Tag: Truth

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3 Reasons I Believe the Bible is True

The Bible has been used in many ways throughout history to support human agendas that include violence or strict adherence to a set of isolating rules. Believers in the Bible still have a reputation for being judgmental, strict, and plain unfun. Talking about the Bible is not always easy because of its controversial past. 

I’ve heard the question asked, what is so compelling about an ancient book that’s been translated and adapted many times by men with their own biases, cultural understandings, and flaws? Why do we believe what it says and strive to model our lives by it?

I was taught stories from the Bible starting at a very young age–Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Joseph’s coat, Daniel and the lion’s den, Moses and Joshua leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Jesus, the cross, and the empty tomb. I believed these stories to be true, just like most of the other Christian homeschoolers I knew. Fast forward to age 23, and my new, well-educated neighbors in Washington, DC challenged my belief that following the Bible was the best way to live. Indeed, to many of them it was just another opiate to quiet the masses in the political power scheme. Their arguments were enough to make me question what I believed about the Bible. 

It wasn’t long before “because the Bible says so” just didn’t cut it for me anymore. I had heard too many arguments against the validity of the Bible stories I knew, and comparisons of them to other ancient plots that started to merge with that of other cultures and religions. I heard people dispute the Bible because of all the seeming contradictions within it. If one part wasn’t true, wouldn’t that discredit the whole thing? Believers in the Bible started to look an awful lot like that judgmental, out-of-touch stereotype I mentioned earlier. This stereotype, I later learned, does not at all fit the majority of believers. The believers I have met since are some of the most loving, kind people I know. What changed to make me overlook all the compelling criticisms I had heard? Why do I now believe that the Bible is True more than I ever did before? Here are just three reasons (and there are so many more!): 

1. Eyewitnesses1, 2

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written when eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were still alive. If the accounts were fabricated, they could have easily been refuted by several hundred eyewitnesses (referred to in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6) and the Gospel texts wouldn’t have lasted until today. If you’ve ever served on a jury, imagine the testimony of 500 witnesses in a trial who all say the same thing about the events that took place leading up to an event. It would be impossible to dismiss their story as anything other than fact. When Jesus died, even His most loyal disciples didn’t believe anymore; it was only after they saw He had risen that they believed in Him. Jesus asked them to believe in Him, but none of them did until they saw the proof–He was alive. The Gospels also incorporate details that don’t necessarily serve the story or an underlying agenda, there are simply details that match memory patterns of people who are asked to recall events. Of course, the whole Bible is not written this way (see point #3), but just the fact that the Gospels are verifiable changed everything for me. Believing in Jesus no longer had to be a blind faith; this gave my faith something solid to stand on.   

2. Jesus: Psychotic or Truthful1, 2

If the Gospels are True, and Jesus is who He says He is in the Gospel accounts, the Son of God, His teaching must be taken seriously. It would be a stretch to think that He could do the ministry work He did, always demonstrate humility as He did, and share wisdom that ended confusion and dispute as He did if He was in a psychotic state, believing Himself to be someone He isn’t. It doesn’t add up that He would share truth about everything else but lie about who He is, and to suffer greatly for admitting it. 

3. Jesus’ Reverence for the Old Testament1, 2

If we take the Gospel accounts to be reliable, then we have to take Jesus as the Son of God, and again, take what He said while He lived seriously. The Gospel accounts show that Jesus treated the Old Testament with the utmost respect and quoted it often and authoritatively. He quoted it while battling temptation and He quoted it while on the cross. If the Son of God takes the Old Testament seriously, who then am I to dismiss it? However, I am not encouraging blind faith here, we always have freedom to wrestle with it, and what it means to us in our own lives. Indeed, this struggle is part of the journey of faith and the rub of our relationship with God that draws us closer to Him. Christianity is an informed faith; we aren’t asked to take it blindly. 

It is so important to learn to interpret the Bible in a way that considers the context of that particular book at that particular time in history in that particular culture. There is so much that we can miss here, especially when it comes to those seeming contradictions. The central message of the Bible is perhaps the most important context of all to remember, which can be understood in any language or culture–the Gospel of Jesus is central to the message of the Bible. It is the thread that runs throughout every one of its 66 books. To get hung up on too many details without this context will surely lead to the division and confusion we see today. If something doesn’t seem to align with the grace and forgiveness that is the Gospel, we must go back and check our interpretation. Otherwise you may end up like I did and so many others do, getting confused about who God is over just taking a line or two out of its proper context. 

I went from believing the Bible was a nice book with a lot of nice life lessons, to believing it was the reason for a lot of violence and hatred, to believing the Bible is God’s love letter to us. I pray that your wrestle with the Bible brings you to a place of rest in the grace and truth that God has given us with His Word.

“He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” -Revelation 19:13

References

  1. Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Penguin Books, 2018. 
  2. Stanley, Andy. Starting Point: A Conversation about Faith. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014.

Resource for further reading: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham

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What To Do When You Struggle with Faith

Here we are, the first blog post of Life with the King! I hope that here you will find something helpful for your own faith and truth-seeking journey, whether you’ve never thought much about faith before, had faith your whole life, or are somewhere in between. I’m excited to get started!

I don’t know about you, but my struggle with faith wasn’t pretty or quickly resolved with a conversation or two with a trusted friend.

While we all have doubts that come up from time to time, that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a long, difficult, painful struggle with faith in God. A struggle that led to seeking out the answers to life’s big questions from cultures completely different from mine. A struggle that led to my identity as a believer being completely wiped out, and being faced with the choice to rebuild it on something else. A struggle that led to laying in bed as often as possible without getting questioned about it.

If that’s you, wow do I feel for you. I have been there, and it is not easy. When I was able to share with someone what I was going through, people told me not to worry about it and not to take it so seriously. That it was all going to be okay. These platitudes, while surely well intended, came across as unhelpful and dismissive. I want you to know that your pain is completely valid, I get it, and you are incredibly courageous for being willing to ask the big questions. To be willing to change to know the truth. That takes guts.

I wouldn’t wish the type of deep, prolonged pain I experienced from struggling with faith for anyone, but for some of us, it is a reality. I can say now that I’m thankful for it; as the wise saying goes, pain may in fact be our best teacher. Neither I nor anyone else can take the faith journey for you. Only you can press on in this. You can and you must; know that I believe you can do it! In my own journey so far (thankfully we never actually stop journey-ing!) I learned several things that were helpful to remember when the road got unbearably difficult. Without further ado:

1. You are not alone; avoid isolating.

Although it may feel incredibly lonely at times, you are not alone if you struggle with faith. Many people have gone through similar journeys and have come out on the other side. The people in your life that maybe don’t fully understand, they are still there for you and they care about you. Allow them to be around you, even if it’s hard. Don’t isolate yourself in all your pain. Let me repeat that, do not isolate yourself in your pain. Whether they understand us or not we all need other people around us, especially when we are down, to show us that life can still be lived and that joy can still be found. Let those who you trust and who love you in, as much as you possibly can.

2. No one has completely figured God out.

As much as knowing that God does or doesn’t exist would be helpful in moving on with your life, no one knows 100%. Neither science nor religion can prove either way. If your journey has led you onto this unending path, you can put down your binoculars now, there is no proof. That is the maddening yet beautiful mystery we are all faced with. That is where facts end and faith can begin.

3. Love is not a feeling, it’s a choice.

You’ve probably heard the phrases before: Love God Love Others, or, God is Love. When you’re in the depths of struggling with faith, you doubt God’s love. You doubt your ability to love and put walls around your heart to avoid feeling any additional pain. But one of the most liberating things I’ve learned is that it’s not about a feeling at all. Love is a choice you make. Love is a choice God makes. Each one of us has been gifted with the ability to choose. We can choose love, we can choose forgiveness, we can choose belief. And it doesn’t have to be based on a feeling. Feelings come and go, but the truth lasts. We can base our choices on the truth. And what we choose to believe drives our very lives.

4. Start from the Truth.

When you’re questioning everything, it can be very difficult to find solid truth to stand on. I think this is what made my journey so painful, that there was suddenly no rhyme or reason to my day-to-day decisions, other than I felt like making them. There was no solid reason I could point to anymore of why I should avoid being influenced by something, for an extreme example, Satanic music; my only reasoning was that it would or wouldn’t make me feel good. I could do anything I wanted, with no boundaries. Sure, I could start at the laws of morality, but let’s be real, there are some gray areas there. I no longer trusted the Bible because I had let other peoples’ opinions about it influence me (cue hearing a mockery of the story of Noah’s ark for about 10 solid minutes, and picking apart Adam and Eve, thus discounting the whole text as unreliable). I found a very important piece of truth after attending a philosophy roundtable discussion. I came away from our discussion that week on the philosophy of death feeling completely torn apart emotionally. Afterward, I kept playing one thing over and over in my head, something a woman shared with the group about telling her kids there was nothing beyond death,

“When they were old enough, I told them that we die, and when we do we become part of the earth.” This bothered me deeply for days.

Suddenly, and without warning me about it first, “There has to be more than this,” popped into my head. The best way I can describe it is that it bypassed my thought processes and was communicated straight into my heart. My nugget of truth. My spirit had been uncomfortable, unwilling, to accept the woman’s philosophy (which happened to be the group’s majority belief). No, there has to be some meaning to life and death. All this pain and all this joy and the billions of journeys that are happening in people’s hearts all over the globe, there is absolutely no way it’s all for nothing. I simply couldn’t accept otherwise. Perhaps this nugget helps you, perhaps you’ll discover your own. What is it that you just can’t get past? Start there.

5. Keep going.

Even though it’s hard, and it may be one of the hardest experiences you ever go through, always keep going. Keep learning about yourself, keep seeking out answers, and you will have a rich array of experience and wisdom to share with others. Avoid staying stuck in one spot, don’t give up on all the other areas of your life because of one thing you can’t get past. If you need to stop probing in one area of your life, start working in another until you’re ready to come back to it. Usually, they don’t all get resolved at once. This process takes time; stay patient with it and with yourself. Always keep growing, and treasure your gift to choose where you place your focus and attention. Never give your gift of choice up or let anyone make your decisions for you. You’ve got this.

I got to a point where my hope and my joy had died along with my faith and couldn’t be resurrected by my own effort. In my darkest moment, during what poets, religious scholars, and philosophers have called the “dark night of the soul,” I gave up the control that can so easily keep faith at bay and finally let go of the skepticism and the need to understand it all. Immediately, God’s love rushed into my soul, and I’ve never taken it for granted since. My faith was restored as a tiny mustard seed, but it was there. And it grew. My life changed. I changed. Having faith takes everything you have, what you once thought about yourself, the direction you had set and planned for your life, and the way you see the world. But it’s worth it. God is so worth it all.

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Resources for further reading: The Reason for God by Timothy Keller; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

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