The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, That's the Book For Me

This week we have a guest contributor, Linda Danahy. Linda is a Bible study leader at my church, and shared some wonderful encouragement about the truth of God's Word in a recent email. I thought you would be encouraged by it, too.

This is an abbreviated version of her email, so please reach out to me if you'd like the full version.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As I was studying this weekend, I hit [a question in our Bible study] and I had to pause. The question was “Explain as you would to someone who believes the Bible is written by men and not inspired by God, why I know the Bible is the word of God.” Why did I pause? Because I felt unsure of how I would answer. I did not feel confident that I could tell someone clearly, with conviction and excitement why I believed the Bible was the inspired word of God!

So that is what I have been mulling this past weekend. I did some research that I needed to do and this is what I came up with:

My first thoughts were [because] the Bible tells us so…

2Tim 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Our verses this week [in our study were] in 2Peter 1:20-21 “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had it’s origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Concerning God speaking directly to people, here are some Scriptures which helped me see clearly see how God conveyed his message (Numbers 12:1-9, Deuteronomy 18:14-22).

The more I dug in with my word searches of the words “prophet” and “prophecy” I was amazed by all that God has to say about the Scripture being God-breathed and the veracity of the Scripture through predictive prophecy. Take a few moments and type in the word “prophecy” in a Bible Gateway word search – header after header is “The Prophecy of…” By doing this I really sensed the magnitude of the prophecy revealed by God.

Here are some basic, substantiated historical facts about the Bible…

The Bible was written over a 1500 year span of time on three continents. It was written by 40 authors and contains 66 books. The majority of the book is eye witness accounts. There is amazing consistency in the writings. The text speaks with agreement and reliability on hundreds of controversial subjects. Yet it tells one story from beginning to end, God’s salvation of man through Jesus Christ.

The world recognizes the writings of Plato, Socrates, Homer and Aristotle. There are only 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad which was the most famous book in ancient Greece. There are 10 copies of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars; the earliest copies of this book were made 1,000 years after it was written.

There were 5,366 manuscripts of the New Testament found and compared; these copies date from as early as 70 years after the original writing.

We now have the Dead Sea Scrolls and other archaeological finds which substantiate for the world the authenticity of the Bible!

The most exciting aspect of sharing with someone about the veracity of the Scripture is that God gave you this opportunity to be useful to Him!! He will empower you to speak in that moment and you will plant seeds, if you don’t panic at the question. Don’t panic, PRAY, “Father, you have opened up this conversation and I am your conduit. Please let your words flow in and through me that this meeting will bring you honor and glory.” The words will come and you will be able to engage them in an important conversation – your divine appointment for that moment in time! Oh to be useful to Him!!

Then there may be the opportunity to ask them about something that they might have been questioning in their life, maybe a difficulty. You can share with them how you have struggled with difficulties and found amazing answers within the Scripture. Possibly share with them a struggle you may have had and the verses that you knew where God’s promises to you, his words of guidance and wisdom. If you have your Bible, open to some of your favorite verses and show them the verses; have them read one of them out loud. Often times the most critical people have never opened the Bible and read something from it. Share with them how excited you are when you are mulling something, struggling with something, or just need something to express the joy you are feeling and you go directly to your Bible; there you have consistently found clarity, wisdom, insight and words of great joy.

What a cool conversation may ensue when we don’t panic but pray and we begin to share the joy we feel about the amazing, incredible book that God has given us which is his inspired word. Ladies, we are planting seeds any time we are given the opportunity to share something about our glorious, Holy Lord God Almighty. Delight that you have been found worthy to be the conduit he has chosen to use in that moment to touch a heart, to plant an seed, to be a reflection of our King!

As we know God so wants us to have a boldness, a confidence and a delight when we speak his word. We delve into our Bible study each day so we will be able to convey his word accurately when he calls upon us. In that quiet, intimate time with him, he is preparing us for the encounters and experiences of the day ahead. It is amazing how often he will have us share with someone something we just learned in his word or something we are working on in our sanctification. That is why we delve into the Scriptures daily! So dig! Delight in his word and with great excitement look forward to being useful to him!

May we bless God today in our thoughts, words and actions bringing him great honor and glory!

Big hugs and much love,

Linda

PS. Then at that next cup of coffee, sharing the Biblical Gospel message will be as easy as opening your Bible and saying, “I want to share the most profound experience of my life and it is written about right here in the Scripture!”