What always comes with the New Year? Numerous resolutions and for many Christians, one of those resolutions will have something to do with the Bible. It might be to start reading the Bible more regularly, or to get more out of their reading time, or perhaps even to read the entire Bible over the next year.

I just wanted to take a moment and give you some resources that will help you accomplish your goal. Reading the Bible is an important aspect of the Christian faith that is too often neglected by those for whom it should take prominence. As a pastor, I see time after time where Christians don’t take the time to read their Bible and so they don’t even know something as simple as where the Ten Commandments are located. However, you ask them about the Chronicles of Narnia and they could draw a story board for you. That is not saying there is anything wrong with Narnia, but it is saying that Christians should be putting that much effort into reading their Bibles.

First, you can receive your daily reading in your email by visiting the ESV (English Standard Version) website. There you can choose from quite a number of different reading plans as well as different methods that you can read those plans such as: email, rss, mobile, print, etc.

Another help available to you is a website called YouVersion.com. This website is designed specifically to give people mobile access to the Bible from your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, or web enabled smartphone. You can read 41 different translations in 22 different languages. With YouVersion, you’ll never be far from the Word.

For those of you who don’t think you can tough it out for an entire year in order to read the Bible from cover to cover, there is another reading plan I would like to offer you. It is the Bible in 90 Days reading plan. This is a very intense reading plan and requires a great deal of commitment in order to accomplish. The task itself is really not that difficult. You will spend about 45 minutes to an hour each day reading (less if you’re a fast reader) and at the end of three months you will have read the entire Bible. There is also a Bible designed specifically for this. It comes in the NIV thinline (New International Version) and has large print. With this Bible you read twelve pages a day, which are marked to help you keep track of where you are along your reading plan. If you are one who likes to study the Bible and make notes in your Bible, then I would encourage you to get this Bible. I am very much a person who writes notes in the margin of my Bible (that’s why I own a wide margin Bible), and this helps keep me from feeling the urge to write notes and stay on task to complete the reading.

For those of you who are not necessarily looking to read the Bible cover to cover but just to start getting more out of your time with the Bible, there are two resources to which I would like to point you. The first is a series of posts that are appearing on Fallen and Flawed about how to study the Bible, which are being guest authored by Jonathan Woodward who runs Sorting Beans. These will help you start to read the Bible and get more out of what you read. However, if you really want to dive deep into studying the Bible, then I would recommend you go and pick up a copy of Living by the Book. Howard Hendricks does an excellent job of explaining how to study the Bible in a way that is easy to understand. Short of going to Bible College or Seminary, this is the best resource out there to learn how to study the Bible.

So, for all of you who read this post and have those Bible reading resolutions, you have no excuse not to follow through and reach your goal. In fact, I would love to hear from those of you who have made a Bible reading resolution in the comments below; maybe even check back in through the year and let everyone know how you’ve been doing. Maybe this post will turn into a place everyone can hold themselves and each other accountable, who knows…

This is the post last in a series covering the FAQ’s about the Bible. I have already answered the questions (1) How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God? HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE (2) How did we get the Bible as we know it today? HERE In this post, I am going to be answering the question: What is so important about the Bible anyways? This is the so what question. In other words, so what if the Bible is the Word of God…what does that mean? We can know all those other important things about the Bible, but if we don’t understand how the Bible applies to us individually then it becomes another piece of irrelevant literature. However, the Bible is extremely important to the lives of Christians. In fact, it is absolutely essential to three areas of the Christian life—spiritual growth, maturity, and effectiveness.

The Bible is essential to our spiritual growth. Just as we grow physically in life, we grow spiritually in our Christian life. First Peter 2:2 explains how the Bible is essential to our spiritual growth: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Peter understood that when it comes to the Word of God, we must first have a certain kind of attitude. We should have the attitude like that of a newborn baby. If you haven’t noticed, newborns aren’t really concerned with much. Their main concern is eating, sleeping, and well you know the other thing. Here the point is that our main concern should be with that which nourishes us spiritually—the Bible. Newborns not only have a certain attitude, but they have an appetite. When they are hungry, they cry. They have a desire for nourishment, for milk. We are supposed to have a desire to read and study the Bible. We are to “crave” the Word of God in our lives. Life is hectic, it is busy, and it is full of things that take us away from reading and studying the Bible. Yet, whenever we go through a period where we have not been able to regularly spend time in the Word, there should be a desire and a craving to slow down and get back into the Word that wells up within us like hunger pains. While we may think babies eat just to eat, there is an aim. Just as there is an aim for babies, there is an aim for us when spending time with the Bible. That aim is for us to “grow up in [our] salvation.” If we don’t regularly encounter the Word of God, then we will not experience real spiritual growth.

The Bible is also essential to our spiritual maturity. Spiritual growth is growing in the knowledge of the things of God. We gain that knowledge through the Word of God. Spiritual maturity is learning to apply that knowledge to our lives. As we experience spiritual growth, we should in turn experience spiritual maturity. Hebrew 5:11-14 explains this process beautifully:

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

The teaching about righteousness is that as we grow in our understanding of God’s Word, we grow in our ability live out that knowledge in our daily lives. How do we go about this process? We begin growing in our spiritual maturity through “constant use” of God’s Word “to distinguish good from evil.” Consider this, a person who has recently given their life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior struggles with questions regarding sin. They want to be obedient to Jesus and express their love for him, but they are not sure how to do this. So they may ask questions like: Is it okay for Christians to smoke? Is hell, damn, etc. curse words that I shouldn’t be using? Should I hangout with this person? There are an almost endless number of questions that new believers ask, but they all come from the fact that they still don’t know much about the Bible and what it says about how we should live. As Christians spend time reading and studying the Bible, these questions become easier to answer and almost second nature. The things which new believers often struggle with in theirs minds are not difficult for mature believers to resolve in their minds. The point of Hebrews though, is that we should all be maturing in our faith.

Finally, the Bible is essential to our spiritual effectiveness. There are four ways that the Bible aids us in becoming spiritually more effective. These four ways are listen in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The first way that it is useful is for teaching. This word more literally translates to doctrine. The Bible is useful for forming our core of beliefs. What do we believe about God? What do we believe about sin? What do we believe about __________(fill in the blank)? The Bible is useful for forming doctrine. The second way that the Bible helps us become spiritually effective is that it its usefulness for rebuking. Now, this doesn’t mean that we use the Bible to browbeat ourselves or anyone else. The Bible rebukes us all by itself; it doesn’t need our help. How does the Bible rebuke us? It tells us when and where we are out-of-bounds in our lives. It reveals to us when our lives have left the realm of obedience. The third way the Bible is essential to our spiritual effectiveness is that it not only rebukes us, but it corrects us. It tells us how to get back in-bounds when we have stepped out. It explains to us how to turn from sin and conform to God’s will. Finally, the Bible is essential to our spiritual effectiveness because it provides training in righteousness. The Bible explains how we can stay in-bounds to begin with, rather than simply showing us when we are out-of-bounds (rebuking) and how to get back in-bounds (correcting). These four things come together to make the Bible absolutely essential to our spiritual effectiveness.

Maybe you have wanted to be more effective for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. But I have to ask, what have you been doing to prepare yourself to be more effective? If you have not been spending time in the Word of God, you may well not be at a point where God can use you. Imagine that you have grown in the understanding of your profession by the same amount that you have in your Christian growth after the same number of years—what would be the outcome in your job? Oh, we spend a lot of time growing in our understand and effectiveness in every other area of our lives except the Bible. Lord, forgive us all for neglecting Your Word and strengthen our self-discipline that we might correct the error of our ways.

Do you have other questions about the Bible you would like for me to answer? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below or email them to me at MrHydesBlog@gmail.com

This series of posts have been tackling the frequently asked questions about the Bible. The first four posts in this series answered the question, “How can we know the Bible is the Word of God?” I used the acronym M-A-P-S as a guide to answering that question. The letters stand for Manuscript Evidence, Archeological Evidence, Prophecy, and Statistical Probability. There are still many other questions that are often asked about the Bible. One of those questions is how did we get the Bible as we know it today? This question is easily answered, but very few people actually know it.

The Bible as we know it today didn’t fall out of the sky or anything of the like. We received the Bible as we know it today through a process known as canonization. This is the process of recognizing those books that have the authority of God. Every now and then, you might hear someone refer to the “canon of Scripture.” This specifically refers to the 66 books contained in modern Bibles, but the word canon comes from a Greek word that means a reed, or rod as in a measuring rod. This is because there was a very precise rule or standard a book had to meet before it was considered Scripture. What was this standard? I’m glad you asked.

There was never a list of criteria written down where one could go and find a checklist and apply it to a book. However, there were some very clear criteria that were placed upon books of the Bible before they were accepted as Scripture. One of the first criteria was the authorship of the book. For Old Testament books, this was a question of whether or not it was written by a prophetic figure. New Testament books looked for apostolic authorship or apostolic support. The next major criterion was divine confirmation. Had God confirmed the author as being his messenger through mighty acts and deeds? This was essential because there have always been people who claim to have divine authority; these people are called false prophets in the Scriptures. Therefore, if someone had not been confirmed as a divinely appointed messenger, then there writings were rejected as Scripture. Doctrinal harmony was another criterion—did it line-up with the rest of Scriptural teaching. Many of the New Testament books began as circular letters that were read aloud in the churches and passed from church to church until every congregation had read the letter aloud. This formed the basis for another criterion for canonicity. Did churches already accept the book as possessing divine authority? All of these were important criteria when considering canonicity. However, spiritual profitability was one of the last considerations. All of those other criteria could be met in a book being considered, but it could still have lacked spiritual profitability. In other words, did the book serve to build up the church in the things of God? This is a criteria that is contained in the New Testament book 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

As you can see, there was serious consideration given to a book before it was considered canonical. This brings us to the next thing about the canon some people ask—are we still receiving Scripture today? The answer to this question is simply no. The canon of Scripture is closed. There are many reasons to come to this conclusion. The first is a theological reason. The Scriptures in the Old Testament were paving the way for Jesus Christ as they recorded God’s work among the nation of Israel, the nation from which Jesus would come. The New Testament is the written record of the coming of Jesus and the establishment of the church. There is no need for further revelation. This does not mean that God is no longer personally involved in humanity; or that people will not continue to gain new understanding of Scripture; or that because the apostles died that miracles have ceased. The other reason is historical. Because the apostles died, the divinely appointed messengers of Holy Scripture are not around to write Scripture. And historically speaking, there have not been any other messengers who have had the same divine confirmation like that of the apostles—raising the dead, speaking in tongues, healing the sick, etc. By the end of the fourth century A.D., the 66 books contained in modern translations of the Bible were the accepted canon of the Scripture.


There are still some other important things to know about the Bible as we have it today. I think many people don’t understand how the Bible is organized. It is not just a hodge-podge of books just randomly thrown together. There is a very specific organization to the 66 books of the Bible, and it is not chronological. The only chronological section of the Bible is from Genesis to 2 Kings. However, in the bookcase image above you can see that the Bible is first divided into two major sections. These are known as the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains all of the Scriptures revealed to the nation of Israel. It contains information about creation, God’s establishment of the nation of Israel, the rebellion of Israel against God, the capture and defeat of the nation of Israel by Assyria and Babylon, and the like. In short, it records God’s work in preparing the world for the appearance of Jesus. The New Testament contains all of the Scriptures revealed to the followers of Jesus. It contains information on the birth, life, and death of Jesus; the founding of the Christian church; the spread of early Christianity; and the like. The New Testament, for the most part, is not organized chronologically.

Instead of being organized chronologically, the Bible is order by groups of books and length of those books. Genesis through Deuteronomy (known as the Law) covers creation to the exodus of Israel from Egypt and their wanderings in the desert. Joshua, Judges, and Ruth all cover the taking of the Promised Land and the establishment of the nation of Israel. First Samuel to 2 Chronicles covers the history of Israel under the rulership of kings, the splitting of the nation into Israel (north) and Judah (south), the capture of Israel by the Assyrians, and the capture of Judah by the Babylonians. Ezra Nehemiah and Esther all address Israel under Persian control, which includes the decree to allow them to return and rebuild Jerusalem. So the group of books from Joshua to Esther is known as History.

Following Esther comes a group of books known as Wisdom Literature or Poetry. This is comprised of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. Then there is the grouping known as the Major Prophets—Isaiah to Daniel. These books are then ordered by length of chapters. Then comes the group known as the Minor Prophets. They are not called this because they are less important but because they are generally shorter than those books contained in the Major Prophets. This concludes the Old Testament.

The New Testament (NT) begins with the collection known as the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then Acts, the History book of the NT. Following Acts is the group known as the Pauline Epistles or Paul’s Letters—Romans to Philemon. These are all letters written by the Apostle Paul and they are ordered by length and not by date of composition. Following that is the General Epistles or General Letters—Hebrews to Jude. Once again, these are then further ordered by length. The last book of the Bible is Revelation and it is known as Apocalyptic or Prophecy. Now you have a basic understanding of how the Bible is ordered.

When the different books were written though, there were no chapter and verses in the text. These were additions to the texts at a much later date to assist in referencing passages of Scripture. Cardinal Hugo was the first to add chapter divisions. He did this in the Latin Bible in 1250 A.D. On the other hand, Robert Estienne added verses to the Greek New Testament in 1551 A.D. At this point, there was still no Bible with both chapters and verses. This would not occur until 1560 A.D. when both were placed in the Geneva Bible. Why is any of this important? Because many books of the Bible were intended to be read in a single setting and the chapter and verse divisions sometimes force a break in the flow of the text. Chapter and verse divisions are helpful, but they are not inspired. Likewise, the subheadings contained in many versions of the Bible are not inspired. These are things like “The Lord’s Prayer,” “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” “Paul’s Longing to Visit Rome,” etc. These are added and are not inspired. The only inspired subheadings in the Bible are those contained in the Psalms.

The Bible didn’t miraculously appear one day. It was received over a very long period of time. I think this post has shown that there is a lot more to the Bible than meets the eye. So now we have seen that we can know that the Bible is the Word of God (MAPS) and how we got the Bible as we know it today, but what is so important about the Bible anyways? It is this question that will be the focus of my next post.

In the last few posts, I have been answering the question: How can we know the Bible is the Word of God? When beginning to answer this question, I introduced the acronym M-A-P-S as a way to remember the answer. The first post addressed the M: Manuscript Evidence; the second post addressed the A: Archeological Evidence; the third post addresses the P: Prophecy. These first three posts demonstrated that the Bible is reliable in regard to transmission, accurate in regard to historicity, and trustworthy in regard to its spiritual claims. This post is going to address the S: Statistical Probability. What exactly to I mean by statistical probability? I mean that when all the facts are in concerning the Bible, the statistical probability that men artificially generated the Bible is unlikely.

So what are the facts? To begin with, the Bible was written over a time period around 1500-2000 years. Furthermore, the Bible is a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors in 4 different languages. Yet the Bible is one continuous story.

Considering those facts, let’s imagine that I challenge you to a task. My challenge is for you to generate a continuous story out of 66 books by 40 different authors. Let’s also imagine that as I issue this challenge to you, we are standing in the Library of Congress, which has millions of copies of books. In fact, it is estimated to contain 32 million cataloged books. Do you think you could accomplish this task? It is possible, but highly doubtful. But when one throws in the requirement that there be 4 different languages (The Library of Congress has books in 470 languages) and the books must span 1500-2000 years, it becomes impossible—even with millions of books at hand.

Think about the language requirement for a moment. America has only been a country for a little over two hundred years. Think how much our language has changed in that short time period. Go back just two hundred more years and English becomes essentially a different language. It would be nearly impossible for the average person to sit down and try to write a sequel to a book from the 1600’s. It would take someone familiar with Old English to take on such a task. That is what one faces when trying to claim that men sat down and came up with the books of the Bible. Not only is simply a language problem over time, but then you have completely different languages in the Bible as well.

After looking at the facts surrounding the Bible, one can come away with the confidence of knowing that it is most unlikely that men sat down and invented the Bible. What is even more emboldening is taking this in conjunction with the manuscript evidence, archeological evidence, and the specific and fulfilled prophecy contained in the Bible. Looking at four of these aspects, it become clear that the Bible is most certainly the Word of God. Some of you might be thinking, “That’s great, but how did we get the Bible? Did it fall out of the sky or something?” My next post will address this very topic—just how did get the bible as we know it today?

This is the third post of a series about the Bible—specifically some of those central and important questions asked about the Bible. The first post in this series introduced the acronym M-A-P-S as a way to remember the answer to the question, “How can we know the Bible is the Word of God?” In that first post, I discussed what the first letter represented: Manuscript Evidence. The second post addressed the A, which stands for Archeological Evidence. We saw that the Bible is trustworthy regarding its historical claims, but what about its spiritual claims? Some of the Bible’s spiritual claims are contained in its prophecies. This post is going to address the P, which stands for Prophecy. I know there is someone reading this and already thinking, “There are a lot of other ancient books that contain prophecies, what makes the Bible any different?” The difference between the Bible and other ancient books of prophecy is that the prophecies in the Bible are specific and they are fulfilled. We are going to examine just a couple of those prophecies in this post because of space constraints. My goal in this post is to demonstrate the nature of some of these prophecies and their fulfillment. It is not my intention to give an exhaustive treatment regarding all of the prophecies in the Bible that have been fulfilled.

With all of that being said, there is probably still someone thinking, “The Bible is not the only book to have prophecies that have been fulfilled. Nostradamus wrote many prophecies that have been fulfilled.” This argument simply does not hold water when all the facts are known. Did Nostradamus write prophecies? Yes, he wrote a lot of prophecies contained in what is known as Les Propheties. He recorded all of his prophecies in a particular form known as quatrains. He also used veiled language. He did this in a purposeful attempt to make it difficult to understand his prophecies. Why might he do this? It was to avoid persecution by the church. The method Nostradamus used in order to come by his predictions was Alchemy. During his lifetime, this was viewed in a bad light by the church and had even been condemned by the church in previous years. So the prophecies that people proclaim are so clearer fulfilled were written to avoid being understood by his contemporaries. Now we read them some 500 years removed and think we can understand them, I think not.

The prophecies in the Bible (for the most part) do not use veiled language but are very clear and easy to either demonstrate as fulfilled or false. Take for example the prophecy that the Israelites would be allowed to return the their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. This was predicted in Isaiah and Jeremiah:

This is the second post in a series looking at the many questions surrounding the Bible. In my previous post, I began answering the question of how we can know the Bible is the Word of God. I gave the acronym M-A-P-S as a guide and a helpful way to remember the answer. I began by tackling the first letter in the acronym, which stands for Manuscript Evidence. I also answered the question of whether or not the Bible is riddled with errors—as many as 300,000. This post is going to deal with the second letter of the acronym, which stands for Archeological Evidence. Does archeology support the Bible or does it contradict the Bible?

Archeological Evidence
Before one can answer this with a simple yes or no, some things have to be understood about archeology, the Bible, and how the two relate. Archeology is a very limited field of study. It is a discipline in which one attempts to reconstruct the past through the evidence on hand. Now, this is not unlike modern forensics that has been so famously featured on shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigators. However, forensics looks at recent evidence that is often abundant whereas archeologists look at ancient evidence that is often in poor shape and is rather scarce.

Often times, what archeologists are able to locate is what would be considered garbage. Discarded pottery, utensils, and human remains comprise the majority of evidence submitted into the archeological forensic laboratory. Some of these can be quite helpful. For instance, pottery is very helpful in dating an archeological site because there are very distinct patterns on pottery through different periods. However, pottery cannot tell an archeologist about the daily life of the people who owned it nor can it disclose the religious beliefs of those people.

The limits of archeology are truly highlighted by the fact that far less than 5% of historical sites have been excavated whatsoever and far fewer have been meaningfully excavated. So we have very little in terms of the available archeological evidence on hand. Furthermore, as I noted above, most of this evidence is “left-overs” from the culture. Even more problematic is the fact that most of what archeology has discovered in the way of artifacts is not published and, therefore, is not available for review or for information purposes.

It is also important to understand how archeology and the Bible relate. The Bible was not written to be a historical record. Its purpose was not to record details in a historical light; its purpose was to record details in a theological light. The Bible deals with information about God, the spiritual realm, salvation, etc. and these are all things with which archeology cannot interact.

So where does archeology fit into the Bible? While the Bible does not primarily deal with history, it does record historical facts. This is where archeology comes into play. For example, Luke records a lot in the way of historical facts in the book of Acts located in the New Testament. Likewise, there are names of people groups, cities, kings and the like mentioned throughout the Bible. This is where archeology has aimed its sights at proving or disproving the Bible.

At this point, one must note that the possibility exists for archeology to prove the Bible false on these historical facts. However, this would only prove the Bible historically inaccurate at that singular point at best and wholly inaccurate at worst. Even more important to realize though, is that this does nothing to prove or disprove the Bibles spiritual claims—and this is the Bible’s primary focus and purpose.

While the possibility exists for archeology to show the Bible historically inaccurate, this simply has not been done at this point in time. There are many places in the Bible where it has been attempted to show that archeology demonstrates the Bible to be unreliable or wrong. Some of these examples include the Exodus event, the Hittites mentioned in the Old Testament, and Luke’s details in the book of Acts.

The Exodus Event
It has long been argued that the events as recorded in the book of Exodus could not have occurred or that they vary from the account contained in the Bible. The biggest “fact” cited in opposition to the Exodus event is that no evidence can be found which places the Israelites in Egypt—at all. There is one serious problem with this notion. The Egyptians were notorious for destroying historical records. Some of these examples include the “erasing” of Queen Hatshepsut (see left), the Hyksos rulers, and Akhenaten. With examples like these of strong revisionist history in Egypt, should it come as a surprise that there is no evidence in Egypt that the Israelites were there—slaves that eventually ruined their land and then left without as much as a skirmish.

Even though this is the case, there is a discovery that corroborates the timeline of the Exodus event. The discovery is known as Merneptah’s Stele (see right). It is a catalogue honoring Pharoah Merneptah’s military campaigns leading up to his defeat of the Libyans. The stele mentions his defeat of Israel and places them in the land of Canaan at about the same time as what is recorded in the book of Judges or possibly the end of Joshua.

The Hittites
For a long time, the naming of this and other people groups mentioned in the Old Testament (specifically Genesis) was cited because there was no evidence of them. However, recent archeological finds discovered documents and remains of what is considered to be their capital city located in modern day Turkey.

Luke’s Historical Record in Acts
For centuries, scholars attempted to show that Luke was not an accurate historian because he incorrectly used names regions, cities, routes, etc. One of the specific instances of this was Luke’s use of politarchai to describe the city officials in Thessalonica. This criticism has been shown to be unfounded since the word was inscribed in stone at the base of an arch as well as in several other inscriptions. So the argument that Luke made this word up because it was not used anywhere else simply failed to materialize in support of the claim that Luke was inaccurate when recording the names and places found in Acts.

Archeology has not proven the Bible to be historically wrong thus far. In fact, it seems quite the opposite has been the case. Where archeology and the Bible has intersected, it has demonstrated the Bible to be historically accurate. But can the Bible be trusted with its spiritual claims? It is this question I will answer in the next post.

It seems like there is no scarcity of questions regarding the receiving and transmission of the books contained in the Bible. Questions like: How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God? How did we get the Bible as we know it today? Why is the Bible so important anyways? These are important questions that deserve answers. Much of Christian practice and beliefs is rooted and founded upon the Bible. Therefore, the answers to these questions shape how a Christian will approach the Bible and then apply the truths they see contained therein to everyday life—both for the individual and the church. This will be the first post of many, which are going to be devoted entirely to answering those questions. And the first question is...

How can we know that the Bible is the Word of God?
The answer is simply M-A-P-S. This is the acronym that I like to use in order to give people a way to remember the information. One reason I particularly like giving this acronym is because nearly every Bible in print today contains a section of maps in the back.

Manuscript Evidence
Archeological Evidence
Prophecy
Statistical Probability

Manuscript Evidence
When one looks at the manuscript evidence regarding the Scriptures, it is abundant and convincing. For comparison, take Plato’s Tetralogies. There are only 7 copies in existence and those copies are 1,200 years removed from the time Plato penned the work. Pliny the Younger, who was a historian in the first century AD, penned his historical writings of which we only have 7 copies that are 750 years removed from the time he composed his work. Furthermore, Homer’s Iliad, which has arguably the best manuscript evidence of all the writings of the ancient world, has only 600 copies in existence that are 1,000 years removed from the original date of composition. When textual critics look at these documents they do not question the reliability of them but regard them as historically accurate.

How does the Bible stack up in comparison? The Old Testament has a great abundance of manuscript evidence—over 11,000 copies. These copies include the Septuagint (LXX), which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew texts. It also includes the Qumran texts more popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are some of the earliest copies we have today. There are a lot of other copies that give a wealth of information regarding the Old Testament texts. This towers over the evidence of all other ancient documents, like Homer’s Iliad, Plato, Pliny the Younger, etc. But does the New Testament also have the same abundance of information?

The New Testament also has a lot of copies available, some 5,366. The New Testament has received a lot more attention than the Old Testament. Authors such as Bart Ehrman appear to constantly be attacking the New Testament. What is interesting about these attacks is not that he argues the textual support is lacking in the way of sheer volume of copies, but that the copies have been corrupted. So you hear Ehrman and others throwing out statements similar to the following: “The New Testament contains over 300,000 errors.” That sounds like a whole lot of errors and would be reason enough to question the reliability of the New Testament. However, a quick introduction to textual criticism will help clear up this statement that seems to deal such a fatal blow to the reliability of the Bible.

Textual criticism is the study of manuscripts by comparing copies to one another in order to determine the original reading of the source document. Comparing these documents side-by-side yields a pretty good picture of what errors were introduced into the text; the more copies available and the closer those copies are to the original, the better textual critics can determine what errors were introduced. Now, how do we get a number like 300,000 when there aren’t even that many words in the New Testament (there are only 181,253 words)? It is because of the way errors are counted. Spelling errors are counted in that number. Also, if a spelling error is copied 100 times, that is 101 errors. When a word is copied twice, that is an error. How did this happen? Sometimes those copying the texts would take a break to eat, sleep, or something else and would come back and they would copy the same same word two times, consecutively. Every time this error was copied, it counts as another error. Words copied out of order are also counted as errors. Now, this might sound like a big deal at first, but English and Greek are very different in regard to grammar. Word order is not as important in Greek as English. In other words, there is not subject verb agreement necessary in the Greek; word order was used mainly for emphasis. Once again, every time this was copied, it is counted as another error. Once you understand this, it becomes easy to see how one can get to a number like 300,000 errors.

In reality, there are only three places in the New Testament that have any question about authenticity. The first of these three places is found at the end of the gospel of Mark. Many newer translations make note of this fact. The New International Version (NIV) puts a line through the middle of the page after verse 8 and before verse 9 with the statement: The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20. Other translations such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) don’t make note of it in the same dramatic manner as the NIV, but they all make note with brackets or parenthesis and a note to the same effect as the NIV. The scholars have discovered that many of the earliest copies did not have these verses, but the vast majority of the later copies did contain these verses. The NIV translators felt there was enough evidence to question the authenticity of these verses, but rather than risk removing something that could possibly have been original in the text they came to the resolution to make a note that these verses were questionable. However, even if these verses were left out of the gospel of Mark, they change nothing concerning salvation; the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ; or that Jesus was God in the flesh.

The second place that is questioned is located in the gospel of John. The passage in question is the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by the Pharisees. Once again the NIV separates out this section with a line across the page and the statement: The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11. Just like the passage in the gospel of Mark, this passage changes no doctrine of the church whatsoever. The last place in question is found in 1 John. Here, the passage is almost certainly an addition to the text. Following is 1 John 5:7-8 quoted first as it reads in the NIV and then the KJV (emphasis mine):

I was given the great honor of reviewing another book for the folks over at sbcIMPACT! The book I reviewed this time is entitled Sunday School in HD by Allan Taylor. It was an excellent book. I encourage everyone to look at my full review by clicking here or the image on the left.

David Rogers at SBC Impact has written an intriguing article this morning about church membership. It is entitled “Church Membership: A Social Convention?” You can view the article here. In this article David addresses the “decline” of the Christian church in America. This has been a topic of discussion of late; particularly since President Obama declared that America was no longer a Christian nation (you can watch video of his comment here). President Obama’s comment is not the only reason there has been a lot of buzz about this topic; the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) released a study a few weeks ago that has created much of the buzz about the decline of Christianity in America.

However, David’s focus in his article is not so much on the decline itself. He attempts to address a possible reason for the decline—church membership. If I read his article correctly, his point is that “church membership” is not valued nor correctly understood by neither the church nor the people joining the church. As his title put it, church membership has become a social convention. I don’t think he meant that it was invented by our society, but to put it more bluntly, it is a fad. Church membership in America was something “you did” in the 1940’s. Now it is not necessarily something you do and so our numbers are declining. However, David brings out a point to which I would like to add. He wrote, “Personally, I am not so sure that the church overall was any healthier in the 40s than it is now. Not that we’re doing all that great now, but it seems to me, from what I can gather (and Latourette’s quote seems to validate this theory), that the church then was “a mile wide and an inch deep.”” That is still the problem today; churches don’t spend time deepening their members’ relationship with Christ.

The problem with church membership today is not that it is not “cool” to be a member of a church, but I believe it is a conglomeration of factors:


(1) People today don’t understand church membership. Churches have failed to explain that church membership is more than going to a church on Sunday mornings; it is uniting oneself with Christ in saving salvation and following through by publicly declaring that commitment in believer’s baptism. Church membership is first and foremost determined by whether a person has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.


(2) Churches today don’t understand church membership. If a church will allow a first-time guest to come down the aisle and join the church, then I don’t think that church understand what membership is. We don’t create hoops for people to jump through, but we are to examine people to determine if they have truly accepted Jesus Christ. After all, we are told to judge a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:16, Luke 6:43-45). In my opinion, churches are doing a disservice to people by not asking about their salvation; we give people the false understanding that they are saved and going to heaven and we never even stop to ask them if they understand salvation.


(3) Churches today don’t require anything for membership. In America we have become afraid to ask our members to do anything. There is this stigma that “if you ask them, they will leave.” Jesus asked his disciples a lot! And a lot of them left! Jesus doesn’t call us to a lazy faith; he calls us to an active faith. There is nothing we do to earn our salvation; however, we are required to do something with our salvation. One of the greatest commands Jesus gave us concerning our faith is found in Matthew 28:18-20—All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. We have trouble asking our congregations to even share their faith with other people in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and families. When we don’t even push our people to be obedient to what is commanded from Scripture, should we really be surprised when we see people leaving the church in droves.

David was speaking to the churches of the ‘40’s, but I think many (too many) of our churches today are still a mile wide and an inch deep. We are not teaching them to be obedient to the Scriptures and to live out their faith on a daily basis. I think this is why so many students “leave” the church when they graduate high school and move on to college. We didn’t spend time deepening their faith in Christ. We didn’t help them build on a foundation of rock—we never moved them off the foundation of sand. So when the storm came, their “house” didn’t hold up. The same thing happens to the adults—when they lose their job, they go through a divorce, have a terrible death in the family, etc. We are setting up entire churches that are spiritually bankrupt, and then we wonder why the church as a whole is in decline.


Do you think churches should require more for membership? Does your church already, if so what do they require?