Why Should We Teach Evidence For Biblical Reliability

WHY SHOULD WE TEACH

EVIDENCE FOR BIBLICAL RELIABILITY
To Develop A Strong Christian Foundation
by Brooks A. Harris

I have heard it said that 70-75% of children brought up in Christian homes will loose their faith after the first year of college. Also only 9% of adults and less than 1% of teens have a Biblical world-view believing that Jesus lived a sinless life, hell exists, God created the world, absolute morals exists, etc. Many people are taught in church about the gospel of Jesus, God’s love for us, Church doctrine and Bible lessons, but they are never shown how truly reliable the Bible is. They never develop a strong foundation for the truth of the Bible. Therefore when they are confronted later by liberal professors and/or students with different beliefs, they do not know what to really believe. Often these professors and/or students are well prepared with their convincing arguments and literature. But since the Christian has never been shown information which scientifically, historically and statistically support their Christian faith, they often begin to doubt their own faith and begin to accept the other person’s views, whether it be atheism, agnosticism or a different religion.

Over the past several decades our society has been trying to distance itself from the truth of the Bible. When our country was founded most people, although not particularly religious themselves, accepted the Biblical account of ancient history and the moral laws of the Bible. But over time misinformed scientists and liberal thinkers have slowly convinced people that the ideas in the Bible are out dated and that we can no longer trust everything the Bible says.

The founding fathers of our country believed in the moral laws and teachings of the Bible. The Bible was looked upon as "The" authority for moral law. But over the past few decades liberal minds have been successfully removing the Bible (from our schools and government) as the ultimate authority and have been replacing it with man’s opinion. Christians and morally conservative thinkers have sat back and allowed these changes to occur. Today children are being taught that morals, ethics and values are relative to each culture - there is no longer an ultimate standard as taught by the Bible. Also many believe that there are several ways to get into God’s kingdom - all religions are basically the same at their core. The Bible is no longer trusted by many people. Therefore it is difficult for non-Christians to understand the meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ when they do not even believe that God exists or that the Bible is even reliable.

What must we do as Christians? We must learn how to develop a strong foundation in the Christian faith. We must show our congregations that abundant evidence (scientific, historical, archaeological, prophetic, manuscript preservation , structural and statistical) is available for God’s existence, His creation, Jesus’ life and the overwhelming reliability of the Holy Bible. Once they see that Christianity is the only reliable religion and that the teachings in the Bible can be trusted, then they can gain much better appreciation for the teachings in the Bible, such as God’s love for us, His desire for us to live abundant lives with Him, and His desire for us to develop a strong personal relationship with Him. We can ask our congregations "wouldn’t it be neat if the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God of the universe could tell us what He wants us to know?" Now that they know that the Bible can be trusted to be true, we can start to teach them again that the Bible is God’s Word - His way of revealing to us what He wants us to know about Himself, His laws and instructions for us to live by, His expectations of us, and His promises for us, and about His creation and mankind’s origin and past, our purpose in the present, and the hopes or fears for our future.

Teaching the evidence for Biblical reliability will help non-believers to believe, help new and established believers grow stronger in their faith and help them be able to evangelize to those liberal professors and students with Biblical Reliability discussions and handouts. Do you want to see a revival? Get people fired up with the abundant evidence on how awesomely reliable, trustworthy and truthful the Bible really is then let them spread the word.