BASIC DISCIPLESHIP PART II: IS THE BIBLE TRULY THE WORD OF GOD?
TEXT: 2 TIMOTHY 3:14-17
INTRODUCTION
This is a question of extreme importance for every Christian, because all our faith, our doctrines, our theology is based on the words that are written in the Bible.
Perhaps for the vast majority of us this is a topic that has no discussion, because we are sure by faith and by the effects that the Bible has made in our lives that the Bible is without doubt the word of our God revealed to us.
But it is very important for us to know what are the arguments to defend our faith, our doctrines, and to give an answer to all those who doubt, who question whether the Bible is a divine book or if it is simply a good book as much others.
To answer this question we have to take into account several arguments or several points of view, in this studies we will reflect only on some of them:
First we will analyze the external arguments that show us that the Bible is not one of the books considered sacred, but rather it is truly the word of God.
I) FIRST EXTERNAL ARGUMENT: THE BIBLE IS AN EXCEPTIONAL BOOK
The Bible is the most sold and read book in the world: the red book of mao tse tung has sold 820 million copies, the saga of harry potter 400 million copies, the Koran 200 million copies, but the Bible more than 2500 million copies worldwide.
It is the most translated book in the world, Bhas been fully translated into more than 450 languages and partially in more than 2000 languages and dialects.
The Bible was the first printed book using a printing press, by the Guttenberg brothers in Germany.
II) SECOND EXTERNAL ARGUMENT: THE BIBLE THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BOOK
The French philosopher Voltaire in the sixteenth century said: in one hundred years from today’s date the bible will be a forgotten book, Voltaire died in 1778 and the word of God is still alive and transforming millions of lives in the world.
The bible for centuries has suffered criticism, ridicule and attacks, but nobody has been able to destroy it, but because nobody has been able to destroy it? We find the answer in the very word of God (Matthew 24:35).
This little reflection expresses very well what has happened to all those who have tried to destroy the Bible through history:
Last night I passed by the door of a blacksmith,
And I heard the blow of the evening anvil;
Then looking, I saw on the floor,
old hammers, worn with the bumps of the years of time.
I asked the blacksmith, “How many anvils have you had
to wear out and spoil all these hammers?”
“Only one,” I reply, and then with flashing eyes he told me:
“The anvil wears out the hammers.”
And so, I thought, is the anvil of the word of God,
For years the beating of the hammers of the skeptics, of the atheists, of the unbelievers, have struck upon it;
Although the noise of the blows was heard
The anvil remains firm … but the hammers are gone.
But the biggest external argument that the Bible is the word of God is what the Bible has done in the life of each of us: It has transformed us, it has comforted us, it has blessed us.
II) NOW WE SEE THE INTERNAL ARGUMENT, THAT IS THE TESTS IN THE SAME BIBLE WE FOUND TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT IS THE WORD OF GOD
First we must know that the Bible was not written directly by God or by his angels, in fact nor our Lord Jesus Christ left something written directly in his own handwriting, then the question arises how can the Bible be a divine book, how can the word of God be if it was written by sinful and imperfect men like us?
Yes, indeed the Bible was written by imperfect and weak men, but inspired by God, through his Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1: 20-21) the inspired word is from the Greek kubernetes, which gives us the idea of the captain of a boat, that is, men are the boat, from which God goes to the front, guiding, taking her where he is guiding her, that is the inspiration.
The Bible transforms us, the Bible exhorts us, the Bible instructs us because it is inspired by God, has been dictated by him, men took the ideas of God, the message of God and wrote it for us (2 Timothy 3:16)
a) The Bible is a book that contains prophecies that were fulfilled to perfection in history.
The Bible is a book full of prophecies, many of which have extraordinary accuracy.
Isaiah prophesied more than 200 years before King Cyrus would be the liberator of his people, who was captive in Babylon (Isaiah 45: 1-4)
We can see that this prophecy was fulfilled exactly 200 years later (Ezra 1.1-3)
Likewise all the prophecies about our Lord Jesus Christ were fulfilled to perfection:
a) He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)
b) He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5: 2)
c) He would live in Galilee (Isaiah 9: 1-2)
d) He would enter Jerusalem riding on a colt (Zechariah 9: 9)
e) It would be sold for 30 silver coins (Zechariah 11: 12-13)
f) It would be pierced by a spear (Zechariah 12:10)
g) It would not be left in the grave but it would resurrect (Psalm 16:10)
b) Another internal argument is the unity of the message from Genesis to Revelation
The word Bible comes from the Greek “biblos” which means books, it is a collection of 66 different books, but all with a only message: the love of God for sinful man and his redemptive plan.
The bible was written by 40 authors: the 66 books of the Bible were written by 40 people, among them we find sheepherders, kings, prophets, doctors, fishermen and theologians, in a period of 1500 years, it was written in three different languages , Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and on three different continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, but there is no contradiction in the message, the message is the same: God calling man to repentance, God seeking to save sinful man. (Joel 2:32 / Romans 10:13)
c) The scientific argument also shows us that the Bible is the word of God
The Bible is not a scientific book, it is a book of faith, but it is full of knowledge, that is, it is full of science, but we have to ask: who gave the biblical writers that knowledge? Who put that knowledge in those men who wrote the Bible without having a scientific preparation? The logical answer is: God gave them that knowledge, therefore that knowledge, that science shows us that the Bible is the word of God.
Scientific development began in the twelfth century of our era, but how is it possible that some of the discoveries made at that time and the Biblical writers had mentioned them much earlier? the same word gives us an answer (Proverbs 22:12)
Let’s see that science, or that knowledge that the Biblical writers had and that shows us that someone had to reveal that knowledge, and that someone is God:
THE MOVEMENT OF THE CONSTELLATIONS, PLANET AND STARS MENTIONED BY THE BOOK OF JOB (JOB 38: 31-32)
The movement of the stars and constellations was a theory proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the year 1543 of our era. If the job book was written about 5000 years ago, how could that knowledge be?
THE ROUND OF THE EARTH (ISAIAH 40:22 / PROVERBS 8:27)
Who told the writers of the Bible that the earth was round? Salomon 900 years before Christ and Isaiah 700 years before Christ had already affirmed the roundness of the earth, much earlier than any other.
THE FORCE OF GRAVITY (JOB 26: 7)
Whotold Job about the gravity of our earth? the book of Job was written more than 5000 years ago, and God had already revealed to him that the earth does not hold on anything, only with its force of gravity, and its magnetic field, which was discovered until 1600 AD by Isaac Newton.
THE WATER CYCLE (JOB 36: 27-28 / ECCLESIASTS 1: 7 / AMOS 9: 6)
The hydrological cycle or water cycle, in which all surface water and groundwater reach the sea and there is evaporated for later Falling again in the form of rain, was studied and revealed by French scientists Pierre Perrault and Edme Mariotte, in the seventeenth century.
So, who revealed to Job’s writer that the vapor condenses and then the water drops form? Who revealed to Solomon and the prophet Amos that the rivers go to the sea and then the sea water evaporates to fall back into rain and thus continue the del? The answer is the same: God revealed them to you!
