In the closing days of His ministry, Jesus spoke with His disciples, predicting world events that would precede His return. Among those events, He said, was the following: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14, NKJV).
Reading these words today—with an estimated 2.4 billion to 2.6 billion “Christians” globally (the world’s largest religion), and with adherents on every continent and in most countries—we might easily miss how astonishing this prediction was at that time.
For starters, at that time, how many believers in Jesus were there? A few hundred, maybe, a scattered hodgepodge (and hardly the cream of the social or intellectual crop, to be sure). Meanwhile, without Jesus even having been crucified and resurrected yet, most of what this hodgepodge believed about Him was either wrong or grossly incomplete. And what was their number in contrast to the millions in the Roman Empire, which for centuries set out to destroy the small sect of Christians, and at times seemed about to succeed too? Finally, when Jesus made that prediction, He had not yet been arrested and, when He was, how did His innermost circle (after one in that circle had already betrayed Him) react “Then they all forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50, NKJV)—hardly the most promising start to a movement whose message, He predicted, would be “preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations” as it is close to doing now. What an amazing prediction to have made at a time when, from outward appearances, its fulfillment seemed ludicrous.
With fulfilled prophecies like this and many others, it is no wonder that so many people trust the Bible.
And yet this is only one reason why the Bible can be trusted, and why millions, even billions, consider it the Word of God and the book that, at least in principle, guides their lives and points them to the great hope that they have in Jesus Christ.
What are even more reasons why we can, indeed, trust the Bible?
rumors of war
The statement that Jesus made about the gospel going to all the world was only one prediction—in that same prophecy, actually. He made another one in the same talk, and to understand its significance, we need to jump ahead about 1,900 years, to the opening of the twentieth century, when the stunning successes of science and technology had made many people optimistic about the future. Reflecting the mood of the time, British Queen Victoria’s chaplain, Charles Kingsley, wrote “The railroad, Cunard’s liners, and the electric telegraph are . . . signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us . . . the ordering and creating God. Men and women, more than ever before or since felt at home on earth and in control of their destiny.”
In fact, on December 31, 1899, the last day of the last year of the nineteenth century, The New York Times ran an editorial that said: “Tomorrow we enter upon the last year of a century that is marked by greater progress in all that pertains to the well-being and enlightenment of mankind than in all the previous history of the race.”
Capturing the dominant attitude, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Let man stand erect, go alone, and possess the universe.”
However, early in the twentieth century, World War I—using some of the very technology that had promised so much hope—created a level of casualties and destruction never before witnessed in human history, all of which was followed by the Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed millions more than did even the war itself. Then, just 20 years later, World War II—using even more advanced technology, culminating in the atomic bomb—wreaked much more death and devastation than did World War I.
So, instead of all the optimism expressed by Kingsley, Emerson, and The New York Times, people should have heeded Jesus’ prophetic caution 1,900 years earlier, when, just before His prediction about the gospel going to all the world, He warned: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:6, 7, NKJV).
When experts today can’t predict what the stock market will do in two or three days or even the weather tomorrow, Jesus’ predictions centuries in advance give us great reasons to trust the Bible.
the manuscripts
Also fascinating and faith-affirming is the number of ancient copies of the Bible. All told, including fragments, there are about 28,500–30,000 ancient manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments, way more than any other ancient text. Homer’s Iliad, in the number two spot, has only about 1,800. And, one of the most influential writings in antiquity, and whose influence extended through the 1500s and 1600s (and even to today in some Roman Catholic biblical scholarship), is Aristotle’s Metaphysics—with a whopping six copies.
All of these biblical manuscripts, especially of the New Testament (about 25,000), do not prove that what they say is true. But this number certainly shows that what they say represents what the authors had written to begin with, a big step toward trusting it.
Especially interesting in this context are the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947. These scrolls were stored in caves in the harsh dry hills of Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in southern Israel. Among them were parts of every book of the Old Testament, except Esther.
Prior to this discovery, the earliest complete Old Testament was the “Leningrad Codex,” which serves as the basis for most modern Old Testament manuscripts and translations. The codex was dated to about AD 1008. Many argued that this relatively late date made the reliability of the Old Testament suspect. After all, even the latest Old Testament books were written in BC, and so how accurate could the Leningrad Codex—dated to AD 1008—really be?
Very accurate, as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has proven, much to the surprise of just about everyone, especially the skeptics. Some of the Qumran scrolls had been written more than 1,200 years before the Leningrad Codex itself, and—with the exception of minor textual variations, which is expected in texts that are copied by hand over generations (no copiers or scanners back then)—many of the books were almost identical, which showed that the Old Testament text, contrary to what experts had declared, had been preserved with astonishing accuracy.
the message
Also, some of the oldest books in the Bible, attributed to Moses, date to about 1400 BC; these are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, sometimes referred to as “The Five Books of Moses,” or the Pentateuch (Greek for five books). The latest book in Scripture is the Book of Revelation, written by the apostle John, most likely in the last decade of the first century AD. So, from about 1400 BC to about ad 100, we are talking 1,500 years, which would be like a book started in AD 600 (about the time Christianity first came to England) and being finished in our present century.
Of course, not one person could have written it; instead, about 40 authors have been identified. From Moses onward, though almost all were Jewish, they came from a variety of backgrounds: kings, fishermen, priests, shepherds, tentmakers, court officials, military leaders, tax collectors, and from many other professions and circumstances that have not been revealed.
Yet, despite the vast disparity in times and immediate environments (from Moses writing in the desert in 1400 BC, to Paul writing from a Roman prison in the first century AD), the unity of the theological themes and messages of Scripture, Old and New, is undeniable.
Revelation is progressive, in that later writers, such as New Testament authors in contrast to Old Testament ones, could shed more light on biblical truths than did authors in the past. Nevertheless, the basic message of human sinfulness, of God’s love for fallen humanity, of salvation by faith, of repentance and sorrow for sin, and obedience to God’s moral law—these truths flow from one end of the Bible to the other.
Which should not be surprising because, as Paul wrote, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16, NKJV).
yes, you can trust the Bible
Putting aside other confirming elements, such as historical and archaeological verification of biblical people and incidents (for example, the Old Testament talked about the Hittites, whom skeptics claimed never existed; that is, until in the nineteenth century, when numerous archaeological discoveries proved them to be just what the Bible had said), the impact of the Bible in the lives of millions, even billions, while in and of itself not proving its authenticity, is another element that points to it. From BC to AD, from one side of the globe to the other, the moral and theological messages of the Bible answer some of the deepest human needs in a world choking on deep human needs.
For example, we, like oysters, die; unlike oysters, however, we know it, and the realization of the inevitability and apparent absoluteness of death can all but rob life of its meaning. After all, what can a life mean that always ends in death, and in the death of everyone who ever knew you, and eventually the death of every memory of you as well? No wonder that, for millennia, writers have struggled with the reality of death and what it means for the living.
Yet, over and over, the New Testament talks about what Jesus did to defeat death and to offer the promise of eternal life in a new heaven and new earth to anyone who seeks it. “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28, NKJV; see also John 6:45; Mark 10:30; Matthew 25:36; John 17:3; Romans 5:21; 1 Timothy 6:12; Jude 21).
And the Bible not only gives us these promises, but gives them based on the resurrection of Jesus, which itself comes with evidence that overwhelmingly shows that, yes, though crucified by the Romans, and buried in a tomb for three days, Jesus rose from the dead—and with His resurrection to life He offers the promise of our own as well.
Sure, if looking for reasons not to believe the Bible, then you can find them, just as you can find reasons, if looking for them, to believe that the earth is flat. But if your heart is open to truth, to seeking to know God and His will for your life, then the Bible points the way and is worthy of your trust.
