The Logical Next Step...

Men have obviously tried multiple ways in which to prove that the Bible is trustworthy, reliable, authoritative, and accurate. However, I find one way particularly logical, yet easy to understand. Jesus, throughout the Gospels is seen quoting scripture from the Old Testament, and quoting it in a very authoritative way, as if from God Himself. (In fact, He quotes from every part of the Hebrew Bible, from the Pentateuch to Historical writing.) He establishes key theological doctrine. Jesus also sets the stage for his followers to come, of which came the New Testament books.

Another interesting point- Jesus interchanges the terms "God said" and "Scripture says" multiple times.

But to go on, Jesus obviously endorses the Old Testament, and claims to be the Son of God, the Savior of the World, and the King to come. He promises His Holy Spirit, and tells us of the importance the Holy Spirit must have in our lives. The essence of Christianity can be summed up in the words and the life of Jesus.

How do we know that these words of Jesus are true? How do we know that the New Testament gospels are not flawed? You see, if we can prove the authenticity of these four New Testament Gospels, we can then prove the authenticity of the Old Testament, and the rest of the New Testament books. Greg Koukl states it this way, "If Jesus gave His imprimatur to the Hebrew Bible, and if Jesus is someone whose word we might be able to trust, then that gives us good reason to trust the authority of the Hebrew Bible."

Koukl goes on saying of Jesus, "If He claims to be God, for example, as He did in the context of His culture, and then demonstrates through His life and actions that the claim quite possibly is true, or might probably be true, then when He identifies the Bible as the word of God, He is speaking from the inside, not the outside."

Now here is raised all sorts of questions: "Well, these may be God's Words, but they are written by humans, flawed humans. How do we know whether what we are reading is accurate?" Or, "What about literal errancies, small numerical flaws, and passage differences?"

Greg Koukl: "If the Bible is the word of God, and God can't err, then His word can't err. If I have good reason to believe that this is a fair way of looking at it, then when I come to a possible apparent contradiction, since my evidence is on the side of being authoritative, what I'm going to look for is a way to resolve the contradiction.

I'm not going to camp on one apparent problem and use that to disqualify all the rest. Because if one apparent problem disqualifies the Bible as the word of God, then Jesus was wrong about His source of authority--the Scriptures--as coming from God.

But Jesus was the one who worked the miracles, who rose from the dead, etc. And I think it's less likely that Jesus was mistaken than that I'm mistaken. I'm probably the one who's misreading. That's my take on it."

If we can prove the NT gospels true, that makes Jesus' claims credible and the Word extremely essential to Christianity. After logically examining these texts, we can begin to put faith in what they say, and then work through small problems we find.

So, next step: look at extensive evidence of the reliability of the New Testament Gospels.

A quick thought in closing from Timothy Keller in his book "The Reason for God":
If you don't trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you. For example, if a wife is not allowed to contradict her husband, they won't have an intimate relationship... Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won't! [You'll have]... a God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it."