Reliable (Putting the Bible In Its Place #2)

Watch/Listen as pastor Erin walks us through 6 pieces of evidence that prove God's Word to be reliable.

6 Pieces of Evidence that the Bible is Reliable:

1. Self Admission - the Bible claims in and of itself to be the word of God. On its own, this can be considered a weak piece of evidence. Combined with the other points, however, this is ultra important as the Bible wants to be seen this way.
2. Historical Accuracy - The more archeological digs that happen, the more we are able to prove the Bible to be reliable.
   1. Archeology: David was thought to be mythological until archeology unveiled records showing that Israel had a king called David. Luke has been proven to be 100% accurate in everything we’ve been able to prove/disprove so far.
   2. Ancient Historians
3. Fulfilled Prophecy - Over two-thousand prophecies of which most are highly specific. Of those two thousand, almost 300 are highly specific prophecies of a Messiah.
   1. Just 8 of these prophecies of Jesus had a 10-17th power of being accurate. Jesus fulfilled over 300.
4. Unstoppable Durability - New publications come out all the time trying to convince us that Jesus isn’t who we thought he was. Yet Christianity keeps on going and the Bible almost seems to not care.
   1. 160k Bibles sold every day. Best selling book always and of all time. Since the printing press, 5-7 billion Bibles have been printed.
   2. Of all of the manuscripts that we have, none are original. No ancient work has an original document, however. The Bible, however, is the most reliable vs many other accepted works.
5. Remarkable Consistency - the discovery of the dead sea scrolls shows the remarkable consistency of the Word over the years. 1000 years prior to the previously known documents and the consistency was spot-on.
   1. The Bible is also remarkably consistent within itself in spite of:
      1. 66 books
      2. over 1500 years
      3. by 40 different authors
      4. in 3 different languages
      5. over a wide range of different genres
   2. A lot of perceived inconsistencies are actually on purpose - they are paradoxical (fully human/fully divine - Shepard/lamb)
6. Exceptional Acceptance - we live in a day and age where no one agrees on anything. In spite of this, we have so many Christians through all of the time that all agree that the Bible is the word of God.