Why Trust The Bible and You Can Too! (Part 2)

Truth sounds harsh until you realize the alternative is chaos. We start with a simple claim you’ve probably heard before: all religions are basically true. It feels inclusive, but it falls apart the moment two beliefs collide. From there, we follow the real reason the Bible keeps getting singled out, critiqued, and re-labeled as “just another sacred book” and why that move is more than academic. It reshapes how we see God, morality, and even accountability. 

We dig into one of the most repeated modern talking points about Christianity: the idea that church councils hid certain books and hand-picked the New Testament to fit an agenda. Using the framework of 2 Peter 1:20-21, we explain why the apostles and prophets are not pushing private opinions, and how the early church recognized Scripture through clear standards of authorship, doctrine, and reception. We also sort through the three categories that usually fuel the “missing books” narrative: the Apocrypha, the so-called lost books, and the later Gnostic gospels that promise secret knowledge under borrowed apostolic names. 

We then zoom out to history and preservation: thousands of New Testament manuscripts, early copies, and why skepticism about biblical texts often uses rules that are rarely applied to other ancient writings. The goal is not to win an argument but to rebuild confidence, because Scripture is meant to function like a lamp in dark places when suffering hits, doubts rise, and culture gets morally foggy. If you’ve ever wondered whether you can trust the Bible, this message is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s wrestling with doubt, and leave a review with your biggest question about the Bible’s reliability.

Transcript

The Modern Push To Discredit Scripture

A College Crisis Of Trust

Peter’s Claim About Divine Authorship

Why Church Councils Did Not Create

Three Tests For Canon Recognition

The Apocrypha And Why It Fails

The So-Called Lost Books

Gnostic Writings And Secret Knowledge Claims

Early Church Witness And The 27 Books

Manuscripts And Why Standards Change

The Holy Spirit Carries The Authors

Scripture As Lamp In Dark Days

Closing Prayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Norman Geisler was my one of my seminary professors, my apologetics professor in graduate school. He co-wrote a book with Frank Turk about 20 years ago entitled, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. In this uh book, one of Dr. Geisler's colleagues told a story of one of his seminary students who went home for Christmas break and he decided to be a little adventurous and go to a church he didn't know anything about. He'd never attended before. As soon as the pastor began his sermon, he realized he'd made a mistake because the pastor began contradicting the Bible. The pastor said, and I'm reading here, the theme of my sermon this morning is that all religious beliefs are true. He then went on to assure every member of the congregation that whatever their religious belief was, it was essentially true. When the sermon was over, the student wanted to slip out unnoticed, but the pastor was at the door bear hugging every passing congregant. And let me read, son, the pastor boomed upon greeting the student. Where are you from? Oh well, I'm from a town nearby on break from seminary. Seminary? Good. So what religious beliefs do you have? Well, I'd rather not say, sir. Well, why not, son? Well, because I don't want to offend you. Oh, son, you can't offend me. Besides, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are, they're true. So what do you believe? Okay, the student said, and he leaned forward, cupping his hand over his mouth, and whispered, I believe you're going to hell. The pastor's face turned red and he stammered, Well, I guess I made a mistake. All religious beliefs can't be true after all. Well, of course they can't be. I mean, they can all be wrong, but they can't all be true if they contradict one another. They're very core beliefs. The same argument is used today that all religious ratings are true, even though they contradict one another terribly. No answer, our world says, well, every answer is true. No answer is wrong. Which my apologetics or my my algebra teacher had the same attitude back in high school. There is a renewed attack on the reliability of the Bible in our generation. But frankly, it's true in every generation. We're not that unique. It isn't new lies. It's old lies. Just repackaged. Different professors, different cults, different isms, different beliefs. Repackaged, really the same truths or falsehoods wrapped in lies. Satan is the enemy of your soul. He is the enemy of the Bible. He's read it. He's memorized it. He quotes it. And he doesn't really attack it worldwide in the same way. In our world, especially, he just discredits it. He just distorts it. He creates doubt about it. You can do the same thing in your heart and mine as believers. If the world is successful in silencing the scriptures, most often the best way isn't to burn it. They tried that, it didn't work. It isn't to necessarily ignore it. That doesn't work well either. It's still the best-selling book every year on the planet. The best way to succeed, especially in our culture, is to pat it on the head and say, they're there, you're a nice little collection of stories that make you feel good. There are lots of other collections of stories, and I hold to some that make me feel good. They're just as sacred. The belief and the conspiracy that is occurring today is that stuff has been left out of the Bible because church leaders, church councils didn't like what it said. And we began to explore that last Lord's day. This has been incredibly effective in our generation. Let me repeat an illustration I began with because it sets the stage for what Peter's about to write. And so I want to go back and just sort of lay that foundation again. William Mounts, a New Testament Greek scholar, served as the chair of the English Standard Version, which I use. Served as a teaching pastor. Although a Greek scholar, his grammar used, I used it going through school, it's used today. He's very down-to-earth, very practical in ministry. Nearing the age of 70, he wrote a fascinating book entitled Why I Trust the Bible. And what prompted his book was something that happened decades earlier in college with a friend of his named Tim when they were both studying at uh Western Kentucky University. Tim was a leader on campus with several Christian organizations, crew, navigators. He was the president of the Baptist Student Union, a Christian leader, a young man looked up to by many. In William Mounts' sophomore year, he noticed that Tim was no longer showing up at weekly Bible studies and or even some of his classes, and he wondered if Tim had dropped out of school or maybe just too busy with all his activities. He had no idea that Tim was experiencing a crisis of faith. A crisis of trust in the Bible. Mounts writes, several months after missing him, I ran into him and I asked him where he'd been and why he'd stopped attending the Bible studies. And he proceeded to share the one of his professors and told the class that the books we had in the Bible, there were certain books that were left out, and several sacred books were left out because church leaders decided at church councils to leave them out because they didn't like what they taught. So early church councils, Tim said, I was told, kept them secret, out of the public view, so nobody'd know. And then included only the books that supported their views. Tim looked at William Mounts, Mounce writes, and said, I cannot trust the Bible anymore. And with that, he walked away from the faith. It's been 50 years since that conversation. And then as I read Mounce's book, I wondered what happened to Tim. Since he lost his trust in the Bible, I wonder where he is today. The arguments against the Bible 50 years ago are still the arguments of today. The Bible is no different than any other sacred book. Church councils hid the truth from the public. The Bible is a collection of stories made up by men, prophets, apostles, with their own personal agenda and religious motivation. Well, I want to address that subject again with the time we have. This is part two of a sermon I'm calling Why I Trust the Bible and You Can Too. We're in 2 Peter chapter 1, if you'll turn there, the Spirit of God through the Apostle Peter is anticipating these arguments 2,000 years ago. And I want to encourage you, beloved, the battle over the Bible isn't any surprise to God. Throughout the course of human history, being omnipresent omniscient, he he anticipates this and drops things into his word through his messengers, because he knows, in fact, from the very beginning of human history, this was the point of attack. This was what was whispered in the Garden of Eden to Eve. Has God really said that? I mean, do you really want to trust that? Well, Peter writes here in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 20, knowing this, first of all, this is of priority importance, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's, that is the prophet's own interpretation. In other words, the prophet wasn't making up scripture to fit his own personal belief, his own personal agenda, his own personal bias, his own personal imagination. Now, verse 21, he clarifies, for no prophecy, and that's a word that will refer to all of Scripture, none of it was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now, before I expound on the meaning of this verse, I want to go back and pick up our discussion on these common arguments that the Bible really should have included other books. This conspiracy theory is repeated to every university student. It splashes across those tabloids when you're in the grocery aisle waiting to check out. You're gonna read something from this hidden gospel that was discovered. And Mary Magdalene married Jesus and they moved to France and raised children. You're going, oh, I didn't know that. I gotta buy it. So you add it to your donuts and milk, and maybe not. It's the same old lie that when church councils met back in the second and third centuries, they decided behind closed doors what would fit our agenda, and we'll vote on those. That's just a lie. I quoted J.I. Packer last Lord's Day, who put it so well when he said that the early church no more created the New Testament than Sir Isaac Newton created gravity. Isaac Newton discovered what God had already created. And the early church, in the same manner, didn't create, craft the Bible. They simply recognized what God had created and delivered through his messengers. Now, I mentioned in our last study, and I want to say it again, because I'm hoping some of this sticks, but there were three tests used among the early believers to recognize what God had delivered through his spokesman. The first test was the test of origination or authorship. Did the apostles, did close associates of the apostles like Luke, write the New Testament letters? The test of doctrine. Does it agree with other teachings of Scripture? Or is it distorted or diluted? Is it changed? Then, third, the test of recognition. That is, did the early believers simply recognize they were receiving from the apostles what would be the word from God? And this is critically important to us to this day because conspiracy theories tend to focus on three categories of literature. And I want to give them to you. Three categories, if we could summarize it, that they say should have been included in the Bible, but they were kept out because, you know, it didn't fit. They argue that they should be included, although they fail the test of origination, doctrine, and recognition. Now these three these three categories are as follows. Let me give them to you. Number one, first, the apocrypha. The apocryphal writings. That word apocrypha is actually a Greek word. It means hidden or obscure. It was written between 400 BC and 80 100. It wasn't until the Catholic Church did in fact convene a council, but that wasn't until the Middle Ages, 1546, the Council of Trent, where they decided that the apocryphal books should be included in the Bible, and the Catholic Bibles include them to this day, and the reasons were obvious. These books written late supported Catholic teaching, such as purgatory, merit earned through good works, church traditions, rituals. The Apocrypha failed, three tests: the test of doctrine, the test of authorship, origination, and the test of recognition. The second category is referred to as the lost books. Now that just sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Sounds like you want to get one. By the way, if anybody asks you about them, shouldn't they be in the Bible? Just ask them. Did you read them? Have you read them? And the answer is usually no, and I've read from them. These books include the Book of Jubilees, which expounds on all the laws and adds all kinds of religious rituals, the books of Enoch, the ascension of Isaiah, and more. Many of these books were lost over time, appearing in little fragments, little bits of paper or papyri. They fail the test of doctrine. In other words, they disagree with truths taught throughout Scripture. They fail the test of recognition. The early church didn't keep them. God didn't preserve them. They fail the tests, such as the book of Enoch, for instance, the books of Enoch were rejected by the early church, included only by the Ethiopian church to this day. And if you've read them, and I have, most of it, you'll know that it fails the test of doctrine. Some will point out that the book of Enoch is quoted in Jude, verse 14 and 15, and it is. But that doesn't mean that Jude is endorsing the books of Enoch any more than Paul is endorsing the writings of Epimenides, the poet, whom he quotes in the book of Titus. They're simply quoting from works that they knew people were aware of. The final third category of books that supposedly have been left out of Scripture are called the Gnostic books or the Gnostic writings. They were written in the second century A.D. and later. Now, these are the writings that get the most attention out there. Like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas. I'm not sure why you'd want to read that one, but there's the Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Shepherd of Hermes, the Acts of Paul, the Epistle of Barnabas. And you read those names and you recognize them and you think, well, what do you know? They wrote something we didn't get. So maybe you ought to read it. Well, the word Gnostic is a key. It comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. The Gnostics were a group of people, a sect of people who believed that they had secret knowledge from Jesus. That a few people had been delivered secret knowledge and it was passed down. The primary recipient, by the way, of this secret knowledge was Mary Magdalene. She's always showing up in these Gnostic writings. Now it's obvious if you read them, and I've read from a number of them, that Satan, very early on, is sort of flooding the market with false teaching under the guise of some apostle's name or something that sounds biblical to confuse or dilute or deceive as many people as can be led astray. For instance, there was a forgery called 3 Corinthians. You think, well, Paul did refer to another letter we don't have. In fact, two other letters we don't have. God didn't preserve them, so this must be it. But the doctrine is different, it doesn't match what Paul taught. In fact, it was eventually discovered to be a forgery written by a church official. And he was dismissed from his office. The Gnostic books fail all three tests. The test of origination, they weren't written by the apostles or close associates. The test of doctrine. These Gnostic writings emphasize merit-based salvation, not faith, in Christ alone. Emphasizes things like fasting and good works, rituals, even prayers for the dead to release them from the torment of purgatory and other false teaching. Angelic revelations, as in the book of Enix, who believe or teaches that angels in very many ways control human destiny, delivered to mankind's secret knowledge of good and evil. And then, of course, these Gnostic writings fail the test of recognition. They were not received by the early church, they were rejected categorically. The 27 books you hold in your New Testament today pass all three tests. The church received them. And when I say the church, I mean early believers, little churches in these little towns, received them, read them, taught them, affirmed them as coming from the apostles. Go all the way back in time to a man named Polycarp. He died in 815. He knew the Apostle John personally, and he called the writings of Paul scripture, which was a key word that equates Paul's writings with the authenticity of the Old Testament. All the way back then, equal to the writings of the Old Testament. Athanasius, another leader in the church, wrote an Easter letter to his congregation where he wrote out a list of all 27 books of the New Testament, and only those 27. So by the early 4th century, you have somebody like Athanasius confirming that these are now the affirmed writings given by God through his apostles. Now you're not going to remember any of these names or dates. There's no quiz next Lord's Day. And everybody said, Amen. Okay, but here's what I want you to remember. I want you to remember that no church council determined the books of the Bible any more than Benjamin Franklin, you know, came up with electricity when he flew his kite. Simply recognized something that God had done that was unique. It was God, the creator, who would be passionately attacked then throughout history. And to this day, this book is the most critiqued, the most attacked book, beginning with verse 1. Genesis 1, verse 1. Probably the most attacked verse. There is a creator God who created the universe and mankind. One of the reasons we have what we call the doctrine of preservation is that God in his grace knew the Bible would be so attacked that he allowed to be preserved literally six, nearly six thousand manuscripts, fragments, entire books of the New Testament. Six thousand copies. Hundreds have been discovered while you and I have been alive. Compare that six thousand manuscripts to two hundred and fifty manuscripts of Plato's writings. No university. Professor today is out there trying to discredit Plato. Oh, he didn't write that. That's not his. Those are made up. I'll give you another illustration. Homer wrote the Iliad back in 900 BC. Between the date that he wrote it and the first manuscript discovered, there is a gap of 500 years. We have an entire copy of the New Testament, the Sinaiticus, that is dated 250 years after the apostles. A 500-year gap between Homer and the first manuscript. Is there anybody out there who denies or doubts that Homer wrote the Iliad or the Odyssey? You can get a PhD today in how and in what manner Homer wrote those writings. Nobody doubts it. Yet today, when we began to study 2 Peter, you can't imagine all the stuff I waded through that denies, doubts, discredits that Peter even wrote it. Oh, he used a word in here that he didn't use in 1 Peter. He obviously didn't write it. You can't believe the stuff you pay me to read as I prepare to teach. Even though church leaders quote what Peter wrote within 50 years of his death, oh, he couldn't have written that. Why such animosity? Why do the rules change when it comes to the Bible? Why the doubts? Because this book is not just any book. If it is true that there is a creator God who created the universe and mankind, and delivered to mankind a moral law and will hold mankind accountable to his gospel. And those who deny it will go to hell, and those who believe it will go to heaven. Well, then we must attack this book. At best cast doubt. Let's not deny that Peter existed. Let's not deny that Peter wrote something. Let's just say he was making it up. That he had an agenda, that God had nothing to do with it, that this is just one more sacred writing. Right up there with the Bhagavad Gita and the Quran and the Book of Mormon. Just one more. With that, we should have even a greater appreciation for what Peter declares here in 2 Peter 1, verse 21. Here's what he's saying. You have to decide whether it's true or not, you're going to believe it or not. I'm telling you, your eternal destiny will be determined by it. 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 uses the language here of the sea, a ship sailing. Without wind, a sailing ship is stranded. It cannot move. It moves when the sails are filled with something outside the ship itself. And in this metaphor, that something is someone, the person of the Holy Spirit. So the prophets and the apostles were the ships, and the Holy Spirit was the wind. Which tells us the prophets and apostles weren't secretaries taking dictation. They weren't mindless creatures. They weren't in some ecstatic state where they received something from God, like Muhammad supposedly was as he received much of the Quran. Now the Spirit of God used these willing messengers. They had to raise their sails, so to speak. They were obedient, open, receptive. And yet you find then that the Spirit of God uses their personalities, uses their experiences, uses their vocabularies, their passions, their desires, their interests, and then superintended their writing so that you have a collaboration guided by God's Spirit in the writing of his word. The Greek word Peter uses, by the way, for carried along is the word Pharaoh, which gives us our word fairy. Not the kind of fairy that my five-year-old granddaughter pretends to be when she runs through the house, you know, sprinkling magic dust everywhere. She rides through the living room on a unicorn that I'm supposed to be able to see. Papa, do you see it? And I say, I see it. I see it. I'm lying. I'm disqualified from ministry whenever she comes over. Lying like a rug. Not that kind of ferry. This is F-E-R-R-Y. This is the ferry that you drive your car up on and it takes you across the lake. In this sense, all the writers of Scripture have come aboard the ferry. They're all different automobiles, one author writes. They're all different colors, shapes, they have different features, but they have one distinctive message. The Holy Spirit is the captain of the ferry, and he makes sure that they all land together at his port of call. He doesn't push all the cars off into the lake and say, I can do this without you. He could. He could have written every New Testament book, dropped it from the sky on tapas of stone, like he provided the Ten Commandments to Moses. He didn't. He chose to collaborate in this grand plan of his, collaborating with his redeemed. And he does that to this day in a number of different ways. Not a comma. But he collaborates in many ways. And then he tells us to go build it. You go win them, disciple them, sacrifice, build buildings. You do it. He said that he alone, by his goodness, can bring people to repentance. And then he alone opens their eyes to the truth of the gospel. But then he tells us how are they going to believe in me if they've never heard about me? You go tell them. Let's collaborate. He tells us in his word that unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain to build it on your own. But then he gives instruction on marriage and what a husband and wife ought to do and be, you do it. So the apostles are co-laboring in this mystery. God isn't using robots or dictation machines. They're real people. That's why Peter emphasizes, in fact, in the Greek text, men is emphasized. Men whom God used to do this. Let me give you an example. The writer of Hebrews says in chapter 4 and verse 7 that Psalm 95 was written by David. A chapter earlier, chapter 3, verse 7, the writer quotes from Psalm 95, but begins it by writing, this is what the Holy Spirit says. So who wrote Psalm 95? David or the Holy Spirit? And the answer is yes. Both. In this mysterious collaboration, the Holy Spirit is guiding David, but David's out there sweating over every phrase. That didn't rhyme with this. I want to use this. I want to use an acrostic. I like this word better than that word. And yet behind it is the divine poet who's guiding him, protecting him, so that we have David transported, as it were, to the destination God wants. One author put it this way: each word in the Bible is the word of a conscious human author, and at the same time the exact word that God intended for the revelation of Himself and His Word. I like to use the word words of God. You have in your lap the words of God. Every word matters. Don't forget, as we began in our first study, Peter reminds us that this word is like a lamp. It's guiding you through life. I hope our study and my prayer is that this will give you not only greater trust in the Word of God, but a greater appreciation of the lamplight to get into it, to study it. I received an email just a few weeks ago written by a man in our church family. He and his wife have spent several years going through one cancer treatment after another. They are heroes to me. He has spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms, doctor's office waiting rooms while his wife is being treated. And he wrote this to me. He said, Over the years I've forged some meaningful relationships. But I have observed more recent trends that concern me. I used to see more patients coming in with Bibles. Now, they might be reading Scripture on their phones, but I see fewer copies of Scripture. I see fewer people visibly praying. Even elderly individuals who come in for treatment, they carry books on happiness or motivational optimism. They will make references to me of the stars aligning for them, or what their horoscope predicted on how the day would unfold. I cannot imagine facing what they're facing, what I'm facing, my wife, without Christ. Without the word of God, the emptiness would be overwhelming. And I want to be a spiritual light in settings like these, where there is so much darkness. This book is a lamp to your feet. Especially when everything is difficult or dark or discouraging. It tells you to keep going. Wouldn't it be great to have six-year-olds just telling you over and over and over again, keep going, keep going? I wondered how many moms are going, okay, thank you. I will. I'll keep going. Keep going. Peter added the statement remember, the Bible is a lamp, it's guiding you through murky. A word used for swamps, through the swamp. And it's getting murkier and more murky. I read the results of a survey just yesterday where more people are condemning or opposed to plastic straws than they are abortion and euthanizing elderly people. The writer said people have rejected the word of God and the value of life provided by God's word, and now you can have an unborn baby aborted, your elderly demented mother euthanized, but consider yourself a good citizen because you use a straw made of bamboo instead of plastic. How confused today. We're out of time, but you can trust the Bible. We're gonna, by the way, we're not done yet. This one sermon is turning into three, but next Lord's Day. I want to talk about how the Bible creates trouble for you. And uh God said it would. But you can trust the Bible. It is it is God's illuminating light on how to live a life that satisfies Him. And here's the thought I want to leave you with. When you live a life that satisfies God, you will live a life that satisfies you. Pray with me. Thank you, Father, for the delivery of the superintending, the guiding, the preserving word. We thank you for what we can learn from history. We thank you for the affirmation provided by early believers who with great joy received a letter from Paul or Peter, James, John, and they knew that you were speaking through these men. With precision, consistency, authority, and here we are, Father. Two thousand years closer to seeing your son, the living word, who spoke the worlds into existence. Your son, the creating agent who breathed into Adam, who breathed out Scripture. We look forward one day to being taught by you. And I can only anticipate you opening this word which you told us is settled forever in heaven. How great that will be to have you point out this and that. Relate it to our lives and the verse we read in some morning devotion that just became applied that afternoon. What a mystery. Something we learned today will be used tomorrow in some conversation. Thank you for giving us your word.