Watch the video above and talk about it with a group or mentor. Learn more.
Christianity is based on the Bible. But the Bible is really old and really long. There are no pictures in it. The Bible also makes some really important claims. It says that it is the Word of God. If true, then the Bible is the most important book in the world. This is why Christians believe that the Bible really is the Word of God.
So, let’s answer the question: Why should you believe that the Bible is the word of God? There are a number of reasons to accept the Bible as the Word of God. Most of the reasons can be summed up in these two larger points:
We know that people didn’t change the Bible
One of the things that critics of Christianity will say is that the Bible has been changed over the centuries. They will say that the Bible that you hold in your hands is a copy of a copy of a copy. Well, that’s not true. We have many copies of the Bible and portions of the Bible going back to earliest Christianity. These copies (called manuscripts) help us figure out what the Bible was like when it was first written. Because of these manuscripts, we know that the Bible you hold in your hands is the same Bible that Christians used almost 2000 years ago. When new translations of the Bible are made today, they are translated from the original manuscripts of the Bible, not some copy that is only a few decades old.
We can believe that the events of the Bible happened
The Bible tells the story of kings, queens, nations, and civilizations. For many centuries, not much if anything was known about many of these nations outside the Bible. In fact, critics of Christianity in the 17th and 18th century doubted whether many of the people in the Bible ever existed.
However, beginning in the 19th century, people began to make archaeological discoveries in the lands of the Bible. These discoveries began to verify what we find in the Bible. Even today, discoveries are made that demonstrate the authenticity of people like David in the Old Testament and James, the brother of Jesus. Also, people have uncovered historical libraries from the past that give us the names of the kings of Israel and Judah and describe some of the wars we read about in the Old Testament. If you do a little research, you find that archaeology and history go a long way to pointing to the truthfulness of the Bible.
Discussion Questions:
- Watch the video together or invite someone to summarize the topic.
- What is your initial reaction to this video? Do you disagree with any of it? What jumped out at you?
- Why is the Bible so important for Christianity?
- If the Bible couldn’t be trusted, then how would this affect Christianity?
- What would you say to someone who says, “The Bible has been changed thousands of times”?
- What would you say to someone who says, “All those kings and people in the Bible are made up”?
- How does knowing you can trust the Bible make your faith in God stronger?
- Who is one person in your life who would be helped by this lesson or watching the video?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
