But how do we know the Bible is true?

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV).

OK, so we know we have the words the apostles actually wrote, and we see there is good reason to believe they were trying to tell the truth and actually knew what they were talking about. But is the Bible really true? How can we know?

There are millions of saints, either in the world today or who have gone on to their reward, who never knew any of what I’ve shared here, but they were convinced the Bible was true. Is it because they were simple rubes who were easily duped into believing a book of fairy tales? Or is it because they knew something ineffable? I think it’s the latter.

All the evidence in the world can only do one thing: It can convince you to give the Bible a chance. Nothing can prove to the unwilling mind that Christianity is true, but if the evidence convinces someone to approach the Bible with an open mind, a strange thing will happen: They will meet God.

Except for those few who met God or Jesus face to face, God has chosen to reveal himself through the written word. That’s the way it was then, and that’s the way it is now. To those who submit themselves to that written word, who come to it, not out of a desire to find fault or even to learn facts, but to know and follow God, the Holy Spirit will make himself known. The glory of God will be revealed. The power of the Lord to transform lives will be experienced.

You don’t need to know about manuscript evidence or archeology to know that the Bible is the true word of God. John Piper says, “The pathway that leads to sight may involve much empirical observation, and historical awareness, and rational thought. But the end we are seeking is not a probable inference from historical reasoning but a full assurance that we have seen the glory of God. Thus, at the end of all human means, the simplest preliterate person and the most educated scholar come to a saving knowledge of the truth of Scripture in the same way: by a sight of its glory.”

This experience is available to everyone who comes to the word. He says, “[T]he sweetness of well-grounded, God-honoring confidence in Scripture is not reserved for scholars but is available for all who have eyes to see.”

So why go through all of the preceding? For two reasons. First, even the most convinced heart can be attacked through the mind. Feelings are fickle. The world wants you to doubt the Bible. When your feelings ebb and the intellectual pressures mount, it’s helpful to know the facts that support the truth of the Scriptures.

Second, non-believers generally cannot start here in modern Western society. People need to hear the facts before they are willing to give the Bible an opportunity to change them. They need to know — and to know that you know — the Bible is no mere book of fairy tales before they are willing to give it a chance.

But in the end it is not knowing the facts about the Bible but experiencing the power of God through his word that changes people. When you read the Bible in such a way that it begins to read you, you will know that it really is the word of God.

Or, to use the metaphor of the passage above, you will know it is the word of God when you get cut.

Putting all that we've covered together gives us a wonderful statement of why we can trust the scriptures (borrowed from Voddie Baucham's The Ever-loving Truth):

The Bible is a life-changing collection of reliable historical documents written by eye-witnesses to supernatural events that occurred in fulfillment of specific prophecies demonstrating the Bible's divine origin.


For more on this topic, see A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness by John Piper.


Image credit: Søren Niedziella, creative commons

Part of Christianity 101