Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Tonight’s Study, Session 2: The Bible

Introduction: A study about the core beliefs of Christianity must begin with God’s Word. If we picture these beliefs as ten pillars, then God’s Word is the first pillar we must look at, because it is the one that informs us about the other nine. The nine core beliefs that follow will involve some extraordinary claims – claims far more consequential and profound than anything we could ever imagine. Each of these claims invites a simple yet essential question:

     God the Father is omniscient; He knows everything. Says who?

     After His crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead. Says who?

     Everyone who believes in Jesus will have eternal life. Says who?

In each case, the answer is God’s Word. Or, to put it more musically, “The Bible tells me so.” Virtually everything we know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, humanity and sin, salvation, the church, Christlikeness, angels and demons, and end times is found in God’s Word. It’s the basis of every theological claim of Christianity. It’s also the source of personal transformation. Properly understood, the Bible changes our lives.

In architectural terms, God’s Word is a load-bearing pillar. If even one of the pillars is unsound, if there are any cracks in its makeup, the entire structure becomes suspect. So our first order of business is to test the strength and integrity of Scripture. Can we trust God’s Word to hold up our Christian beliefs? Is it something we can put our faith in? Is the Bible true?

Why We Can trust the Bible

If you’re like most people, you probably have some questions about the Bible. You may be wondering, “What proof do we have the events in the Bible actually happened?” Or, “Are there errors and contradictions in the Bible?”

Answering these questions requires a deep dive into what makes the Bible unique and sets it apart from every other book, including religious texts, such as the Qur’an and the Book of Mormon, that also claim to be the Word of God. Let’s start by looking at three reasons we can trust the Bible.

The Bible is Inspired

Thomas Edison famously said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” The apostle Peter famously said the Bible is 100 percent inspiration.

2 Peter 1:21 – for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Peter and other Bible writers didn’t think, What this world really needs is a Bible, and we’re just the people to create it. Instead, they wrote as they were prompted by God – as they were “moved by the Holy Spirit.” The human writers never initiated the writing of Scripture. They were completely dependent on the Lord’s inspiration.

Inspiration, in this context, refers to the supernatural process God used to communicate His message through human beings without error. As 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” The Greek word translated as “inspired” literally means “God breathed,” and it illustrates as the direct manner in which God worked. God spoke the universe into existence in Genesis 1, and He breathed the Bible into existence in the minds of those who wrote it.

God originated the message in every word of the Bible. He poured that message through the personalities of the writers. He used the emotional outbursts of King David, the angry rebukes of Moses, and the systematic reasoning of Paul to deliver His message. The message was recognizably God’s, while the writing styles were recognizably the authors’.

God’s guiding hand prevented the original writers from making any mistakes when they penned the words of Scripture. That’s how fallible people were able to produce an infallible Bible.

The theological belief that every Bible writer was supernaturally inspired and directed by God is bolstered by the second of the Bible’s unique features: its unity.

The Bible is Unified

If you’ve ever had to do a group project, you know how challenging it can be to get a roomful of people with diverse personalities and experiences to complete a single assignment. Imagine having to do a group project with forty people from all over the world, before the invention of the internet, over the span of 1500 years! How do you think that project would turn out?

The Bible is most successful group project in history – one that was directed by God Himself. Moses, the first named writer, began work on the first five books (Pentateuch)of the Old Testament around 1440 BC. The apostle John wrote the last book of the Bible around AD 95.

The 40 different authors who recorded and composed God’s message were a diverse lot. Moses was a political leader. David was a shepherd boy who became a king. Solomon was a king. Luke was a doctor. Paul was a Pharisee. Peter was a fisherman. Each writer had his own personality, his own perspective on the world, and his own peculiarities. This diverse cast of characters composed the Bible in a variety of locations spread across some two thousand miles, from Babylon to Jerusalem to Rome. Scripture was written in settings that included deserts, cities, and dungeons. The writers didn’t stick to one literary style. They wrote history, law, poetry, allegory, biography, personal correspondence, prophecy, and apocalyptic literature. With so many moving pieces and so many variables factoring into its creation, there’s no earthly reason for the Bible to function as one organic book – a unified whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Yet it does. The ties that bind the Bible together are unmistakable. The themes of sin and redemption, justice and grace, faith and forgiveness begin in Genesis and weave their way through the entire narrative, all the way to the end of Revelation.

The only explanation for such unity in a book that was composed under such varied circumstances is that a divine author oversaw the final product. As with inspiration, the unity of the Bible gives us reason to trust its integrity. Yet, even with the fact that human beings were involved in creating God’s Word. For better or worse, these forty people were a lot like us – well-intentioned but mistake -prone. So how do we explain Christianity’s core belief that the Bible is inerrant?

The Bible is Inerrant

Critics argue that the Bible doesn’t claim to be the inerrant Word of God. They suggest that modern-era fundamentalists came up with the concept of inerrancy as a way of promoting conservatism.

The Bible, on the other hand, makes a different claim. Hundreds of Old Testament passages contain a variation of the phrase, “the Lord said”, here’s a few:

• “Then God spoke all these words” (Exodus 20:1)
• “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 1:2)
• “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.” (Jeremiah 1:1-2)

 Psalm 95:7 contains the words, “Today, if you would hear His voice.” The human writer isn’t identified in the Psalm. But nearly a thousand years later, the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament identified the author of Psalm 95 as the Holy Spirit: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice” (Hebrews 3:7).

Jesus believed in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Old Testament. He affirmed the Genesis account of creation and God’s blueprint for marriage (Matthew 19:4-6). He used the story of Jonah to illustrate His resurrection (Matthew 12:39-40). He linked His second coming with the building of the ark (Matthew 24:37-39). Jesus’ confidence in the Old Testament extended beyond stories and individual words to include even the letters and strokes that make up each word (Matthew 5:17-18).

Matthew 19:4-6 – And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Matthew 12:39-40 – But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Matthew 24:37-39 – But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Matthew 5:17-18 – “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Evidence for the Trustworthiness of the Bible

Evidence #1: The Dates of the New Testament Books

Most of the New Testament was written between AD 40 and 65. Scholars reached that conclusion because none of the books mentions the destruction of the Jerusalem temple – one of the most momentous events in Jewish history – which occurred in AD 70. The Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the New Testament books, was written only a few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. This timeline is important because it was too soon for myths to have worked their way into the New Testament narrative.

Plenty of witnesses to the ministry of Jesus were still alive when the New Testament writers put pen to paper. Jesus’ words were still fresh in the minds of His followers. If Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude, or the writer of Hebrews had said anything that misrepresented Jesus or his message, there were thousands of people who could have called out their lies, exaggerations, or mistakes. Yet there is no evidence in history of any such reaction. Essentially, thousands of would-be critics with firsthand knowledge of these events heard or read the words of the New Testament and said, “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Evidence #2: The Earliest Reactions to the Message

One of the strongest arguments for the truthfulness of the Bible – especially in the New Testament – is that its message was quickly embraced by the early followers of Christianity. The New Testament writers, the majority of whom were devout Jews, replaced basic tenets of Judaism with new beliefs They abandoned the sacrificial system that had been in place for fourteen hundred years. They changed their day of worship to the first day of the week. They replaced circumcision as the sign of faith with baptism. They relegated the law of Moses to a shadow of the newer revelation from Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

Colossians 2:16-17 – So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

The dramatic shift in beliefs and practices wasn’t limited to the New Testament writers. Almost overnight, thousands of Jews radically altered their most cherished religious convictions and embraced a new spiritual paradigm. The “overnight” event that spurred this shift was the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The actions of Jesus’ disciples testify to the truths of their resurrection claims. While religious zealots throughout history have died for false beliefs they thought were true, no rational person would die for a belief he or she knew was a lie.

The disciples were willing to endure imprisonment, torture, and death rather than recant their testimony that they had seen Jesus Christ in His resurrected body. The reality of Christ’s resurrection was embraced so quickly by so many people that, in three hundred years, the faith of eleven disciples effectively toppled the Roman Empire. Such is the power of a truthful message.

Evidence #3: Fulfilled Prophecies

One of the strongest arguments for the credibility of the Bible is fulfilled prophecies of Scripture. Detailed predictions about specific individuals, nations, and events were foretold hundreds of years before they occurred, and their fulfillments have been historically verified. For example, in about 700 BC, the prophet Isaiah predicted that Babylon – a relatively minor player on the world scene at the time – would conquer Judah and take its people captive (Isaiah 39:5-6). His prediction came true in 586 BC when Babylon prevailed over Judah. Isaiah also predicted that Babylon would be conquered by another nation (Isaiah 21:9).

Isaiah 39:5-6 – Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord.

Isaiah 21:9 – And look, here comes a chariot of men with a pair of horsemen!” Then he answered and said, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen! And all the carved images of her gods He has broken to the ground.”

What’s more, the prophet identified by name the king who would allow the people of Judah to return from exile in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem. Isaiah 44:28 refers to Cyrus as the king of Persia – one hundred years before Cyrus was born! History tells us that Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Babylon in 539 BC. In 538 BC, King Cyrus decreed that the Israelites could return to their homeland, just as Isaiah predicted 150 years earlier.

Isaiah 44:28 – Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, And he shall perform all My pleasure, Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ’

Prophecies made Hundreds of Years before the Fact

• The place of Jesus’ birth. Micah 5:2 – “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
• The manner of Jesus’ birth. Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
• The manner of His death. Psalm 22:16 – For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;
• Jesus’ burial in a rich man’s tomb. Isaiah 53:9 – And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Evidence #4: Archaeological Discoveries

There was a time when archaeology was seen as a real-world audit of the Bible’s claims. Critics asked, “If the Bible is true, then why is there no evidence in the historical record of David or Solomon, Israel’s two great kings? Or the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? Or the walls of Jericho?

They pointed to names that appeared only in Scripture and nowhere else in archaeology – names like Ashpenaz, from the book of Daniel; the Hittites, an Old Testament tribe; and Pontius Pilate, the governor who turned Jesus over for crucifixion – as reasons to question the Bible’s veracity.

But a funny thing happened on the way to declaring the Bible historically unreliable. Several funny things, in fact. An inscription dating back from the ninth century BC was discovered. The inscription referred to the house of David and to the king of Israel. An excavation in Megiddo, one of Solomon’s five chariot cities according to the Old Testament, uncovered thousands of chariot stalls.

Clay tablets dating back to 2500 BC were discovered in northern Syria. These tablets mentioned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as major earthquake activity in the region. An excavation of the city of Jericho revealed evidence of a sudden collapse of the walls that protected the city. Tablets describing the ancient Hittites were found by a German professor. An inscription found on a slab in Caesarea named Pontius Pilate as a Roman governor.

Conclusion – What Does All of this Mean for Us Today?

When we acknowledge that the Bible is inspired, unified, inerrant, canonized, complete, and backed by overwhelming evidence, we are acknowledging that we have the most unique and valuable book in the world. In its pages, from Genesis to Revelation, the most prominent thread that runs through the Bible is the love of God and redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ alone. The Bible has withstood the test of time and remains today as the most time-tested book in the history of mankind. The Bible is more than just another book; it is the Book!

Next Week, Session 3: Core Belief #2 – God the Father