Why I Believe the Bible is the Word of God

[katiemygirl]

I was asked this question in another thread. My answer below is not written to convince anyone of anything.

My belief that the Bible is the word of God comes from my belief in God, Himself. I was born into a catholic family and was educated in a parochial school. My Mother became a catholic when she married my Father, however, she really never bought into the catholic religion. (I never did either). She sent her kids to catholic school because she wanted us to get a good education. My Father did work for the church, which paid for our tuition. My Father never went to church, except maybe on Christmas or Easter. So there was really never any talk about church doctrine in the house. Most conversation about religion was centered on God. My Mom was a strong believer in God, and she was a good christian woman, always doing things for others. She talked about God a lot when I was a kid, about His wonderful creation, and the beauty she saw all around us. She had a lot of faith in God, but most of all, I remember that she had tremendous faith in the power of prayer. Regardless of any problems I may have ever encountered as a child, when I would go to her and tell her about them, the answer was always the same. She would always say, "Have you talked to God about it? Have you prayed?" My Mom never talked about the church at home, but she made sure she and her kids were there every Sunday. As I grew older, I stopped going to church, but I never lost my love for or my faith in God. It turned out that my Mother was right about prayer. I cannot begin to count the many times in my life that I have prayed to God for one thing or another, and He answered me. Not just answered me, but profoundly answered me. My answered prayers of a lifetime is proof enough for me that God exists. My belief in God has since translated into my belief in the Bible.

As I grew older, I began to be curious about the Bible. I had never seen one in our home as a child, and come to think of it, I didn't see one at school or church either. When I had the opportunity to study the Bible, I jumped at it. From the beginning, I was hooked, and had a great desire to learn more and more about it. The more I studied, the more I believed the words to be true. Eventually, I renounced the catholic religion, as did my Mother, and became a christian. I obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ in 1977 and haven't looked back.

There are so many reasons I believe the Bible is God's word. Besides my faith, and my own experiences, one thing that has always impressed me is the fact that the Bible was written by about forty men, in three different languages, from different parts of the world, over a span of hundreds and hundreds of years, yet it is unified in theme. That amazes me. I've asked myself how that could be. It wasn't like they had the internet back then. The Bible has also stood the test of time, regardless of how many have tried to destroy it. Roman emperors, communists, atheists, politicians, psychologists and more have attacked and discredited it. Some have called it a myth. Yet it has influenced more people than any other book in history. It has transformed many lives throughout thousands of years. There are numerous evidences for the Bible being the word of God: history, science, archaeology, and more support it's validity. These evidences can be found all over the internet if one has a desire to seek them out.

Blessings,

Katie

 

[Thana]

That's a really beautiful story, Thank you for sharing it

Though, Technically, Catholics are Christians so I think you mean to say that you became a Protestant.

 

[Katzpur]

Eventually, I renounced the catholic religion, as did my Mother, and became a christian.

Katie, I agree with everything you've said, except for the statement quoted above. It always makes me feel bad to hear Protestant Christians speak of Catholic Christians as if they aren't Christians at all. I know a great many wonderful Catholic Christians myself. They believe in and worship Jesus Christ every bit as much as any other Christian does. Other than that, I would say we are 100% on the same page. I, too, especially have a strong belief in the power of prayer.

 

[Thana]

Katie, I agree with everything you've said, except for the statement quoted above. It always makes me feel bad to hear Protestant Christians speak of Catholic Christians as if they aren't Christians at all. I know a great many wonderful Catholic Christians myself. They believe in and worship Jesus Christ every bit as much as any other Christian does. Other than that, I would say we are 100% on the same page. I, too, especially have a strong belief in the power of prayer.

Though one can understand the mistake somewhat, Catholicism and Protestantism are so different to each other that they almost seem like two seperate religions.

 

[Desert Snake]

@katiemygirl
Great post.

 

[Nada]

I was asked this question in another thread. My answer below is not written to convince anyone of anything.

My belief that the Bible is the word of God comes from my belief in God, Himself. I was born into a catholic family and was educated in a parochial school. My Mother became a catholic when she married my Father, however, she really never bought into the catholic religion. (I never did either). She sent her kids to catholic school because she wanted us to get a good education. My Father did work for the church, which paid for our tuition. My Father never went to church, except maybe on Christmas or Easter. So there was really never any talk about church doctrine in the house. Most conversation about religion was centered on God. My Mom was a strong believer in God, and she was a good christian woman, always doing things for others. She talked about God a lot when I was a kid, about His wonderful creation, and the beauty she saw all around us. She had a lot of faith in God, but most of all, I remember that she had tremendous faith in the power of prayer. Regardless of any problems I may have ever encountered as a child, when I would go to her and tell her about them, the answer was always the same. She would always say, "Have you talked to God about it? Have you prayed?" My Mom never talked about the church at home, but she made sure she and her kids were there every Sunday. As I grew older, I stopped going to church, but I never lost my love for or my faith in God. It turned out that my Mother was right about prayer. I cannot begin to count the many times in my life that I have prayed to God for one thing or another, and He answered me. Not just answered me, but profoundly answered me. My answered prayers of a lifetime is proof enough for me that God exists. My belief in God has since translated into my belief in the Bible.

As I grew older, I began to be curious about the Bible. I had never seen one in our home as a child, and come to think of it, I didn't see one at school or church either. When I had the opportunity to study the Bible, I jumped at it. From the beginning, I was hooked, and had a great desire to learn more and more about it. The more I studied, the more I believed the words to be true. Eventually, I renounced the catholic religion, as did my Mother, and became a christian. I obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ in 1977 and haven't looked back.

There are so many reasons I believe the Bible is God's word. Besides my faith, and my own experiences, one thing that has always impressed me is the fact that the Bible was written by about forty men, in three different languages, from different parts of the world, over a span of hundreds and hundreds of years, yet it is unified in theme. That amazes me. I've asked myself how that could be. It wasn't like they had the internet back then. The Bible has also stood the test of time, regardless of how many have tried to destroy it. Roman emperors, communists, atheists, politicians, psychologists and more have attacked and discredited it. Some have called it a myth. Yet it has influenced more people than any other book in history. It has transformed many lives throughout thousands of years. There are numerous evidences for the Bible being the word of God: history, science, archaeology, and more support it's validity. These evidences can be found all over the internet if one has a desire to seek them out.

Blessings,

Katie

Wow! I really enjoyed your story.I was ready to run out on the field with you by the end of it.Lol...

 

[Katzpur]

Though one can understand the mistake somewhat, Catholicism and Protestantism are so different to each other that they almost seem like two seperate religions.

While I realize there are differences, I prefer to focus on the commonalities -- a love of Jesus Christ and a faith in Him as our Redeemer. To me, those two things ought to be enough to make a person a Christian. Jesus said, "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples -- that ye have love one for another." He didn't mention any specific beliefs they must have or not have.

 

[Sabour]

I was asked this question in another thread. My answer below is not written to convince anyone of anything.

My belief that the Bible is the word of God comes from my belief in God, Himself. I was born into a catholic family and was educated in a parochial school. My Mother became a catholic when she married my Father, however, she really never bought into the catholic religion. (I never did either). She sent her kids to catholic school because she wanted us to get a good education. My Father did work for the church, which paid for our tuition. My Father never went to church, except maybe on Christmas or Easter. So there was really never any talk about church doctrine in the house. Most conversation about religion was centered on God. My Mom was a strong believer in God, and she was a good christian woman, always doing things for others. She talked about God a lot when I was a kid, about His wonderful creation, and the beauty she saw all around us. She had a lot of faith in God, but most of all, I remember that she had tremendous faith in the power of prayer. Regardless of any problems I may have ever encountered as a child, when I would go to her and tell her about them, the answer was always the same. She would always say, "Have you talked to God about it? Have you prayed?" My Mom never talked about the church at home, but she made sure she and her kids were there every Sunday. As I grew older, I stopped going to church, but I never lost my love for or my faith in God. It turned out that my Mother was right about prayer. I cannot begin to count the many times in my life that I have prayed to God for one thing or another, and He answered me. Not just answered me, but profoundly answered me. My answered prayers of a lifetime is proof enough for me that God exists. My belief in God has since translated into my belief in the Bible.

As I grew older, I began to be curious about the Bible. I had never seen one in our home as a child, and come to think of it, I didn't see one at school or church either. When I had the opportunity to study the Bible, I jumped at it. From the beginning, I was hooked, and had a great desire to learn more and more about it. The more I studied, the more I believed the words to be true. Eventually, I renounced the catholic religion, as did my Mother, and became a christian. I obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ in 1977 and haven't looked back.

There are so many reasons I believe the Bible is God's word. Besides my faith, and my own experiences, one thing that has always impressed me is the fact that the Bible was written by about forty men, in three different languages, from different parts of the world, over a span of hundreds and hundreds of years, yet it is unified in theme. That amazes me. I've asked myself how that could be. It wasn't like they had the internet back then. The Bible has also stood the test of time, regardless of how many have tried to destroy it. Roman emperors, communists, atheists, politicians, psychologists and more have attacked and discredited it. Some have called it a myth. Yet it has influenced more people than any other book in history. It has transformed many lives throughout thousands of years. There are numerous evidences for the Bible being the word of God: history, science, archaeology, and more support it's validity. These evidences can be found all over the internet if one has a desire to seek them out.

Blessings,

Katie

Thank you for taking the time for posting it.

Since you posted it the the scriptural debates, than allow me to tell you that most of the arguments you used can also be used for the Quraan.

However one of the points I would disagree on is that you said the bible is unified in the theme when it is not. Take for example Jesus peace be upon him teaching vs Paul teaching. They are completely the opposite.

 

[Nada]

@one-answer
"Take for example Jesus peace be upon him teaching vs Paul teaching. They are completely the opposite."

Q: How so?

Ps.If not here then in a private message if you want.

 

[nazz]

OK, may I respond by telling you why I no longer believe the Bible is the Word of God? Let me begin by saying I once believed as you do now. I was taught to believe this and I simply accepted it as true. Later I would hear arguments such as the one you presented, the unified message by so many disparate authors. Also another argument was supposed fulfilled prophecy.

Where this belief began to unravel for me was being exposed to many contradictions in the text. If God was the author did that mean God contradicts himself? Now there are some apparent contradictions that can easily be resolved. But there are others that require extreme mental gymnastics which strain credulity to its breaking point. And still others that cannot be resolved no matter what. Even you admitted to there being copying errors. Copying errors are still errors and render the Bible errant as a result. You can't claim the bible is inerrant and admit there are errors. That's a contradiction. And if God is truly watching over the Bible why can't God prevents those from occurring?

I have also brought up that the Bible exists in many forms. Different churches use different canons. The Protestant churches have one, the Catholic church another, and the Ethiopian Orthodox still another. Which one of these is the true Word of God? Plus before the canonization process many texts were accepted as inspired by the early church that did not make the final cut. And other texts were rejected that were later included.

Then we have the issue that no two extant manuscripts matches another. There are thousands of variations in the texts. Now one can argue that most of these do not substantial alter any meaning but then you are essentially making the same argument I have been making. That the text itself is not the Word but the Word is the message.

Then consider how many different translations are out there and they do not all harmonize. Again, which one is the true Word of God? Is the Watchtower Society's New World Translation that most Protestants reject as false? Is it one like the NIV which leaves out key words and verses found in the KJV?

Add to this fact that even if you have a text that is somewhat reliable it is going to interpreted in so many vastly different ways. Which interpretation faithfully represents what God is really saying?

As for a unified message it simply is not there. I know because I spent many years looking for one. Not only does the message of the OT contradict that found in the NT but even within the NT itself there is disharmony between various writers. That is one of the reasons that there are so many denominations today.

Finally I would add to all this that the bible itself informs us that the Word of God is not the Bible itself. This can easily be shown by trying to substitute the word "bible" wherever the phrase "word of God" occurs in Scripture. It makes no sense to do so and is even ludicrous. I'll just give a few examples:

1Ki 12:22
But the Bible came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying,

Luk 3:2
while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the Bible came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

Act 6:7
Then the Bible spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.***

Heb 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Bible, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Rev 19:13
He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Bible.

***there are many such examples similar to this that speak of the apostles preaching the Word of God. This cannot mean the Christian Bible as it did not exist at that point in time. And it also cannot merely mean the Hebrew Scriptures either. Rather it was the message about Christ and his teachings.

 

[columbus]

Curiously, Katie, our stories parallel right up to reading the Bible for ourselves.

Even when I was very young I had questions about what I'd been taught about Jesus and Christianity. Even before I had the vocabulary I knew there was a "Problem of Evil", and that trinitarian monotheism didn't really make sense, and things like that. I was twelve or thirteen when I got hold of a Bible myself, instead of someone telling me what it says. I had faith that Jesus would explain all these things that my teachers and such seemed unable to explain. Boy was I wrong about that.

Jesus never mentioned the Trinity, and you had to hold the book at an angle and squint to find anything particularly supportive of Jesus' divinity, much less the Holy Ghost. You also had to dismiss the teachings of the entire OT. Reading the OT was fascinating, but the character of God in the early days was nothing like the NT God the Father. Genesis made God look like a bumbling king with superpowers. Exodus God was very different but not much better, and still not the Trinity. I came quickly to realize that it was all essentially fiction. It grew over time as societies grew and continues to do so today. There was doubtless truth about some of the history and morality, but it isn't from God, it from fallible humans. Mostly what they were after was the answers to questions we just did not know enough about to really say.

If it works for you that is fine with me. All I particularly object to is religionists trying to push their beliefs onto me and people like me.

Tom

 

[nazz]

I would add to what I wrote above the fact that the Bible is also externally contradicted by scientific and historical evidence.

 

[fantome profane]

one thing that has always impressed me is the fact that the Bible was written by about forty men, in three different languages, from different parts of the world, over a span of hundreds and hundreds of years, yet it is unified in theme. That amazes me.

I don't understand why this is so impressive or amazing. Surely this is just the natural result of compilation.

For example if I wanted to collect writings that expressed a pantheistic view of God I could find works from ancient Greeks, Hindus, Buddhists and even Jewish and Christian mystics. I could find writings that support this view from dozens of different cultures and from the most ancient right up to the modern time. If I took all these writing and published them together in a book (and there are several such collections) I would then have a book that contains writings from a large number of different authors from over hundreds or thousands of years that contain a unified theme. Would that be amazing? Of course not. They are collected together because they express similar ideas.

This is not unlike the Bible, they have been collected over a period of time because they share certain thematic elements. So why is it impressive that they share a common theme? It is no different than me going out and collecting blue stones, and then being amazed that all the stones in that collection just happen to be blue.

 

[George-ananda]

I was asked this question in another thread. My answer below is not written to convince anyone of anything.

You're right in not trying to convince anyone (unless in the rare case they're ready)....You go girl!

 

[Khaleel]

Hey you guys and girls! There's one thing - a crucial one - you haven't mentioned in these posts: there's one book that has been homogeneous for 14 centuries... billions and billions of copies around the world... but ONE version! Same words... unchanged, unchangeable, emanating from the same... author? No; GOD who tells us everything in His book... about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, other prophets and Jesus (peace be upon them all)...and everything they did and how they received the Message... Go check it in the last Revelation sent to the last messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to the whole humanity ! You'll find in this book things (historical, scientific, social...) that could NOT have been written (or said) by a man, DEFINITELY! I strongly challenge anyone to find any contradiction in the Qur'an or any two different versions of it! As simple as this... it is the word of Allah, God, Yahwe... call Him with any name, except Jesus son of Mary! In fact, He has told us how to refer to Him (99 names). He has promised to preserve His Book from corruption and loss when He says: {Indeed, it is We who have sent down the Qur'an and indeed, We will be its guardian} [A-Hidjr, verse 9].
PS: Please don't make the amalgam Islam and those Muslims who give such a bad erroneous picture of Islam... Go straight to the source and see for yourself if you want to discover the Truth!

 

[Ingledsva]

Hey you guys and girls! There's one thing - a crucial one - you haven't mentioned in these posts: there's one book that has been homogeneous for 14 centuries... billions and billions of copies around the world... but ONE version! Same words... unchanged, unchangeable, emanating from the same... author? No; GOD who tells us everything in His book... about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, other prophets and Jesus (peace be upon them all)...and everything they did and how they received the Message... Go check it in the last Revelation sent to the last messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to the whole humanity ! You'll find in this book things (historical, scientific, social...) that could NOT have been written (or said) by a man, DEFINITELY! I strongly challenge anyone to find any contradiction in the Qur'an or any two different versions of it! As simple as this... it is the word of Allah, God, Yahwe... call Him with any name, except Jesus son of Mary! In fact, He has told us how to refer to Him (99 names). He has promised to preserve His Book from corruption and loss when He says: {Indeed, it is We who have sent down the Qur'an and indeed, We will be its guardian} [A-Hidjr, verse 9].
PS: Please don't make the amalgam Islam and those Muslims who give such a bad erroneous picture of Islam... Go straight to the source and see for yourself if you want to discover the Truth!

Sorry Dude, we have had this discussion many times here. There are just as many problems with the Qur'an. It has definitely been changed in translation, by people trying to prove things it said that were obviously not provable, as written.

*

 

[Sapiens]

So we have competing books, beliefs, dogmas, rites and rituals and no more that one set can be true (to be perfectly clear, one set or none). Everyone else gets to go to hell.

 

[columbus]

I don't understand why this is so impressive or amazing. Surely this is just the natural result of compilation.

It really isn't. The Council of Trent got together and decided what the Bible is. No God was involved.
They got rid of all the Christian teachings that were inconvenient to the political powers, and we got the leftovers.

Then they claimed that it was The Holy Ghost who decided.

Tom

 

[Khaleel]

Sorry Dude, we have had this discussion many times here. There are just as many problems with the Qur'an. It has definitely been changed in translation, by people trying to prove things it said that were obviously not provable, as written.

*

Just wanna remind you that the translations of the Qur'an are just considered as translations or interpretations, but definitely NOT the Holy Book ! You can only perform the canonic prayers in Arabic. That wasn't the case for the Bible which was first conveyed in Aramaic...

 

[Ingledsva]

Just wanna remind you that the translations of the Qur'an are just considered as translations or interpretations, but definitely NOT the Holy Book ! You can only perform the canonic prayers in Arabic. That wasn't the case for the Bible which was first conveyed in Aramaic...

BOTH have been updated into more modern language so modern people can understand them. That means things have changed. The original word may not have the modern meaning, etc. Colloquialisms and customs change over time. So - we may not understand what the originally meant. Words cease to be used, etc.

Plus the latest translations which try to add science to the ancient text - show this very well.

*