This study © 1999 by David Humpal

There are many verses that tell us God considers his word important.

• Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."
• Isaiah 40:8, "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."
• Psalm 119:89, "Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens."

The importance God places on scripture is bolstered by the fact that God has preserved it down through the centuries. Up until 1947, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts we had were from about 1000 A.D. But when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at Qumran, manuscripts from the Old Testament were discovered which were almost identical to the text we had even though they were over a thousand years older. From the New Testament, we have some portions from as early as the First and Second Century. So the textual tradition for the Bible is very strong and very well-documented, far more copies of old Biblical texts than any other ancient writings.

The Bible itself claims that it is God’s word.

• 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."
• 2 Peter 1:21, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus and the disciples quote the Old Testament scripture as if it were God’s word. They treat it as history, divine instruction, and eternal truth. What is truly interesting is 2 Peter 3:15-16 where Peter is talking about Paul's writings and calls them scripture, "Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

The early church fathers from the first few centuries all referred to the writings of the New Testament as having the force of divine instruction. The clarion call of the Reformation in the 16th Century was

sola scriptura scripture only - meaning that scripture was the guiding rule for our life more important than tradition, reason, and experience.

Most of us have learned that Bible study can be very beneficial to us. It helps us learn about God, teaches us how to grow in faith, and guides us throughout our life. Here are some verses that tell us the benefits of studying God’s word.

• Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."
• John 5:39, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
• Acts 17:11, "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
• 2 Timothy 2:15, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Knowing scriptures also helps us when we are facing difficulties in our life. Sometimes we will remember a word of comfort from the Bible or we will read a promise from scripture that we can claim as our own. Many spiritual battles have been won by standing on promises from God’s word.

The wonderful thing about God is that if we have difficulty understanding the Bible, he will give us help and wisdom. Here are two promises when you run across a confusing part of scripture.

• James 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."
• John 16:13, "When the Holy Spirit, who is truth, comes, he shall guide you into all truth, for he will not be presenting his own ideas, but will be passing on to you what he has heard....

You will find that the more time you spend reading and studying the Bible, the easier it becomes to understand. It is something that happens to our spirit that we may not fully comprehend, but we sure can experience the results in our soul.

As we read and learn God’s word, we find that it has a strengthening power.

• Hebrews 4:12, "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
• Psalm 119:28, "My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word."

I know you have seen that most churches have Bible reading plans and encourage people to read scripture daily. You might think that you don’t have time or it’s not that important. But the reason we encourage Bible reading is that it helps us grow in our faith. There is something that happens when we plant God’s word in our heart. We don’t really understand it. But just as our body needs physical nutrition in order to grow properly and be healthy, so our spirit needs spiritual nutrition in order for us to grow in faith properly and be spiritually healthy. We may not understand it, but we know that time spent in Bible reading and Bible study is time well spent.

Three times in the Bible - in the beginning, the middle, and the end - we are instructed to not add or take away from the teachings of scripture.

• Deuteronomy 4:2 , "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you."
• Proverbs 30:5-6, "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar."
• Revelation 22:18-19, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."

These verses seem to emphasize the importance of God’s word. We are not to change it or alter it. We are not to ignore what we don’t want to hear and only pay attention to the things that make us happy. We are to not add to the meaning of scripture nor take away from its meaning. There may be some things in the Bible we don’t want to hear. Those are just as important in understanding God as those wonderful promises that all of us have quoted since childhood.

You may ask, should we take the Bible literally? That depends on the intention of the passage. Some scriptures were written as allegory or prophecy or poetry. These passages must be interpreted according to their type. But when the Bible is making a clear statement of teaching, we must be ready to look for the plain and obvious meaning while being careful that we allow scripture to comment on scripture. We never want to take one verse out of context and build a doctrine around it if other verses in the Bible don’t teach the same thing. For example some people have mistakenly argued that Paul teaches salvation by grace but James teaches salvation by works. It is true that Paul does spend more time talking about grace and James does spend more time talking about works. If this were that clear cut, we would still have to resolve the two issues discovering from other sections of scripture how we can be saved by both works and grace. However, this is not the case, and James clearly speaks of grace and Paul clearly teaches that we will do good works. So the resolution between these two viewpoints is easy - we are saved by grace, but we are called to good works. We must examine the total teachings of scripture to arrive at our thinking instead of just picking and choosing one verse from here and another one from there.

The important thing is not to interpret the Bible based on our feelings or present cultural understanding. The Bible may present us with things that we don’t want to hear. When our experience, reason, or tradition clashes with scripture, we must always use scripture as the final authority. It is the standard that God has given us. He must have given it to us for a reason!

As you spend time in Bible reading you will find that you will be helped. In fear, you will find peace. In trouble, you will find faith. In pain you will find healing. In danger, you will find deliverance. That’s because as we hide God’s word in our heart, we will have a reminder that God can use to help us through difficult times. As Psalm 119:11 says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."

You may ask the question, since the Bible was written so long ago, does it still apply today? Humanity may be more technologically advanced and have more knowledge of science than they had thousands of years ago, but human nature has not changed. All you have to do is read the book of Proverbs to see how what was good teaching 3000 years ago still makes great sense today. Our civilization is not as advanced as some would have us believe. We just have more toys and more complex utensils. It is amazing to me that we can see our "modern" emotional problems addressed in the book of Psalms written so many centuries ago. God’s word still changes lives today just as it did so long ago.

The most important thing that we learn from the Bible is the character and attributes of God. Everyone has an opinion about God. But only from reading the Bible will we gain a true understanding of who God really is. We all like to think of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness. But the Bible also shows us that God is a God of judgement and holiness who demands obedience. The more we learn about God, the more we will understand why God acts in certain ways that were confusing to us in the past.

Proofs of the Reliability of the Bible

The laws in the Bible concerning diet, health, cleanliness, and quarantine are 20th Century health science ideas, but they were written 3,400 years ago!

Archeology has proven the truth of the Bible. Thompson Chain Reference Bible lists no fewer than 130 archeological discoveries which confirm the Biblical account.

There are over 300 predictions in the Old Testament concerning the first coming of the Messiah. These were all fulfilled in Christ.

Many of the statements in the Bible concerning science and astronomy have only become accepted by science in the past few centuries, and yet they were written in the Bible thousands of years ago!

Aristotle is credited with being the Father of Science about 340 B.C. and yet as Will Durant writes, "Aristotle’s astronomy is a tissue of childish romance." Some ancient observers believed the moon to be greater than the sun because at times it appears bigger. They accounted for its lack of heat and dim light by assuming it was much farther away than the sun. But Moses’ astronomy in about 1400 B.C. had no such problems. Genesis 1:16 tells us, "Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also." He declares the sun the greater light. Notice also he didn’t call it the greatest light. There are many stars far bigger than the sun, although they are mere pinpoints in our night sky.

Up to only a few centuries ago it was believed that the world was flat, but Isaiah about 750 B.C. wrote in Isaiah 40:22, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."

Hipparchus, the originator of Greek astronomy, counted a total of 1080 stars about 140 B.C. and proposed that this was the total of all the stars in the universe. This count was still believed to be accurate about 300 years later when Ptolemy put forth his famous planetary theory. We now know that there are at least 100 septillion stars. That’s 1026. But about 600 B.C., 450 years before Hipparchus, this is what God said in Jeremiah 33:22 (NIV), "I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore."

We think of stars as fixed, but in fact they are moving away from each other ever so slowly. For example the two stars at the opposite ends of the Great Dipper are moving in one direction, while all the other stars of the Dipper are moving together in the opposite direction. In the distant future there will no longer be a Great Dipper. God said in Job 38:31 which was written about 1700 B.C., "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion?" We now know that Pleiades and Orion are true star groups - all the stars in the group are moving together through space. Of course Job knew that almost 4000 years ago.

Bleeding a person, removing some of their blood for the purpose of removing the sickness, was a common medical practice. In fact in 1799 George Washington died after being bled for a cold. About 1400 B.C. Moses wrote in Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." Today, science has finally caught up with the Bible. Instead of bleeding people, lives are now being saved by blood transfusions.

Up through the 19th Century it was believed by scholars that writing was unknown until well after the time of Moses, but the Bible in Exodus 24:4 states, "And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord...." Scholars scoffed at the Bible as mere legend, but new archaeological discoveries have confirmed that writing was in use long before the time of Abraham, about 2000 B.C.

The Bible speaks extensively of a strong and fierce nation called the Hittites. Through the 19th Century skeptics said this proved the Bible was full of fables since no such nation ever existed. But earlier in this century discoveries of Ugaritic writing in Ras Shamra have confirmed the existence of the Hittites. They are now considered to be the third-largest ancient world power.

Babylon on the Euphrates was one of the most amazing cities in the ancient world. Inside its walls, three hundred feet high and eighty feet thick, were such buildings, towers and gardens as no other metropolis of antiquity. Isaiah 13:19-22 written about 750 B.C., at the height of Babylon’s splendor, prophesied, "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation; nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there. The hyenas will howl in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged." After about 500 years the once proud city became nothing but a mound of ruins just as Isaiah had prophesied.

Four cities of Galilee: Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Tiberias. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 11:21-23, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. Tiberias never had any woe pronounced on it. The location of the first three was long a matter of dispute - they had vanished centuries ago. But Tiberias continues to be a flourishing city in our own time.

About 600 B.C. Ezekiel wrote prophecies concerning the twin cities Tyre and Sidon. Ezekiel 26:3-4 tells us Tyre will be destroyed, "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: `Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock..’ "

But Ezekiel 28:21-23 tells us Sidon will have bloodshed, but not be destroyed, "Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against her, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Sidon; I will be glorified in your midst; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I execute judgments in her and am hallowed in her. For I will send pestilence upon her, and blood in her streets; the wounded shall be judged in her midst by the sword against her on every side; then they shall know that I am the LORD."

Two hundred fifty years later Alexander the Great destroyed Tyre but spared Sidon. Although Sidon has had a long history of wars and bloodshed, it still stands today.

The Bible was written by men who were guided by the Holy Spirit. God allowed the personality of the writer to show through. He did not dictate the words to the author. But everything these men wrote was inspired by God. We believe that the Bible contains no errors.

As 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

This study of How Reliable Is the Bible? © 1999 by David Humpal, all rights reserved.
All scriptures unless otherwise noted are from the New International Version © 1971, Zondervan Bible Publishers

John 5:39 and 2 Timothy 2:15 from the King James Version

John 16:13 from The Living Bible © 1971, Tyndale House Publishers

Hebrews 4:12 and Deuteronomy 4:2 from the New King James Version © 1984, Thomas Nelson Publishers