The Bible is the Only Holy Book (10 Evidences, B)

Read 2 Peter 1:12-21

How do we know the Bible is, in fact, God’s word?

I.       The Bible claims to be the Word and words of God.  This is essential for the Bible to be God’s Word; it must say it is.  And it does so in hundreds of places (start with Lev. 4:1; 5:14; 6:1,8 and see it on nearly every page).  Every book in the Bible (all 66) claim to be God’s word, to speak for God (Geisler/Nix A General Introduction to the Bible).  Our passage makes the claim in v16 that it is God-breathed.  This comes from the Greek term theopneustia combining the word for God (theos) and the word for breath (pneustia).  Every other book you read might be well written and quite useful.  But they don’t make this claim: to be the words of the Creator.

II.    The Bible can do what it says it is able to do.  If you stop and think about it, there are almost no other books that have not been improved upon or that we expect, given enough time, will be improved upon.  It is common to have revised editions or books written by later authors that had access to more updated information and so on.  And by the way, if you ever come across The Book of Mormon printed in, say, the 1930s and compare it to a modern copy, you will find revisions by which we mean substantial changes, not just revised English or some such thing.  The Bible has been translated and retranslated from the original languages, but not revised where false statements have been improved upon.

Paul says the Bible is able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  The term able means the Bible has power and capability to do this.  The Bible says that salvation is found in no other person but Jesus Christ, and the Bible is the one book that will lead you to Christ and has been leading people to Christ from its beginning.  Paul says the good news found in the Bible is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes (Rom. 1:16).  James 1:21 says that this good news found in the Bible, when it becomes part of one’s life (he calls it the engrafted word), is able to save your souls.  

You may say this is a circular argument, the Bibles claims to be God’s word that saves.  But, you ask, how is that evidence?  The point is that, if this is in fact a sacred book, it must be able to make those who read and believe and keep it right with the Creator they are seeking.  The Bible claims this.  When Paul said this to Timothy, Timothy knew that it was true because he had experienced this himself and had seen it in Paul’s life and in the lives of many others.  If a book is truly the Holy Scriptures it must contain a message that, when applied properly, will deliver a person from sin and give him/her a right relationship with God.

Let us pick this up tomorrow before we move on to evidence #3.