and inerrant. Yes, there are difficult passages. Have you studied the Bible? Yes, there are discrepancies that are quickly pointed out by skeptics, but discrepancies are not errors, especially as it relates to the eyewitness accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read those and you might see some of those. Eyewitnesses can focus on one aspect of an event, and another eyewitness can focus on another aspect of an event. And thus in the Gospels, the rule of thumb is to combine them and get the fullest account. I mean imagine, okay, let's suppose you're a police officer and you arrive at the scene of an accident, and there are three witnesses. And the first eyewitness says, I saw that blue car hit that red car in the middle of the intersection. Okay? The second eyewitness says, Yeah, but it was that yellow car that ran the red light that made that blue car hit the red car. Then a third eyewitness says, Well, yeah, but the red car stalled in the middle of the intersection. And when the yellow car ran the red light, it hit the blue car, which made the blue car hit the red car. So what are you gonna do? Well, just throw them all in jail. That's that's my verdict. No, you understand that they focused on something another eyewitness didn't focus on. So you put it together. So it wasn't a wrist-occurring once, but twice. It wasn't one mad man of Goder, it was two. It wasn't one angel in the empty tomb, it was two. So you take them together, and what Peter says here is that you take all of Scripture and know that it comes from the mind of God. In our next session, next Lord's Day, Lord willing, I want to talk about this idea of the Holy Spirit carrying these men along, how we can trust the Bible, and how that he teaches us today. But for now, and I and I realize I'm gonna throw a lot of stuff at you, and you need to write it all down because I'm gonna quiz you next Lord's Day. But uh, I'm gonna, the hard thing is to know, and the prayerful thing on my account is to know what not to say, because there's so much. But let me give you some approaches to establishing the reliability of the Bible. Very quickly, I'm gonna give you seven of them. Number one, manuscript evidence. Thousands of manuscripts attest to the reliability and authenticity of the scriptures. Manuscripts that have even been discovered in your lifetime and mine. Even the way the Ford Gospel writers write the name of Jesus Christ, abbreviating, only they do that. No other supposed gospel writer does, uniquely. Secondly, there's archaeological data. I frankly love archaeology. If you haven't watched any of those videos by one of our adjunct professors, Joel Kramer, the Expedition Bible, you ought to get hooked on it. He'll take you to the land and show you how the Word of God is just proven by that spade, that archaeological discovery. Old Testament events, cities, names of rulers, nations. Third, the Bible provides scientific and medicinal prevision. In other words, when the Bible makes a statement that is scientific or medical or related to geology, oftentimes it's proven centuries later. Like how does rain release from the clouds? It told us. Like the fact that there are currents in the ocean and air, it told us. Like even warnings about sexually transmitted diseases, it told us. And on and on. Even what happens to your internal organs when you're envious. Fourth, you have this incredible scriptural harmony. The Bible is a collection of books written over the course of 1,500 years by at least 40 authors living in different nations. Two of us, if we tried to deliver a message, we wouldn't agree. Ten of us, we'd really go off. Forty? Living a thousand years apart, no chance. Amazing harmony and unity all pointing, all agreeing. Fifth, the testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus validates the Old Testament. Quotes often from it is the word from God. Sixth, the uniqueness of Scripture. This is the only sacred book that claims there's only one way to heaven. A lot of religions will tell you there are a lot of ways there. In fact, any way you choose will get you there. Well, if there are all these paths going up the mountain to God, just ask them. Well, when I get up there, which God is it? Is it the God of the Bible? Or your God? Because they're different. You have seventh, the prophetic accuracy of scripture. Somebody wrote that it'd take 400 pages alone just to record all the predictions of the Bible. And true prophecy never gets it wrong. True prophets were not nine out of ten. I thought about as I'm studying this, and along this line, I thought of Jean Dixon. You're too young to know who she was, but she was a famous psychic who, you know, sort of the psychic for the rich and famous. She steered Nancy Reagan, the president's wife, in scheduling events for her husband. She made all kinds of predictions, many of them so generic, just about anybody could say them, and they'd come true. But the world gave her a free uh pass on specific predictions that did not come true because of one that she made, and that was a prediction in 1958 that the Democratic women. Of the 1960 presidential election would die in office. Now she predicted the winner would be Richard Nixon. He was probably trembling in his boots. He didn't win. Never mind that. John F. Kennedy did. And three years later he died. Assassinated. Well, that prediction catapulted her to fame and fortune. And over the course of her decades of predictions, most of them failing to come true, everybody just sort of ignored that. Like, for instance, she predicted that World War III would begin in 1958, the Soviet Union would put the first man on the moon, that cancer would be cured by 1967, that she predicted then that the world would end, be destroyed by a nuclear war in 2020. The world would end in 2020. She died in 1997, 23 years before the world did not end. Well, let me tell you, if one prediction about the first coming of Christ, if one prophecy was shown to be wrong in the Bible, it would all be discarded. And that's why they keep going back to try to find something and they can't do it. I mean, if Micah chapter 5, verse 2 had prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Rome rather than in Bethlehem, what do you think the world would be saying? He was wrong, done, case closed. But do they ever stop to think that, wow, Micah was right hundreds of years ago on where the Messiah would be born? This little village of Bethlehem. Peter is going to emphasize in this letter that the prophecies of the Lord's second coming are going to come true because the skeptics are saying there's no way that's going to happen. And he's here already pointing back to the fact that scriptures have been correct. Now, I want to pull over on the side of the road even a little further here and address a question that comes up often. If you talk to unbelievers or maybe skeptics, they might say something like, Well, why do we have the books of the Bible that we do have? Were some excluded, were some secreted away because it didn't agree? Who decided? What would be in the canon of Scripture? That word canon means measuring stick. It's not referring to ammunition on a pirate ship. That's not the canon it's talking about. It means rule. It means it measured up to this standard of inspiration to be included in the Bible. So what was the measuring stick? Well, there were three tests given in the early decades of the church to define and determine the canon of Scripture, primarily the New Testament. Let me give you them very quickly. The first test was the test of origination. In other words, who wrote them? Who authored them? Were they written by prophets and apostles, God's spokesmen? And that was critical because forgeries were already circulating while Paul the Apostle is still alive. In fact, he refers to one of them in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 that a letter supposedly coming from me has already been read that says the tribulation has already started. And Paul is going to argue that it hasn't started. There's something that's going to take place first called the rapture. That letter wasn't from him. So was it written by an apostle? Did it originate from that apostolic community, a close friend of an apostle, like Dr. Luke, who wrote the book of Acts and the Gospel of Luke, who traveled with the Apostle Paul? More than likely to keep him as healthy as possible. Here's the second test: the test of recognition. This asks the question: was it received by the believers? When they read it, did they just intuitively know this is the word of God? Did they universally recognize these letters as from God's appointed messengers? Did they welcome them? What did they say about other passages? Well, you have Paul quoting from Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke, combining them into one verse and calling them both Scripture. You have Peter referring to the letters of Paul, calling it Scripture. That's inspired word from God. One of the popular arguments you're going to hear out there is that Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, which he convened in the fourth century, got everybody together, and that council voted on what books would be in the New Testament. Beloved, that's a flat lie. I don't know what a round lie is, but that's a flat lie. It's a flat lie. The Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea did not decide on the 27 books of the New Testament. In fact, it wasn't even the topic of their conversation. They were battling the heresy of Arius that produced Arianism, repackaged in Mormonism, that Jesus was not fully God. He was exalted as a man to godhood. They dealt with that. And the Council of Nicaea produced this creed, the Nicene Creed, that said that Jesus was fully God and fully man. It wouldn't be until the 16th century that you would have a council convened to decide on books of the Bible. And that council brought in the apocryphal books, I'll talk more about them next Lord's Day, and included them in the Bible, and they are still in the Catholic Bible. And that was rather convenient because those late written apocryphal books exalted Mary, proved the existence of purgatory, and other false teaching. Now, here's what I want you to remember. You're going to forget everything else, but I want you to remember this. The early church never determined the books of the Bible. Church councils and church leaders did not form the Bible. The early church recognized the Bible and universally received it from the spokesman. They trusted as prophets and apostles. I like the way J.I. Packer just made it so simple. He wrote this the church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us gravity. God gave us gravity. So you have the test of origination, you have the test of reception, and finally the test of doctrine. What do these books teach? Do they agree with other books of the Bible? Do they teach the same gospel? Do they point to the same Redeemer? Do they deliver the same plan of salvation? The Bible that you hold in your hand passed all three tests. Confirmed by the early believers, and I'll give you more information about what early church fathers gave as they listed out even the books that you have in the New Testament early on in the second century. And I just want to say that what you hold in your hand is entirely unique. There will be people who will say to you, yeah, but there are other sacred scriptures. And I would ask them, have you read them? And the answer would be no. I have. And I can tell you they are entirely different than what you have in your hand. They're not similar in any way, shape, or form. This sacred scripture is the only one that begins with the creation of the universe by the word of God and ends with the recreation of the universe by the word of God. This is the only sacred scripture that offers a realistic view of sin and then the promise of forgiveness. You don't have to be an expert in world religions, and I'm certainly not. I have read from their sacred writings, I haven't read all of them, but I know enough to know that whenever I talk to a Hindu or a Buddhist or Muslim or whatever it is, or Jewish individual, I'm going to take them to the same point. What are you doing about your sin? Because every human heart knows they're a sinner. And I know their religion offers them no hope of forgiveness. And I've often had them hang their head and say, You're right. What I believe gives me no security that my sins are forgiven. This is the only sacred text that offers salvation as a free gift. This is the only sacred text that has a God taking on flesh to die out of love for the sins of the human race. You've got a unique word from God. Now let me close with two practical reminders. Number one, we're not just following the Bible. We want to follow its divine author. We love the Bible, but we're not in love with the Bible, so to speak. We're in love with the author. When I was dating Marcia, uh I represented the university, the Christian university in my junior year and in a singing group, and and uh I would preach at high school assemblies, and God used that to take me from being a history teacher into being a teacher of the greatest history book on the planet, the Bible. Well, Marsha had my itinerary, and so she knew where I would be, and she'd write a letter and she'd send it ahead. And when I'd get to that church or that school, the principal or the pastor would hand me a letter from her. Man, I love those letters. Letters are things you write on pieces of paper, you fold and you put in an envelope, and then Marcia would sometimes put her perfume on the flap of that envelope, and I'd just smell it. Oh my. If you haven't had that experience, you haven't had a happy courtship. But at any rate, I wasn't in love with the letters. I mean, that would be weird. Even though I'm smelling for an hour the letter in some corner. I was in love with the author who gave me the letter. And that's what we're doing. We love the Word of God, but we love it because we love the author, and it leads us to Him. Secondly, we're not just wanting biblical information, we're desiring holy transformation. We don't grow spiritually by learning more stuff, more facts. You ever thought about the fact that Satan knows the Bible? He knows it well. He is a biblical scholar. In fact, when he tempts Jesus, three times he quotes from the Bible. He's evidently got a Bible memory program going on. But Satan is stunted forever in unholiness because while he knows the Bible, he does not love the author. He will not submit to the author or the teaching. He has the information, but there is no transformation. So let me put it this way in summary. We need scriptural information that we can trust. But we offer to God submissive resignation. And God's Spirit brings about significant transformation as we grow in Christ. So when you approach the scriptures, you don't approach as a skeptic, you approach as a student. You approach as a submissive servant. Thus saith the Lord, therefore I shall obey. More next time on the subject as to why I trust the Bible, and you can too.