Bible Testing Evidence

[Gideon300]

So we don’t know or believe that the Bible is God’s word until after we are born again? If we do not, then why did we become born again without believing the Bible is His word? One becomes a Christian when they believe the Bible is God’s word, as that is how faith comes (Rom. 10:17). By hearing God’s word. The Spirit reproves/convicts us of sin (Jn 16:8).

What evidence do you have that the Bible is God’s word other than saying the Spirit witnessing to your spirit that it is? That answer isn’t a good answer to unbelievers, as anyone can say that about other religions. A Muslim could say Allah or Muhammad witnesses to their spirit that the Quran is the word of God, even though it’s not.

There are reams of material written about the Bible. Apologists with history degrees and Christian archaeologists have written dozens of tomes that prove the Bible is historically accurate. That is not enough to convince the sceptics. I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word. Everyone who has been saved has been convicted by the Holy Spirit as the gospel is preached.

I spent way too much time as a young Christian on this subject. There is power in God's word that transcends intellect. Unbelievers will find excuses to reject the Bible anyway. People read the history of Israel and God's dealing with them. They find fault with God's ways. You can spend hours arguing and get exactly nowhere.

God never tries to prove Himself. He has made the Creation, which is enough evidence to reveal God's character and nature. Men look at the stars and spend squillions trying to make sense of it. They refuse to accept that God created it all. Satan blinds the eyes of those who are perishing. You may as well try to describe a sunset to a blind man.

Stick with the gospel to unbelievers. The rest will follow. If you like to debate and argue, there are books that you can buy or youtube presentations. I have a few statements that I use such as the accuracy of prophecy. Doubters doubt no matter what I say. "In the last days there will be mockers........." The sceptics prove that the Bible prophecies are accurate! Tell them that and watch them explode. Fun, but not that edifying.

 

[GWH]

There are reams of material written about the Bible. Apologists with history degrees and Christian archaeologists have written dozens of tomes that prove the Bible is historically accurate. That is not enough to convince the sceptics. I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word. Everyone who has been saved has been convicted by the Holy Spirit as the gospel is preached.

I spent way too much time as a young Christian on this subject. There is power in God's word that transcends intellect. Unbelievers will find excuses to reject the Bible anyway. People read the history of Israel and God's dealing with them. They find fault with God's ways. You can spend hours arguing and get exactly nowhere.

God never tries to prove Himself. He has made the Creation, which is enough evidence to reveal God's character and nature. Men look at the stars and spend squillions trying to make sense of it. They refuse to accept that God created it all. Satan blinds the eyes of those who are perishing. You may as well try to describe a sunset to a blind man.

Stick with the gospel to unbelievers. The rest will follow. If you like to debate and argue, there are books that you can buy or youtube presentations. I have a few statements that I use such as the accuracy of prophecy. Doubters doubt no matter what I say. "In the last days there will be mockers........." The sceptics prove that the Bible prophecies are accurate! Tell them that and watch them explode. Fun, but not that edifying.

Re "I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word. Everyone who has been saved has been convicted by the Holy Spirit as the gospel is preached.": I have no idea why you want to divorce GW from the HS! Try saying three times: "Everyone I know has been saved BOTH by being convicted that the Bible is GW AND by being convicted by the HS as the gospel is preached.

 

[maxwel]

Re "I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word. Everyone who has been saved has been convicted by the Holy Spirit as the gospel is preached.": I have no idea why you want to divorce GW from the HS! Try saying three times: "Everyone I know has been saved BOTH by being convicted that the Bible is GW AND by being convicted by the HS as the gospel is preached.

I agree with this, but it's obvious Gideon is only trying to focus on God's sovereignty, which we cannot fault.

Although God is sovereign, and it's his spirit that convicts, he certainly has strange ways of going about his sovereign will.
Does God really need evangelists and apologists?
Of course not.
But God chooses to enact his sovereign will through these terribly weak vessels called men.

Have a great week guys.
.

 

[JS1789]

I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word

Then I would recommend you doing some more research then. The Bible is a book. It has proved to be God’s word. Thus, you are saying you have never known anyone to be saved by the word of God.

James 1:21; Acts 11:14.

There have been people such as J Warner Wallace who investigated the gospels as a devout atheists who now profess to be Christian. Same for the lawyer Simon Greenleaf, as he tried to disprove the gospels, but he concluded they were true.

It sounds like you don’t believe the Bible (The Spirit’s sword) has enough convincing evidence to convince or convict someone.

It also sounds like you think atheists can’t be convinced, but they can.

Read Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is alive. The Spirit convicts people to repent of sin to become a Christian and teaches them how by His sword, the word of God (Eph. 6:17). Also read Acts 2:1-4, 37, 40, 11:14, Jn. 6:63; 1 Peter 1:22-25; Rom. 10:17; Jms. 1:21)

And this is why I knew coming on this site would be a waste of time, because you end up getting in convos which leads to discussions or arguments.

While I do not agree with John MacArthur on many things, he was right about one thing:

“Let me give a little advice to those of you who, with good intentions, decide you're going to debate doctrinal issues in social media environments. Don't waste your time. I know enough about social media (not that I'm involved in it, I'm not), but I know enough about it to know that when I write a blog article and somebody picks up on something they don't like, somebody else picks on something that they don't like about what that guy didn't like and all of a sudden this thing is completely out of control, and streams and streams of comments that have nothing to do with the original document or nothing beneficial to do with anything dominate. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you give people sort of half answers, brief answers, and they begin to take them apart. Social media is a minimum communication mechanism. Debates about sound doctrine belong on a much more in-depth and intense level. If you're going to talk about doctrine, you need to go deeper into the word of God. It’s not something you can just hassle over with sound bites or with cryptic statements and think you're actually going to make some progress. And it's pretty much the attitude of people of this culture anyway. If you're convinced against your will, you're unconvinced still, right?”

 

[Burn1986]

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1E8I...YKfN-am/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword

In this article, we test the Bible to see if it’s really from God. Blessings.

What do you do if you already know it’s from God?

 

[GWH]

Then I would recommend you doing some more research then. The Bible is a book. It has proved to be God’s word. Thus, you are saying you have never known anyone to be saved by the word of God.

James 1:21; Acts 11:14.

There have been people such as J Warner Wallace who investigated the gospels as a devout atheists who now profess to be Christian. Same for the lawyer Simon Greenleaf, as he tried to disprove the gospels, but he concluded they were true.

It sounds like you don’t believe the Bible (The Spirit’s sword) has enough convincing evidence to convince or convict someone.

It also sounds like you think atheists can’t be convinced, but they can.

Read Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is alive. The Spirit convicts people to repent of sin to become a Christian and teaches them how by His sword, the word of God (Eph. 6:17). Also read Acts 2:1-4, 37, 40, 11:14, Jn. 6:63; 1 Peter 1:22-25; Rom. 10:17; Jms. 1:21)

And this is why I knew coming on this site would be a waste of time, because you end up getting in convos which leads to discussions or arguments.

While I do not agree with John MacArthur on many things, he was right about one thing:

“Let me give a little advice to those of you who, with good intentions, decide you're going to debate doctrinal issues in social media environments. Don't waste your time. I know enough about social media (not that I'm involved in it, I'm not), but I know enough about it to know that when I write a blog article and somebody picks up on something they don't like, somebody else picks on something that they don't like about what that guy didn't like and all of a sudden this thing is completely out of control, and streams and streams of comments that have nothing to do with the original document or nothing beneficial to do with anything dominate. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you give people sort of half answers, brief answers, and they begin to take them apart. Social media is a minimum communication mechanism. Debates about sound doctrine belong on a much more in-depth and intense level. If you're going to talk about doctrine, you need to go deeper into the word of God. It’s not something you can just hassle over with sound bites or with cryptic statements and think you're actually going to make some progress. And it's pretty much the attitude of people of this culture anyway. If you're convinced against your will, you're unconvinced still, right?”

I think your reproof is valid but that we should persevere in attempting to engage folks in meaningful discussions, such as the study of parable that was conducted recently on the Hermeneutics thread.

If you want to suggest the next topic to discuss systematically there or perhaps on another thread I started, please feel free to do so. (Not sure what the appropriate study topic for this thread could be. :^)

 

[JS1789]

What do you do if you already know it’s from God?

What do you do if someone asks how do you know if it’s from God? If you say because the Bible says so (even though it’s true), that won’t work. If you say because you feel in your heart it’s true, that won’t work either, as feelings don’t dictate truth. And anyone can say that about anything “I feel ____ in my heart ______ is true.” Does that make it true? No. If you say because He told me so, again, you’d be back to square one or two. Thus, the question remains.

 

[Gideon300]

Then I would recommend you doing some more research then. The Bible is a book. It has proved to be God’s word. Thus, you are saying you have never known anyone to be saved by the word of God.

James 1:21; Acts 11:14.

There have been people such as J Warner Wallace who investigated the gospels as a devout atheists who now profess to be Christian. Same for the lawyer Simon Greenleaf, as he tried to disprove the gospels, but he concluded they were true.

It sounds like you don’t believe the Bible (The Spirit’s sword) has enough convincing evidence to convince or convict someone.

It also sounds like you think atheists can’t be convinced, but they can.

Read Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is alive. The Spirit convicts people to repent of sin to become a Christian and teaches them how by His sword, the word of God (Eph. 6:17). Also read Acts 2:1-4, 37, 40, 11:14, Jn. 6:63; 1 Peter 1:22-25; Rom. 10:17; Jms. 1:21)

And this is why I knew coming on this site would be a waste of time, because you end up getting in convos which leads to discussions or arguments.

While I do not agree with John MacArthur on many things, he was right about one thing:

“Let me give a little advice to those of you who, with good intentions, decide you're going to debate doctrinal issues in social media environments. Don't waste your time. I know enough about social media (not that I'm involved in it, I'm not), but I know enough about it to know that when I write a blog article and somebody picks up on something they don't like, somebody else picks on something that they don't like about what that guy didn't like and all of a sudden this thing is completely out of control, and streams and streams of comments that have nothing to do with the original document or nothing beneficial to do with anything dominate. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you give people sort of half answers, brief answers, and they begin to take them apart. Social media is a minimum communication mechanism. Debates about sound doctrine belong on a much more in-depth and intense level. If you're going to talk about doctrine, you need to go deeper into the word of God. It’s not something you can just hassle over with sound bites or with cryptic statements and think you're actually going to make some progress. And it's pretty much the attitude of people of this culture anyway. If you're convinced against your will, you're unconvinced still, right?”

Something of a nitpicker are you not. I was not talking about the Bible. I was talking about books written to prove that the Bible is the word of God. If you not interested in discussions, I wonder what you want from this site?

 

[Gideon300]

Re "I've never known anyone to be saved by a book proving that the Bible is God's word. Everyone who has been saved has been convicted by the Holy Spirit as the gospel is preached.": I have no idea why you want to divorce GW from the HS! Try saying three times: "Everyone I know has been saved BOTH by being convicted that the Bible is GW AND by being convicted by the HS as the gospel is preached.

Try reading what I said. I'm referring to books that endeavor to prove that the Bible is God's word, not the Bible itself. I am obviously an exception to your rule. I had never read the Bible and I had no idea that it was God's word. I was convicted by the passages that my boss quoted. He did not spend any time telling me that the Bible was God's word until after I was saved. And that was all he said about it. That was all I needed to hear. I did not need anyone to prove it to me. I knew it was, courtesy of the witness of the Holy Spirit.

 

[homwardbound]

What do you do if someone asks how do you know if it’s from God? If you say because the Bible says so (even though it’s true), that won’t work. If you say because you feel in your heart it’s true, that won’t work either, as feelings don’t dictate truth. And anyone can say that about anything “I feel ____ in my heart ______ is true.” Does that make it true? No. If you say because He told me so, again, you’d be back to square one or two. Thus, the question remains.

Actions/ reactions, speak louder than words. Look at the story of Paul in Jail, where he said the jail help Was coming to belief in the risen Jesus, why?
Because he remained joyful, even in jail, stood in trust not disgust
You just love all is the call, that speaks louder than any word(s)
Thanks for your reply post

 

[daisyseesthesun]

What do you do if someone asks how do you know if it’s from God? If you say because the Bible says so (even though it’s true), that won’t work. If you say because you feel in your heart it’s true, that won’t work either, as feelings don’t dictate truth. And anyone can say that about anything “I feel ____ in my heart ______ is true.” Does that make it true? No. If you say because He told me so, again, you’d be back to square one or two. Thus, the question remains.

Js1789,