I believe in Him. A lot of people don’t, and that’s okay. Free will – given to us by Him, ironically – gives you the right to choose not to. I used to exist driven by that very same mindset. But today, when someone says, “the Bible is just another book,” something inside of me bristles.
What personal, very real, spiritual experiences have taught me since I began to hold, think about, and read this “book” differently has transformed me. The bristles do not come out of any negative emotion, or even defensiveness. They come of conviction. So when someone says, “the Bible is just another book,” I have to stop them right there… because that’s simply not true.
And, if you really sit with the reality of “the Book” itself, it proves that just by existing.
A Book Unlike Any Other
First of all, it’s not just one book. The Bible is comprised of sixty-six books. Forty different people wrote it over fifteen hundred years. No single political movement coordinated it. No single culture produced it. Shepherds, kings, fishermen, prophets, a physician, a tax collector, and so many others – a whole cast of characters – produced it, as God played it out through them.
All of these people lived across different centuries. They spoke different languages. They lived on different continents. And yet they produced what is “The Bible” – one continuous, coherent story. There has never been a book like it in all of human history.
Does that make it the Word of God? Not by itself. But it means it is worth considering.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)
What History Dug Up
For hundreds of years, archaeologists have used the Old and New Testaments as a guide. The books of the Bible have helped them uncover and understand people, civilizations, buildings, kings, and stories that scholars have insisted – and let’s be honest; still would insist, without the data – never existed.
But someone picked up a shovel, and started digging.
The Bible said all these things were there. Those with the insatiable desire to prove it dug it up, and lo and behold. There it was. Real people really existed. Real events really happened. Real men and women wrote down what they saw.
Does that make it the Word of God? Again, no. But it means it is historically accurate.
Again, that is worth considering.
Three Hundred Predictions
The Bible’s prophecies and predictions are where it gets harder to dismiss. The Bible didn’t just record history. It claimed, centuries in advance, to predict it.
The most obvious example is the introduction of Jesus in Genesis, without ever saying His name. Over three hundred prophecies throughout the Bible before Christ appears describe one specific person: where he would be born, how he would die, how much he would be sold for, and what His gift would actually cost.
That is not a mistake, or a coincidence. That is a God, who is not trapped in linear time, showing you exactly what to look for when He arrived. And then a man named Jesus showed up and said, “I’m that guy,” and fulfilled all three hundred prophecies and predictions.
The natural response is, “They just wrote it afterward and filled it all in.” But we know that the first Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, was completed roughly 250 years before Jesus was born. That translation already included Micah’s prophecy that the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem. It already included Psalm 22’s description of crucifixion, a form of execution that did not even exist yet as capital punishment. It already included Zechariah’s thirty pieces of silver.
They could not have written it afterward. The timeline does not allow it.
I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. (Isaiah 46:10)
Why They Died
Jesus told his disciples exactly who He was, and exactly what was going to happen. He said He was going to die and come back to life, and He did… but that’s not the point that I am driving home here.
When Jesus was arrested, the people who had walked with him for three years scattered. They were afraid. That is human. That is honest. They thought they were wrong, but then something happened.
Something changed those same frightened, scattered people so completely that they came back – not to wealth, or power, but to testimony – and the Roman government was not happy about this. It wanted them dead. These people were expelled from their own Jewish communities. They were fed to animals in arenas for public entertainment.
There was nothing to gain. Nothing. And every one of them, except John who was exiled to an island, died a martyr’s death. What do you die for, willingly, when there is nothing to gain and everything to lose?
They all said the same thing: “I saw him die. And I saw him come back.”
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day… and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)
The Choice He Left You
Hell was not made for you. That is important to understand. It was created for the devil and his angels. But God set certain things into the nature of reality, and one of those things is that a creature who finally, permanently rejects Him cannot exist in his presence. It is not anger. It is consequence built into the design.
This is what sets Christianity apart from other belief systems: God, through his Son, Jesus Christ, did not leave you there. He sent Jesus. He came down. He absorbed the cost Himself. If anyone ends up separated from God, it is not because He did not offer a solution. It’s not because He did not try. It is not because there was no way.
It will have been a choice.
If there is no God and we all simply end in unconscious silence, you will never know the difference. But if you are wrong, you will know, and you will know forever.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)
To deny Him simply because you have not seen it with your own eyes – and especially to continue to deny Him when you have spiritual experience sitting right there as evidence – is, by any common sense standard, a risk not worth taking.
But the truth, as logic alone can give you – even if you look only at “the Book” itself, and history – is that the proof is abundant.
Closing Thoughts
Faith is not the absence of questions. Faith is the honest pursuit of answers. And faith is all that is required, ultimately. It is by grace, through faith, that we are saved.
The proof is there.
The Bible has survived every attempt to dismiss it – historically, archaeologically, even prophetically. The resurrection was not quietly claimed in a corner of the world. It was announced in the same city where the execution happened, in front of people who could have walked to the tomb and checked. The witnesses did not die for a comfortable lie. They died for what they said they saw.
It is the faith that matters.
You do not have to believe. God gives you that freedom of choice. But before you dismiss it, take an honest look at what you are dismissing. There has never been another book, another story, another figure in all of human history that holds up under this kind of scrutiny and still stands.
He said he was coming. He described what it would look like. He told you what it would cost. He paid it. And He said, “I’m going to die, and I’m going to come back.”
That is either the most elaborate deception in all of human history, or it is exactly what it claims to be.
It is worth considering.
Author’s Note
Personally, it is more than worth considering. It is exciting, and inspiring, that it is worth considering at all. But to have spent so long considering it before I accepted that there was no disproving it – and to have had the experiences God has given me, as hard and as beautiful as they have been – has become the driving force behind my desire to share what I see, and what I continue to discover.
That is the source – the passion – behind this blog. It is my gift from Him, to be able to write it. It is my honor and joy to share what I share here.
Thank you for having me, and joining me. Thank you for your support, in all the ways you offer it, here at Twin Tree Project.
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