The Bible is the word of God. It is just as relevant today as the day it was written. It has the power to change lives. It can equip you to live in a fallen world and prepare you for the future. By following its teaching you can find peace and joy while on earth, and secure your place in heaven so that you can spend eternity with the Lord.
Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy, for it is the living word of God.
There is no book like the Bible. It is totally unique, it is one of a kind for it was God ordained. It contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.
It begins with paradise (Eden) lost in Genesis and ends with paradise regained in Revelation. It starts in Genesis with sin entering the world and ends in Revelation with the world being cleansed of sin. The Old Testament tells us of man’s downfall and the coming Messiah. The New Testament tells of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, His life on earth, and the coming redemption of man.
The Bible contains information that could not have been written without divine inspiration. Its main theme is the salvation of man. However, the scriptures also include wisdom and advanced knowledge about nature, prophecy, medicine, sanitation, and science. Knowledge that was thousands of years ahead of its time, proving that the scriptures were God inspired.
It was written by forty different authors from every walk of life including fishermen, a doctor, a tax collector, peasants, kings, prophets, poets, scholars, shepherds, men, and women. They wrote on different subjects, such as history, biography, theology, hygiene, philosophy, prophecy, genealogy, poetry, etc. They wrote at different periods of time and in different places, yet they wrote in perfect harmony with one great theme — the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.
Biblical authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation. There is one unfolding story: God’s redemption of men.
It was written on three continents; Asia, Europe, and Africa, and in three languages.
Hebrew was the language of the Old Testament. Aramaic was the common tongue of the time of Jesus and the apostles. Jesus often spoke in Aramaic. Rome was in control of much of the world at the time the New Testament was written, therefore Greek was the predominant language that was used at that time.
The Bible is the ordained Word of God. Man may have put the scriptures down for others to read, but the words were inspired by God. The writings of both the New and Old Testaments, which are now the Bible, were blessed and ordained by God to the extent that the scriptures were being copied and used long before there was a Bible. The church eventually collected the scriptures and put them in book form. It was later divided into chapters and verses. The Latin Vulgate was the first Bible to incorporate both chapter and verse in both the Old and New Testaments.
No book has received the attacks and criticism that the Bible has. Men have tried everything in their power to annihilate the Bible. The Roman Empire tried to destroy Christianity by killing Christians and burning the manuscripts. World leaders have tried to discredit and destroy it, to rid the world of the Bible, yet it still exists. Communist countries are still trying to destroy the Bible by banning, burning, and outlawing it. But it has always survived and always will for the Word of our God will stand forever.
Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history…only fifty years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles.
Today the Bible is read and loved by millions and is still growing in circulation. It is the only book in the world read by all classes of people.
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:8).
There are similarities between the beginning of the Old Testament and the end of the New Testament. “It is interesting to notice the similarity that there is between the first three chapters of Genesis and the last three chapters of Revelation. The Bible begins in a garden–it ends in a garden. It begins with the first creation and it ends with the new creation. It begins with paradise lost and ends with paradise regained. It begins with the promise of a coming redeemer, it ends with a perfected redemption. It begins with the tree not to be touched, it ends with the tree for the healing of the nations. It begins with the Devil victorious and ends with the Devil vanquished. It begins with sorrow and death and sin, and it ends with “no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
The Bible contains thousands of prophecies concerning events that were fulfilled hundreds and thousands of years later, proving its divine source, for only God can predict the future. In Isaiah, God said He has made known the future to us:
“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come…… What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.” (Isaiah 46:10-11).
Why would God make known the future to us? Why would He make so many predictions about the future of the world? First, because He wants us to know, beyond all doubt, that He is God and there is no other. Secondly, He wants us to be prepared for what is to come.
Nearly thirty percent of the Bible is prophecy. Of these, over 2000 have already been fulfilled, and more are being fulfilled as we watch the approach of the rapture, which will signal the beginning of the end times. The remaining prophecies will be fulfilled after the rapture.
It is a difficult matter for the critic to deny prophecy once it has been fulfilled, for prophecy fulfilled becomes part of history for all to see.
None of the books from the world’s counterfeit religions have dared to make such prophecies as the Bible contains, for who but God knows the future.
Archaeology discoveries have continued to prove that what is written in the Bible is true. People and places mentioned in the Bible are being discovered. Historical scholars claimed there was no proof that King Herod, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, or Darius ever existed. However archaeological discoveries in recent years have proved they did exist.
The Bible is supported by archaeological evidence again and again…we find the record verified repeatedly at specific points. Names of places and persons turn up at the right places and in the right periods, such as King David, King Solomon, the Siloam Pool, The house where Jesus stayed in Capernaum, and hundreds more.
All archaeological finds have agreed with the historical biblical accounts as recorded in the Bible. There has not been a single artifact or discovery made that would disprove what is written in The Word of God. Of course, if the Bible is true, there would not be any discrepancies between what is written in the Biblical Scriptures and what is found in archaeological discoveries. However, the reverse is also true. If the Bible were not true, then it certainly would not line up with archaeological finds.
Dr. Nelson Glueck, the most outstanding Jewish archaeologist of this century, wrote, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference.”
Dr. J.O. Kinnaman declared, “Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by archaeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the Biblical record.”
The supposedly great books of other religions—including the Vedas of the Hindus; the Zend Avesta of Zoroastrianism, the Confucian texts, the Tripitaka of Buddhism, the Koran of Islam, and the Book of Mormon—–do not have any prophecy fulfillment or archaeological finds to support them. Only the Bible has been proved true through fulfilled prophecy and by archaeological finds.
The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their being, their spirit.
The Bible is as relevant today as when it was written. Unless we believe that; it will never be the living word of God to us. It will be nothing more than a book. God not only spoke through His word, but He is still speaking through it. The prophets habitually said, thus saith the Lord, or as the more modern versions put it, the Lord says. They did say, Thus ‘said’ the Lord or the Lord ‘said,’ for they wanted their listeners to understand that God’s speaking is in the presence not the past. The Bible is God’s living word.
If we read the Bible with the idea that God once spoke and it was put in a book, then God became silent again, we have the wrong conception of God’s word. God can and will speak directly to us through His word just as surely as He has at any time in history. It is not only a book which was once spoken, but it is also a book which is now speaking to us directly. A.W. Tozer stated, “The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us, put into our familiar human words.”
“The word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8)
“but the word of the Lord endures forever.” ( 1 Peter 1:25)
from my book “Basic Christianity”
Books by Jerry, many of which you may read for free on Prime: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jerry-Blount/author/B06XK4GJT1
- Things You Probably Didn’t Learn in Chruch
- Basic Christianity: Living a Joy-Filled Life and Making a Difference
- The End Times: Signs and Prophecy
- Noah and the Great Flood: Proof and Effects
- Following Jesus and Fishing Along the Way: Stories of God’s Great Outdoors
- The Rapture: Coming Soon
Sharing Jesus 