How Can You Know The Bible Is The Word of God?

To determine the truth of something we need to use a higher standard than what we are evaluating. For example, if I look at a stack of books and I say, "Those books weight 25 pounds." what is the higher standard that can be used to determine whether or not that is true? A scale. If we put the books on a scale we can measure the weight and determine the truth of my statement.

What is the higher authority for the Bible?

To evaluate the Bible using human standards or philosophy or moral judgment is using a lower authority. We are lower than God. The only standard we can use is the Bible itself. This applies to all books that claim to be from God, such as the Quran and The Book of Mormon. This is not circular reasoning. We do not accept the Bible as being the word of God just because it claims to be the word of God--although it does that over 3,000 times. Any book can claim make that claim, but that does not make it true.

However, there are four characteristics of the Bible, and any other book that claims to be the word of God, that we can look at to determine whether or not it is the word of God. They are prophecy, history, science and unity.

Prophecy

The Bible includes about 3,000 prophecies about the future. About half of those have come true. The other half concern things, such as the end times, that have not happened yet. There are 300 prophecies about Jesus. Every one came true. The odds of just 8 of those prophecies being full filled in one person is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. The odds of just 48 of those prophecies being full filled in one person is 1 in 10 to the 157th power. In other words, only someone who perfectly knew what would happen in the future could have made 48 correct prophecies about Jesus. Remember there are 300 prophecies about Jesus, all of which came true. No prophecy in the Bible has been wrong. No detail of a Bible prophecy has been wrong. No one but God could do that.

History

A major portion of the Bible describes historical places, people and events. Archeology and other historical research shows that the history in the Bible is perfectly accurate. Archaeologist used to claim that the Bible was filled with stories, but it was not necessarily accurate history. Some still do claim this. But, what they have found is that if they use the Bible as their guide, they will uncover the cities, battles, and places described in the Bible. Neither archeology nor historical research has discovered anything that contradicts the Bible. The history in the Bible is completely true. Only God can do that.

Science

The Bible is not intended as a science textbook, but it does mention scientific facts that were not discovered until thousands of years after they were written in the Bible. Here are some examples:

• Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
• Almost infinite extent of the starry universe (Isaiah 55:9)
• The universe is being stretched out (by God’s hand)
• Law of conservation of mass and energy (II Peter 3:7)
• Law of increasing entropy (Psalm 102:25-27)

Science has never shown any scientific fact, stated in the Bible, to be wrong. Science has disagreed with the Bible many times, but science has always been shown to be wrong. The Bible has described scientific truth long before man "discovered" that truth. Only God can do that.

The Unity of the Bible

The Bible was written over a period of 2,000 years, by forty different authors who came from tremendously different backgrounds. But it is clearly one book, perfect in unity and consistency. It has never needed to be corrected. Most of the books I read are written by one author, over a period of a year or two... and they are not consistent, they have errors and problems. Man is not perfect. We can not write a perfect book, let alone have 40 writers, each writing their own book, spread over a time period of two thousand years, and them combine them together into one unified whole that reads just like all 66 books are chapters in one book. Only God can do that.

There is no doubt. The Bible is the word of God. The Bible is true.