How do I know it's true?

I am glad to be part of a church that prays, serves and preaches the Good News.  I am particularly grateful that the church disciples every member to participate, and not just the "evangelism committee" or the "prayer committee".  Every member is discipled to pray, and to rise up to lead prayer, not just for himself or herself, but for the needs of the church and our country.  We take turns to lead a "prayer tower" that runs in the church building 24 hours round the clock.  Every member is discipled to serve the community - for our cell, we distribute bread to the rental flats every month.  Every member is discipled to preach the Good News - we regularly hold each other accountable for the lives of our family members, friends and colleagues.

This sort of body of Christ in action is tremendously energising to be part of.  It is not just talk, not just "God bless me/my family's needs", not just gathering in holy huddles, and not mere theology in theory.  Because it is so real, I find that I fall short all the time.  But I embrace that!  Trying and failing is so much better than not knowing, because I've never tried.  Because when I am weak, then He is strong.  Only when I am at the end of my strength do I truly rely on God, whose grace is more than sufficient for me.

Having said all that, there are times that we spend so much time serving that I don't have quite as much time as I would like to teach younger believers about what the Bible says.  This remains essential, because the Bible is the instruction manual to life!  My view is that while reading the Bible yourself is exceptionally important, it can't be said to be essential - think about all the illiterate Christians or Christians who have no access to Bibles around the world, who must instead rely on teaching by their pastors.  But in our particular context in Singapore, there really is no excuse at all not to take full advantage of our education and access to the Bible to ground ourselves firmly in God's word.

So in today's blog, I will touch on this topic - what is the Bible, and why is it reliable?

1.  The Bible is not one book

The Bible is not one book.  It is a collection of 66 books, written by many different people, over the course of several thousand years.  This is an important point.  The Bible is not written by a single person, expressing his sole uncorroborated revelation.  It is written by many people.  And there could not have been effective collusion between the writers, because the books were written thousands of years apart.  When the writers wrote their texts, they had no idea that they would one day be part of a unified Bible.  Yet the Bible has incredible integrity as a collection of texts.  There are many examples of this - but I will just describe two.

Take some time to read Isaiah 53.  Who is it about?

Jesus right?  Obviously.  But did you know that the book of Isaiah was written in the 8th Century B.C.?  That's eight hundred years before Jesus Christ was born.

How about Psalm 22.  What is it about?

The account of Jesus' trial and crucifixion right?  Obviously.  See verse 16 in particular - "they pierce my hands and my feet".  But Psalm 22 was written by David - in approximately 1000+ BC!  More than 1000 years before Jesus!  Remember, crucifixion did not even exist at that time.  It was a Roman invention!

2.  The Bible is not a storybook

Many of the Bible's books aren't even actual books - they're letters written by early church leaders (particularly Paul), to various churches around the region.  This means that many of the books are contemporaneous accounts by people who were actually there.  In other words, the Bible is not a "once upon a time" after-the-fact storybook account.

The gospel of John, and the 3 letters of John to the church for example, are written by John himself, one of Jesus' disciples, who was there when all the events happened.  Similarly, Paul's letters were written by Paul to the early church, describing events as they happened.

Think about it - if these letters contained a fictional account, then the readers, who were hundreds and thousands of contemporaneous witnesses themselves, would have gone "Huh?  Whaddaya talkin' about?" and chucked the letters in the bin as the ravings of a madman.

Instead, they kept and preserved the letters - they knew the contents were true and valuable because the letter writer and the letter receivers were both there at the time.  Even more remarkably, hundreds and thousands of them, who would have known first hand whether the facts were true or not, were prepared to die for that truth, and were in fact executed by the Romans just for maintaining that truth.  11 of the 12 disciples were martyred (along with thousands of other early Christians).  The 12th - John - was exiled and imprisoned on the Roman penal colony of Patmos.

3.  The Bible is factually accurate

The Bible doesn't speak of fantastical lands.  Every place described in the Old and New Testament is real.  Israel is real.  Egypt is real.  Solomon's temple is real.  The Persian empire was real.  The Roman empire and occupation was real.  Jesus was an actual person.  Paul was an actual person.  Countless historical artefacts, letters and books sit in museums as proof.

I myself have seen the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the scroll of Isaiah in a museum in Israel (remember, the Jews don't even believe in Jesus Christ).  I have stood at the wall of Solomon's temple (today - the famous Wailing Wall in Jerusalem).  I have gone on a boat on the Sea of Galilee.  I have seen the village of Capernaum.  They're all still there today.

Interestingly, the Bible is even scientifically ahead of its time.  Here's one example - Isaiah 40:22 says "He sits above the circle of the earth...".  As mentioned above, the book of Isaiah was written in about the 8th Century B.C.  The first scientist to even vaguely conclude that the earth was possibly round was apparently the famous Pythagoras (of the Pythagoras theorem), no earlier than the 6th Century.  By comparison, Isaiah was a religious prophet - not a scientist.

The dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.  The equivalent of Isaiah 40:22 is if we somehow found that Gustav Holst (composer of The Planets from 1914-1916) had already written about Pluto beforehand.  Actually, it's more like as if, 200 years before that, Antonio Vivaldi (composer of the Four Seasons) had already written about Pluto (no, he didn't!).

As I have often said on this blog - no one can be argued into believing.  But equally, no one should believe blindly either.  The truth is there to see, and we ought to equip ourselves with the truth.  But like the parachutist who knows, or has even personally seen that his parachute has been securely packed, we still need, eventually, to step out into the air - it is only then that we can test the parachute, and know that it works.  Then, we can look past the blast of wind that was buffeting us, along with all our fear and trepidation as we stood at the door of the plane.  Then, we can serenely witness the wonder of God's creation laid out all around us, as we soar, held securely by the hand of God.

What are you waiting for?  Step out :)