God is my Strength

Reliability

The Bible has been the most attacked piece of text ever since its creation. The Bible was always targeted for destruction in different generations by different people. But it has never worked. Now in some countries, they were forcefully collected

DOUBT

But somehow there is more doubt than ever about its reliability, its authenticity, and its authority. Within the next few minutes, I pray that God will show you that His word is reliable, that His word is authentic and undefiled by human hands. I pray that you not

Let’s start at the very beginning and just go through the undeniable facts for the creation of the Bible. The original books of the Old Testament were written on scrolls that couldn’t physically survive more than two thousand years, and this may seem like a problem, but the Bible was continuously copied, and the texts were renewed and multiplied to be held in holy places only where priests would be able to speak and read from them. The process of creating a copy was a whole ritual.

Religious Law/Ritual

The scribes could only use clean animal skins; the ink must have been black and made with a special recipe. The pen and the scribe had to be washed clean every time before writing. There had to be a review before every thirty days, and if three pages required corrections-even as small as a grammatical error the entire manuscript had to be redone. The copy had to perfectly match the original alignment word for word, and letter for letter. And lastly no document containing the Word of God could be destroyed. They were to be stored or buried, either in a synagogue or in a Jewish cemetery.

Was it Just a Game?

The accuracy of any text can be contested and is rationalized by using the telephone game, where one person makes up a phrase and whispers it to the next person. For example, the phrase may be “I am going to eat,” and by the time the phrase was passed down to 30 people, it may end up being “I’m going to play volleyball.” In this manner, people think that the Bible has been altered.

The result of meticulous work is 99.5% accuracy

The scribes followed Jewish law, which stated that no religious documents were to be destroyed. As a result, many copies were preserved. New manuscripts that are found can be compared to the existing ones to see how well they aligned. In 1947, the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament were found, dating back to 250 B.C. These manuscripts contained portions of every book from the Old Testament except Esther. Within them, multiple copies of each book were found-even 25 copies of Deuteronomy. After a close comparison of the present text to these manuscripts, there were some discrepancies, but 99.5% of the findings were nearly exact. This goes to show that although it has been burned, ripped, and put up for destruction, the Word of God is unchanging and reliable.

Authenticity

The word authenticity means that something has the quality of being genuine or real. Can we trust that the Bible is genuine? The word of God is authentic. The word of God has authority. If you let it, it can have a profound impact on your life. Now as you may have heard before, the Bible was written by many different authors that lived on different parts of the world. They lived hundreds of years apart, and they spoke different languages, but somehow they all connect and intertwine like the zipper on your brand-new jacket. They just fit together so smoothly, as if there may have been one main Author telling these many people what to write.

The Bible says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16–17

Authority

Now we have the reliability of the Bible, and its authenticity but how about its authority? Is this book even useful? Why should we regard it? Why should you care? Why? Let’s look at the apostles. These were the men that Jesus asked to follow him. It does not look like Jesus cared about social class when he called the twelve apostles.

God chose the weak things...to put to shame the mighty.

Jesus called rich, poor, fighter, educated, and uneducated. These men that chose to follow Christ-all except 1 (Judas the one who sold Him)-were ready to die for their faith.

Some say that they were all fakes, and it was all a religious hoax. But here we see a group of men who were seemingly insignificant follow a figure who claimed to be God. This Jesus was a man for whom many of the apostles actually died for.

Is Christ God? Or should we forget Him?

So, the question stands: who is Jesus Christ? Was he who he claimed to be-The Son of the living God? He forgave sin, and no prophet ever did that. He had authority over nature: He calmed the seas, made the deaf to hear, and the blind to see. He raised the dead. He had authority over demons. Look at the death He died-did anybody ever die like Jesus? A blameless man. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, the earth shook, the temple veil tore from top to bottom. He was one who could not be blamed for anything except calling himself God. Even the soldiers confessed that this must be the Son of God.

The thing that put faith without doubt in the hearts of the disciples was the resurrection. They saw him rise again, and for this faith they died. How can a person die for a lie?

Would you go through jail, torture, and death for a lie?

A Faith to die for

No, you wouldn’t, you would just say sorry I lied, let me go now. But they died for it. Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew was crucified on an X shaped cross. Philip was crucified upside down. Nathanael was skinned alive and then beheaded. Thomas was stabbed with a spear. Matthew was killed as a martyr. Simon the zealot killed. Matthias was killed. And lastly, experts say John plunged in boiling oil-he somehow survived and lived to write the Book of Revelations. All these men died horrible deaths for a truth that they saw and believed.

Maybe you don’t fully understand everything yet. That’s normal. Jesus never said understand everything and then believe. Instead,

Jesus said "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. – John 5:24

You can believe before you understand, you can believe before you know all of the truths of the Bible. If you believe and let the word work in you, you will see the Word working in you. Because in this Bible is God's revelation to you-a revelation that could transform and change your life and make you a whole man, or a whole woman. You are not a whole man until you know Christ, because you have a body and a soul, but you also have a spirit. That spirit might have been dead a long time. But God can bring new life to your spirit and make you the person you should be.