Why Trust the Bible?

Dear world,

people outside of the covenant see Christians submitting their everything to the Bible as silly.

Their categories for imagining why we ever would are limited to something like us merely finding a primitive dictionary from three thousand years ago and holding staunchly to its arcane definitions for hardly any practical modern reasons. Phrases like “why take some book’s word for it” or my favorite, “that’s just some Bronze Age mysticism” or, “I don’t believe just cause some book says so” abound. By words we dismiss words. As if words are not able to communicate what we’re sure our words could in the adverse if everyone would just agree with us in their words. Phrases like this are not new there are just more mouths on earth today to say it, and more avenues for us all to hear it. All the while, of course, people saying these things console themselves that though they may not have it all right they’re covered under whatever god may exist for being humble enough to affirm the one remaining modern universal axiom that all who don’t hurt people are right by the sacrament of affirming all are right unless one thinks they alone are right, and they’d never do such a thing so they’re surely good in whatever’s eyes. Most people are just worshipping themselves today and the proof of it is how remarkably malleable and similar their god is to themselves (likes, dislikes, modes of operation, standards, etc.). Their god never really disagrees with them (hint: cause they ain’t got one). They claim God speaks to them outside of the Bible all the time. They’ll get upset if you “twist” their words (thus operating based upon a non-interpretive/objective platform), but feel at liberty to twist St. Paul’s or St. John’s words (x38 harmonious others) without qualm.

I ultimately understand why they cannot relate to our views of the Bible. Many reading this little blurb from me here do not submit to the Bible as if it were truly God speaking though over four thousand times in it its 40+ authors claim God is speaking through them over that 1.5+ millennia years in a prophetic inspiration that’s probability numbers can only be barely reflected by ones such as each fraction of each penny in our national debt x two million billion. The Bible isn’t just like what your grandma says. It isn’t just smart sayings. It’s a narrative addressing everything about everyone from before our start through eternity. It isn’t just about you having a “personal relationship with Jesus.” Believe me, everyone has a “personal relationship with Jesus”. He’s an intimate judge, or Savior, knowing everything about everyone reading this. One must be born again of the Holy Spirit (God) to esteem the word either properly or fully. I understand this. If God has not granted one repentance and Faith then they do not have life. Only living people truly submit to the Bible (meaning their lives and ideas conform to God’s evidently and over time). Only living people even can do this to the end. God is the God of the living. He makes dead people live. Dead people will not be able by nature to hear God himself in Peter’s words, or Jude’s, or Luke’s, etc., because they can’t. Their own words are too loud. The Apostle(s) and Prophet(s) (plural) did not speak for themselves, dear reader. This wasn’t one lone man in a cave, one rich prince under a tree, one smiling bald guy in a toga, one crowned pompous fellow in a vestment, one woman in an ugly black gown, one group with the inside scoop of who’s actually behind a comet, or one confused boy in a forest able to convince enough people that they’ve heard from and speak for God. This isn’t governmental factors simply culminating in one view winning out of all the others because one view had an army to back it up. This is the history of a nation (a doubting one even) that was approached by God tied up in its revelation to all nations given over 1,500+ years with millions of witnesses before the true and main witness (Jesus) even showed up. These mere external factors will not and cannot cause someone to submit to the Bible, but they’re incontrovertible in the demonstration of the uniqueness of the Bible alone in human history. God’s wounds alone speak to our wounds. Period. The preaching of the gospel (the Christ’s Cross) itself is how God produces his harvest. The only reason I submit to the Bible today is because God chose me to. My phone was at 97% when I started writing this. It’s now at 36%. I have to leave my house. Anyway. I have been granted the life which sees these things.

When the Christian reads Scripture it’s how the Lord speaks to his church. Since a specific and most monumental Pentecost (circa AD 30) the current church was delivered to the world. By AD 386 we’d all been granted access (subject to education and technology) to the same dinner table of revelation. All the while the gospel has been being spread. God does not speak in lil private revelations to people like good angels on one shoulder. He has delivered a sufficient and literally inexhaustible depth of revelation in the 66 books of the Bible whereby Christians of all languages, generations and nations now dine at the same glorious banquet or truth. That feast’s bill of fare will never run out because of its ever-living MC. When a Christian reads God’s word they are communing with their Creator and Savior. This leads to two way communication. He is conversing directly with them and it is directly applicable to each diverse life in a way utterly unlike any other supposed revelations. A person alienated from the covenant of grace reads it like a dictionary; a person of the covenant is literally sustained by it like one’s daily food and water intake.

2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” A Christian in Swahili professes this truth audibly very differently yet our mutual God and our Savior speaks to us both daily. Christianity is not a western religion. It has changed the west. For a short time we appreciated that.

Nonetheless, reader, repent. Turn from sin to Christ. Soberly consider God’s righteous legal standard to condemn you (the Commandments) as evidence, and look to the Cross as the means by which he has chosen to save so many, perhaps you today. Repent and put your trust wholly and solely in Christ. Get to know what it means to do so in your local church. Be converted and learn to seek him in his word. You’ll only do the latter if God via the gospel has granted you the former. Flowers understand why they need water even though they don’t need to. John’s gospel (the 4th New Testament book/back side of the Bible) has served many as a great introduction to Scripture’s main theme- Jesus, the one we call The Christ.

Come and welcome to Jesus Christ!