Is The Bible For Real?  Why Do We Need It?

In this age of Skeptics, New Agers, Millennials and the general disbelief in God, Jesus or the anything biblical, I decided to find some answers that might help me and perhaps others in facing the skepticism of our world.  Let’s face it.  Christians are becoming the minority group in the world.  Facing the truth of the Bible and the principles found therein are becoming as obsolete as that old black and white TV.

The real issue of accusations against the Bible can be summed up rather easily.
Why do you submit to the Bible’s authority?  Why do you allow it to dictate how you live? Why should anyone give allegiance to a book that discourages looking out for number one?

When people ask, “How can you believe the Bible?” some Christians mistakenly respond with a history lesson.  They display charts, manuscripts, statistics, quote some unknown archeologist, cite historical verification, etc.  The questioners remain unmoved, because historicity isn’t the issue.  Authority is the issue!  Here are a few answers that might help us to come to grips with this problem.

There are basically four factors of unbelief.  I am not the author here but quoting my source from a book called “Questioning Evangelism” by Randy Newman.  Highly recommended.

1. Plausibility. Isn’t it reasonable to believe that a God who created us could, if He wanted to, communicate with us?  Just how would He do that?  The most likely way would be to give us a collection of inspired writings.  So isn’t it possible that a god would connect with us through a written verbal form?  If it was only to teach each person singularly then it would be difficult to come to any conclusions.  But our God wanted to teach all humans about who He is and what He wanted from humanity.
2. Messiness . The Bible is messy.  The Bible isn’t easy to read. It is long and repetitious and was written by forty different authors.  It contains a diversity of locations, languages, genres, and literary styles.  The authors seem to invite contradictions and unbelievers are quick to point these out.  If God is the author one wonders why He wasn’t clearer in making His point.  But these are the very qualities that  give credence in making scripture correspond to our own complex nature……..the intellectual, emotional, social and physical components of our unique personhood.  The Bible challenges us into seeing our lives as unique and a created humanity.  Despite our all of our efforts in solving the problems of life around us, we still face the ultimate reality of death.  Man must face his destiny and he will never solve that dilemma  on his own.
3. Reality. Perhaps now is the time for the history lesson. The multiplicity of manuscripts, the historical and archeological support from without and the presence of authenticating material from within the Bible point to accurately recorded history.  However, we must declare What the Bible says rather than how the Bible says it.  Let’s tell the story……the Bible’s story. The Bible’s story is actually our story.  It’s what we need in our life to carry us through the trouble times that will come to all of us.
4. Need..There are a variety of ways of reading Scripture.  Many people prefer the narrative approach which means telling the gospel as a story.  Everyone has a story to tell, in one form or another.  Jesus used parables in relating the truths of God.  Just how God wants us to relate to Him and to others.  However, we must not get bogged down in storytelling. Otherwise the Bible becomes just another narrative.  Man has always wanted to find meaning in life…the Bible has the answer.  We were made to have an intimate relationship with this all loving and powerful, sovereign God.  Something within each being cries out for intimacy with a “higher power”.   People are looking to find this “higher power” through Buddhist teachings, spirits directly speaking to them, or New Age thinking.  The storyline of all mankind should connect people to their roots, beginning with Creation and realizing how much man has fallen from intimacy with God.  By making ourselves into little gods we are designing our own path and yet that path leads nowhere.  By telling others that they bear the nature of God and that by reading the Bible they will find the Good News they have been searching for all along.

 The Bible story line awakens within us a God- implanted desire for a happy ending! We can assure people that the dread of death makes sense.  However, we can declare to them that each and every human being has eternal significance.  By reading the Bible in its own completeness they will find their very lives are of great value……because they were meant for something better, something eternal.

Even in these skeptical times, when the Bible is tossed into a pile of irrelevant books it is there to be read and studied.  It will always be there.  Ready for those who realize their great need of finding the true meaning to life.