Do you ever sit at home and think… “I need to be able to prove that my spouse exists. I’m going to put a bit of thought into it to make sure I can clearly explain that they exist and they’re not some figment of my imagination.”
When you have a personal relationship with someone, the idea of needing to prove they exist is absurd.
Do you see where I’m going with this? As Christians, we have a personal relationship with Jesus! We know He’s real because we know Him. Likewise, anyone who has read and experienced the Bible knows “the word of God is active and alive, sharper than any double-edged sword.”
The idea that we’d need to “prove” that Jesus is Lord or that the Bible is the word of God is absurd. That said, learning why we believe is a critical skill to both strengthen your own faith and help you to share the good news with others.
Consider this quote from Dr. Bart Ehrman speaking about the Bible:
“What good is it to say that the originals were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.”
Because we don’t feel compelled to “prove” what we know to be true, these type of objections can sometimes catch Christians off-guard. I bet you’ve heard some variation of this sentiment from skeptical friends or loved ones.
Heres the thing: I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your skeptical friends are not experts in ancient textual criticism. I think it’s a much safer bet to assume they’re just spitting out a tagline in hopes that it will stop the conversation in its tracks.
If you’ll learn some Christian Apologetics, you’ll be equipped to defend your faith and continue the discussion. In this case, Dr. Ehrman’s objection doesn’t even make logical sense. He says that we can’t trust the Bible because it has errors. How can you say something has errors unless you know what it’s supposed to say in the first place?
My book goes further into the details, but the bottom line is that if the Bible could have been falsified by a series of errors, it would have happened a long time ago. It didn’t happen then and it will never happen because the Bible is the word of God.
Remember: we can move with absolute confidence because of the Good News of Jesus Christ is absolutely true. We’re already on the “right” side of this issue. We’re not trying to win an argument, we’re trying to win souls for Christ.
There is absolutely nothing more loving you can do for someone than to share Jesus with them.