Unraveling the Truth: How Archaeology and Textual Transmission Validate the Bible

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason,

and I'm the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In season two of this podcast, we are looking at why we should have the Bible

as an authority in our lives,

and then we will go into some of the issues in our society today to see what

the authority of Scripture says about those subjects.

Episode 2 of this second season focuses on the evidence available to us in textual

transmission and archaeology of both the Old and New Testament texts.

Thanks for joining us today.

Last week we talked about what Scripture says about itself and how it is God's words to the people.

A common objection to that is that it is a oral tradition that's been handed

down from generation to generation.

And so their hypothesis then is that it grew into some sort of legendary status,

something that's completely out of the realm of possibility.

And these stories do happen throughout history.

People say one thing and then it grows into a much larger event than it actually was.

And so how do we know that this is not what happened to Scripture?

Scripture testifies that it's the Word of God.

But how do we know that it's not being embellished in that way?

Well, Scripture has an answer for that and so does history. And so we'll get

into those as we begin today.

So there are several different events in Israel's history where God specifically

tells the Israelites to write the events down.

And so one example of this is Exodus 17, 14, which says this is in the midst

of the story where if Moses is raising up his staff, the Israelites are winning the battle.

But when he lowers his hands and the staff goes below his head,

I believe it is, then the Israelites are losing the battle.

And so after this victory that God ultimately brings to them,

the Lord instructed Moses, write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder

and read it aloud to Joshua.

And what he wanted him to write down was, I will erase the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

So Moses was instructed, therefore.

To write down on a scroll,

on something that could be handed down to Joshua that God provided a victory

in this war and that the outcome of the war and ultimately with this people

group was going to come to fruition.

So it's really like a prophecy here.

And so the Old Testament testifies that it wasn't an oral tradition.

It was handed down through writing, which is more accurate. And you can go back

to it and you can say, no, no, no, you're remembering wrong.

This is what's actually happening here.

The same can be said of Exodus, later in Exodus, chapter 34, verse 28.

Exodus 34:28

Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights.

In all that time, he ate no bread and drank no water.

And the Lord wrote the terms of the covenant, the 10 commandments on the stone tablets.

So here we see that God is the one that is writing these down.

So these 10 commandments, you shall have no other gods before me,

the Sabbath day rest, no adultery, no murder, no stealing, all of those were

written down by God's hand.

And so it wasn't something that they could have lost in translation.

This is literally something that God wrote and provided for them.

It's not made up in that way.

In fact, these tablets were put in a very safe place in the Ark of the Covenant

where they were meant to remind the people of Israel this is what God's covenant is about.

And then in the prophets, we also have this example of God telling them to write things down.

So in Jeremiah 30 verse 2, it says, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.

Jeremiah 30:2

Write down for the record everything I have said to you, Jeremiah.

And so again, it's not being orally transmitted.

Like this is something that is written down for the people of Israel.

And we see how this comes to fruition in the New Testament when we get down

to Matthew chapter 2, verses 4 to 6.

Matthew 2:4–6

It says, he called a meeting of the leading priests.

So this is Herod, and this is going to be where the context is the Christmas story.

So Herod called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law

and asked, where is the Messiah supposed to be born? In Bethlehem in Judea,

they said, for this is what the prophet wrote.

And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities

of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.

And so how did they know that the Messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem?

Because the prophet had written it down.

It wasn't orally transmitted. They knew where it was going to happen,

and we know the story that that is where it happened.

That's where Jesus was born.

And so the argument against trusting the validity of Scripture based upon the

presumption that it was handed down by word of mouth, which can be embellished,

which can easily be changed and twisted.

Is not accurate. it.

The Bible clearly describes it being a written tradition, not an oral tradition,

and this is backed up by what history tells us.

It used to be years ago when,

I think it was in the 1800s, a really common thinking was that there wasn't

any written languages in when they thought Moses was alive and when the exodus supposedly happened.

And so they discounted everything in that story because they didn't think it was written down.

They thought it was the stuff of legendary status.

But due to what we know about history through the study of it and through archaeology,

the oldest written language is from 3,200 years before Jesus.

That's the earliest written language that we know of.

And the amazing thing, in my opinion, is that it came from what is now modern-day Iraq.

And if you trace where Abraham comes from, it is that same exact region.

And so Abraham was in Iraq about 1,200 years, he lived about 2,000 BC.

About 1,200 years after the first written language in that region came into existence.

And so it's not too far of a stretch to think that even all the way back to

Abram, he could have known how to write and to be able to put this down.

If we think about how ingrained in us we are with freedom based upon the country that we live in.

Our country's been around for almost 250 years now, and that's so ingrained in us.

And so to think that a 1200 year period, how writing could be ingrained in them,

like I think that's pretty, a pretty, not a stretch at all.

It's something that is plausible to me. And so this is something that history

and archaeology have proved that there have been written languages for a lot

longer than we used to think.

And the other thing about this is that the growing up of Moses in Egypt,

he grew up in Pharaoh's palace.

And if he was raised like all of the other kids,

they would be expected to know how to read and how to write because there are

treaties that exist to this day that we have found through archaeology where

they are international agreements.

And so they would have needed to know how to read those, how to write them,

how to interpret them, and all of that.

And so Moses, especially with his background in growing up in Pharaoh's household,

would have known these things.

And so it should be a non-argument, but it is something that people will argue

that the Bible was not written down until much later, and so we can't trust

the validity of the stories.

But based upon this information, I think it is certainly good to trust in these

things, in that the Bible was a written tradition, not an oral tradition.

Okay, so as we move on from there, I think the next step for us,

and you're going to be able to see how my brain works through this,

but the next step for me in my thinking is,

all right, well, let's prove the accuracy of Scripture.

And so we're going to break that down into the accuracy of the Old Testament

as compared to the accuracy of the New Testament.

And one of the ways that we need to really look at that is what's called textual transmission.

So, Johann Gutenberg has not invented the printing press in the time of the

Old Testament or the New Testament writing.

And so, the way that they transferred this is through copying it.

They had one copy in front of them, and they were writing out a separate copy.

And so, one argument against the validity of Scripture is, what about copy errors?

How do we know that what we have surviving today was what was produced back then?

And one positive example of this is the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in

the 1900s, the 1940s, I believe, and they were.

In the copies that were found were a lot of the Old Testament,

but the most important one that I have read about is the scroll of Isaiah.

Now, before we found the Dead Sea Scrolls,

the oldest existing copy that we had of the Old Testament was from 1000 AD,

So 1,000 years after Jesus was alive.

So more than 1,400 years since the Old Testament was written.

But when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, that brought, in particular,

Isaiah back 1,100 years.

To not 1,000 years after, from 1,000 years after Jesus to 100 years before Jesus.

And when they compare the document of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the 1000 AD document.

They found a 95% agreeableness between those two documents.

And the only differences that they did find were spelling differences and what

they call obvious slips of the pen, which is when you're writing in Hebrew,

the character can look different and it'd be a completely different word.

But the idea here is that they are very confident that the copying of the Old

Testament was done very,

very purposefully and correctly.

They took it very seriously, and they copied it down very, very well.

And so the message of the 5% that is different between the two,

the message never changed.

It was always the same message, and the passages that they read always meant the same thing.

So it's very, very minuscule differences in the scroll of Isaiah,

which again gives us the reassurance that the text that was originally written

and the text that we have today are very similar.

Another example of this is the listing of the kings in the Old Testament.

And this is an example of how diligent they were in the text,

making sure the text was absolutely correct.

So in the Old Testament, there are about 40 kings living from about 2000 BC,

which is the time of Abraham, to 400 BC, which is roughly the time where the

New or the Old Testament ends.

There are 40 kings, and in the Bible, each appears in chronological order with

a reference to the kings of the same country. So they're listing it.

We would list the first president and the second president, the third president.

That's kind of similar to us, but in their idea, it's listing them in chronological order.

Saul first, David second, Solomon third, that sort of thing.

So it is correct from what we know from history and archeology.

All 40 of these are in correct chronological order based on their country,

and they are correct based upon kings who were living in other countries at that time.

And so where I got this from says.

There can be no stronger evidence for the substantial accuracy of the Old Testament

records could possibly be imagined than this collection of kings.

To have them in the correct chronological order and to compare this king was

king of this country at this time, and this king was king of this country at

this time, and to have them match up with the historical record,

according to this author, there is no stronger evidence for the substantial

accuracy of the Old Testament.

And so these are just a few of the reasons why I believe we can agree or know

for sure that Scripture is saying what is true and what is accurate from that time period.

And again, from the copying to the historical accuracies of it,

it is a very impressive document.

But there are also archaeological discoveries that also reaffirm what Scripture is saying.

So one example of that is Sodom and Gomorrah and other cities of that plain.

In Abraham's time, there were five kings versus four kings in this plain area.

And so Sodom and Gomorrah and those other cities in that area are attested to outside of the Bible,

making them real places and centers of commerce in the geographical area where

the Bible says they were.

So other sources outside of Bible reaffirm that these are actual cities.

And then we have in this area, there have been found layers of sedimentary rock

that have been molded together by intense heat,

which would go along with what the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, what happened to them.

So it says, bitumen is plentiful there.

And an accurate description would be that brimstone, which is bitumous pitch,

was hurled down on those cities that had rejected God.

So based upon the sedimentary evidence there, they believe something like the

biblical record could have possibly happened in that area.

Now, none of the evidence that we have is foolproof.

There are people who can look at this data in much more skeptical ways and come

up with other plausible explanations for this.

But the amount of the evidence and the accuracy of the Old Testament,

it makes it so that it's very easy to believe the biblical narrative and what it is saying for us.

And so again, what we're trying to do here is like build a foundation that we can build upon.

Scripture testifies that it is the word of God. And as such,

we would expect it to be true.

We would expect it to not tell us any sort of lies.

And that's what we are finding over and over again in the evidence that the

Bible is trustworthy for us.

Another example of this is when they excavated at Jericho.

They found evidence that the city was strongly fortified, that the attack occurred

just after harvest time in the spring,

that the inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with the food that they had, the siege was short,

the walls were leveled, the city was not plundered, and the city was burned.

These are all claims of the Bible.

And so this is strong evidence that the Bible was telling what actually happened.

And the most amazing thing here is that the walls fell outward,

which if you are the Israelites, you're not going to bring the wall upon yourself.

And so it makes sense that God could have used an earthquake and.

And it doesn't make sense that the might of the Israelite army was against that wall.

So again, these are not definitive answers.

These are just building blocks to help us have a solid foundation of why we trust in Scripture.

So those are just a few examples of the Old Testament. And so moving to the

New Testament, we have other evidence that we are going to go over to trust

the validity of the New Testament.

So there are more than 5,600 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. These are partial.

Some have time has eroded some of them away. And so we only have partials or scraps.

And some are complete manuscripts of the New Testament.

Putting this in comparison to other documents that we have copies of,

there is no other book in the same ballpark.

Like a good sample size, one where textual critics think that they pretty much

know what the original one said would be like 20, 15 or 20.

And so the New Testament has more than 5,600 of these.

And it's just super, super impressive.

There are also, because we have no known originals of the Gospels of the letters of Paul,

the abundance of the manuscript copies makes it possible to reconstruct the

original with virtually complete accuracy.

So what that means is that of all of the copies that we have together,

When we compare them together and they test them to know how old each manuscript

is, when they test them and look over them,

they are very confident that they can get you very close to the original.

And in some of the ways our Bible shows this is like at the end of Mark.

So Mark scholarship believes that Mark ended at verse eight.

Mark chapter 16 ends after verse 8.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

And in a lot of Bibles, there are notes that say, specifically in Mark,

that this is the long ending or the short ending, or this Bible says some of

the earliest manuscripts do not include verses 9 through 20.

So it's a note right in the text there.

And the reason that they can know that is because we have so many different

copies of these manuscripts that they can test them and that they can know,

okay, this must have been added by a copyist later.

And when they look at it, they find a short ending, they find a longer ending,

and they find some gospels of Mark with both of them as the ending to the gospel.

And so the reasons why this could be added could be lots and lots.

The end of what appears to be the end of the gospel of Mark would end like this.

And they, the women who found Jesus's empty tomb, they went out and fled from

the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them.

And they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

That's just a very abrupt ending to the gospel.

And so later scribes could have been saying, all right, I need to add something to firm this up.

And so this also kind of takes place in the gospel of John with the story of

the woman caught in adultery.

The earliest manuscripts don't include that story.

And so I heard a scholar once say that some people are worried that we don't

have the whole Bible, that we've excluded the gospel of Thomas and other books, but...

Critical scholarship is looking at and seeing is it's not that we have 95% of

the Bible, it's that we have 104% of the Bible.

And so we can know based upon the number of manuscripts, what the originals

said with a very high degree of certainty.

And that's important because they date back all the way to Jesus.

And what the authors were describing, what they were sharing with us in the

scripture is something that we can take and hold on to knowing that we know

what they that they wanted us to know, that what they wrote down.

And so it's a really, really good thing.

Okay, so the next evidence that they have for trusting in the validity of the

New Testament is the fact that the second generation of Christians were writing lots and lots,

and they use quotations from all 27 books of the New Testament.

And one, I think it says here, these quotations are so extensive that the New

Testament could virtually be reconstructed from them without the use of the

New Testament manuscripts,

meaning that they were that, they were.

Writing these quotations so much so that you could just take their writing and

piece together what we have of the Gospels.

So the second generation and the third generation of followers of Jesus,

who this stuff was handed down to them by the apostles and the teachers,

they took what they said seriously.

And we know very, very assuredly what they were teaching, what they were seeing in all of that.

The last thing in this section is I wanted to go over what C.S.

Lewis famously said in one of his books.

He said, if you look at the evidence

of the scriptures, you come to three conclusions about who Jesus is.

He is either a liar. He knew he wasn't the son of God, but proclaimed he was, or he was a lunatic.

He really thought he was the son of God, but he wasn't, or he was Lord.

He was somebody who is who he says he is.

And so that's what C.S. Lewis leaves us with. But there is a New Testament scholar.

He's at the University of North Carolina now. He does not believe in God,

but he teaches New Testament at the University of North Carolina.

His name is Bart Ehrman, and he adds one more L to this.

He believes that Jesus is a legend that the ideas of Jesus were just fancified

later on in history by later followers of him.

And that's not really what the original followers thought.

So that's a common belief as well. And so to combat that, we do have some evidence to go over.

So 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 1 Corinthians is a book by Paul,

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

and Paul is somebody that critical scholarship really looks towards for this.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I'll read verses 3 to 8.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Paul says, I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me.

Christ died for our sins, just as the scriptures said.

He was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day,

just as the scriptures said.

He was seen by Peter and then by the 12.

After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time,

most of whom are still alive. though some have died.

Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.

Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.

So what critical scholarships like

about Paul is that they can fathom and understand where he is coming from.

They have the timeline of his conversion. They have the timeline of when he

went on his missionary journeys.

They have all of these things dated pretty accurately in their opinion.

So when Paul says, I passed on to you what was most important and what had also

been passed on to me, he's describing the gospel message that Jesus is Lord,

that Jesus died for our sins, and that Jesus rose from the dead.

And so that's a very important piece of evidence for us.

Paul is literally writing what he received.

And we can trace this back because they date Paul's conversion to about two

years after Jesus's death and resurrection.

And in Galatians, Paul tells us another interesting tidbit.

Starting in chapter 1, verse 15, we read, But even before I was born,

God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace.

Then it pleased him to reveal his son to me so that I would proclaim the good

news about Jesus to the Gentiles.

When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being,

nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with all those who were apostles before I was.

Instead, I went away into Arabia and later I returned to the city of Damascus.

Then three years later, I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter and I stayed

with him for 15 days. The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord's brother.

I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.

So two years after this conversion experience.

Two years after Jesus's resurrection, Paul has this conversion experience.

And then three years after that, Paul goes and he talks with James and he talks

with Peter, whom he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15.

And so we have a date of about five years after the resurrection of Jesus that

they believed that Jesus,

that they were teaching and that they say they witnessed that Jesus did die

for the sins of all humankind and that he rose from the dead.

Now, the reason that's important when we think about the legend aspect of it

is that legends take time to develop.

It's passed from one generation to another and the legend grows a little bit more.

And then to the next generation, it grows a little bit more.

Five years and the same generation aren't going to have this ability to have this happen.

Like these were people who saw Jesus raised from the dead.

And five years is not enough time for a legend to come on the scene.

And so that is impractical for trying to wrestle with what the apostles saw

and what they wrote to us.

And so that is the text, why we, I feel, we can have faith in the text of the

New Testament and believe what Jesus taught us.

There is also some archaeology, and I just want to go through this rather quickly.

So Tacitus is a first century Roman historian. He writes.

Christus, which is Christ, from whom the name had its origin,

suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one

of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition,

they believe that superstition is Jesus's resurrection.

Thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea,

the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.

And so the spreading of Jesus's fame and the spreading of those who are following

Jesus is something that is told in the annals of history.

We also, in 1961, found a stone in archaeology with the description Pontius

Pilate and the title prefect that was associated with it.

This is the first time that Pontius Pilate's name had been found in archaeology,

and it puts, again, credence to the Gospels and what they say happened there.

And then a really interesting one, in 1945, two bone boxes, which are called

osuaries, they were discovered with the Greek spelling of Jesus's name, which is Iesus,

along with either I-O-U or aloth, which one of those words they can translate,

the other one they don't know how to translate it, but they believe these are words of mourning.

And so it's like a prayer that they are writing on this box.

So basically like saying, Jesus, I am mourning, help me, something like that.

And so these were found in Judea.

One of the boxes had four pronounced crosses on them, one on each side.

And this is most likely from prior to AD 50.

So again, we're talking about within 20 years of Jesus's death,

they were already burying their

dead in Jesus's name. So that's a hugely profound archaeological find.

So they know that it was dated prior to AD 50 because of the pottery found alongside the ossuaries.

So this would be the first, the earliest evidence of using a cross as a symbol for Jesus.

And again, that's something that brings credence to the stories of the gospel.

Knowing that Jesus rose from the dead, you put these on the boxes.

In hope of their resurrection by having faith in Jesus.

Okay, so those are the reasons, kind of the foundation.

Obviously, we have scripture as the main foundation, but the other reasons,

the other evidences we have to believe in the whole of scripture,

the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Does any of that bring any questions to your mind?

My question is, how did those things get preserved, or did that happen before

anything was started to be written down?

Okay, are you talking about Noah's flood?

Okay, so let me try to reframe that to make sure I understand it.

So prior to, how did they keep the evidence that we have today prior to the flood?

Are you talking about the written record or everything?

Anything? Okay. So the flood happened really early.

And so a lot of the archaeological evidence was not even there yet.

Like Abraham wasn't even on the scene and things like that.

So they would not have had any of that evidence that the Bible would corroborate.

The things that happened before the flood or there are some civilization that's

happening, but even the Tower of Babel is after that.

And so, and I would probably argue that the written record was not down at that time.

So yeah, that's how I would answer that. How is that all recorded?

I mean, you know, like Adam and Eve, how is that all? How do we know that?

Sure. Yeah. So how do we know that Adam and Eve record when there wasn't a written

record down? How can we trust in that?

Yeah, that's a great question. So my answer to that would be that Moses is reported

to be the author of all of Genesis through Deuteronomy.

We know that there are some additional things that got written after,

like it talks about his death and we know he didn't write that,

calls Moses the most humble man in the world, and probably Moses would not have

written that about himself, those sorts of things.

So we know that there were additions to it, but Moses is the one that is credited

with especially Genesis and all of those stories.

And so the way that I picture that and understand that, and there might be other

ways to do it, is that God gave him those stories.

He told them what it was.

Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights with God on the mountain, and Moses wrote

down seemingly the covenant that God was giving to them.

But it's also feasible in my mind, and again, there's no evidence for this,

scripturally speaking, other than the 40 days and 40 nights,

that God would have shared with him what happened in the beginning and that sort of thing.

I would like to see someone who was alive, and the times of a normal life.

Like, for example, at Andy, their lifetimes was.

Extended. And so was their sons. Their children, etc.

Like, who was a lion at the same time?

Was Adam, if I had figured it out correctly, Adam died not long before the lion

was born? That is what I remember as well.

Okay. So, we know that people tended to give oral histories,

and so if these people were all alive pretty much at the same time, I can imagine Grandma E.

Telling people again in the can what happened in the white earth in the garden, et cetera, et cetera.

That would make a lot of impression, and that story would be carried on, but the.

Oral tradition would have had to have been pretty trustworthy because the people

were still alive when it was the Pope.

So it seems to me that the oral history that would have been there through Noah,

when it would have been continued,

so that Moses would have heard these stories as well.

So maybe God given and maybe just a retelling of the oral history as to keep it from a child.

Sure, absolutely. Yeah, that's another plausible reason that they took the oral

histories with the elongated lives that they had back then, and they were able

to go back to the source and really find it.

That is certainly, definitely a plausible explanation as well as to how we could

have an accurate story of it

all the way through Moses when it wasn't written down until Moses' time.

And I have always been lost by the inconsistency in the life.

You see stuff in the New Testament that refers to stuff in the Old Testament that happened.

Things don't happen here before, centuries before, and which of the time.

High degree of insistence throughout the Bible. And my role is for interpreting that as a form.

The question is, since the New Testament talks about the Old Testament basically

on every page, and it has a high degree of accuracy of being correct for that,

is that evidence for the validity of Scripture?

Is that fair? Okay. So I would say that in my mind, they had books of the Bible memorized by the time.

I know Paul especially did. And so they could have just known what was in scripture

because they had just that familiarity with it.

But when we get down to like the Peters, John, like Acts even describes them

as simple, uneducated men.

And that would be something where when they recall something,

I mean, Jesus plainly tells them, I will send the Spirit to you,

and the Spirit will remind you of all these things.

And so in that instance, for me, that would be validity of it.

So I see both it being a reason for believing in Scripture and maybe how just

they revered the Scriptures.

I'm no biblical star, but if I understand correctly, I may have before him talked about Jesus.

Not by dating, but that part of talking about Jesus. And what he said came true, how many years?

Yeah, hundreds, like 700 or 800 years later.

That just seems like to me, to be an impossible for Winston.

I'm waiting for Winston and Bo, but that's outside the realm of voidability. Yeah.

And the number of things that Isaiah, especially Isaiah 53 says about Jesus

and his death, it is like every line has something that, yep,

that fulfilled Jesus's death.

That was about Jesus' life. Yeah. So, the prophecies, especially when they come

true and they come to fruition hundreds of years later, is definitely evidence

for the validity of Scripture.

Jesus talked about the Old Testament, but honestly, he knew.

The Old Testament talked about him.

And that, to me, is just really positive.

But it can't be. Fortunately, honestly, there are some details here and there.

Yeah, the complete cohesion of Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is remarkable.

Yeah, it is very awesome. Yeah.

That paper that I need, I think that there's paragraphs talking about the number

of falsities that there's, um, that were... 200 245.

30 prophecies alone about Jesus' birth and death and resurrection.

The odds of 245 prophecies coming true are about a billion to one.

Bye.

Said that there looked like a boat went over a cyber accident.

Is that recent? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's awesome.

So there's a recent report about ground penetrating radar going over a mountain

and seeing a vessel with cavities in it. Is that what you said?

And so they think it could potentially be Noah's Ark there. So that's, yeah.

Again, it is not all archaeology is going to be able to say if that comes to

fruition is that there was a boat on top of a mountain.

How did it get there? They're not going to know. But as people who are seeing

all of the evidences stack up here, we obviously know how a boat of that size

can get up on top of a mountain, and it's not by human effort.

So it is, archaeology will never prove the stories of the Bible.

They will prove that the stories of the Bible are more accurate as far as we know.

And that doesn't mean the meaning of the stories.

It means just we know that the clothes that are described in Scripture correspond

to the clothes of that era.

We know that the tools described in Scripture correspond to when they were supposed to be.

It's never going to be, this is a definite proof of scripture,

that there is some element of faith that we will always need to have as followers of Jesus.

But God, and I am positive of this, does not want us to have blind faith.

He wants us to understand that there is evidence out there to believe in him

and to look for that and to be over, to just let that reinforce what we already believe.

Again, it's just like we're just building a foundation here.

And so we're going to build upon that.

I just have this question. No, no. I throw a little bit to see you.

I don't know. But what makes us believe all of that?

What draws us to believe the Bible and make us believe in the Christian?

So what makes us drawn to believe the Bible and to trust in Christ for our salvation?

The answer that I would give for that, and I'm sure there's other people who

have different answers, but the answer that I would give to that is the grace

of God. God's grace is always around us, holding us to him.

And that's what ultimately opens our eyes.

Whether we have faith in Jesus or we don't, his grace is always present and

it's always drawing us to him.

So what I believe is that God is the sole doer of salvation.

That salvation is completely from him, Jesus dying on the cross,

but I have to accept that.

And Jesus tells the woman at the well, I have water that if you drink of it,

you will never be thirsty again.

And so I like to use the illustration that I'm in charge of drinking from that well.

I'm in charge of drinking from the fountain of living water and trusting in

Jesus for my salvation, although all the work is God's work.

And so there is a response from us and there are lots of different ways that that could happen.

But for me, like the best explanation is the grace of God.

There can be like an accident that happens that wakens somebody up and says,

oh, I really got to figure this out.

Someone can have a near-death experience and see things that they never thought

were possible and come back and are like, man, I need to get my life in order

and I need to figure out what's real.

Some people could just be raised up

in the church and have this awesome experience of God on a mission trip.

The ways that God can call us into him are too many to really fathom,

but the underlying issue there is his grace, his unearned favor gifted to us.

And that's what ultimately opens our eyes. And that's what scripture gives the credit to.

You have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not a work of your own.

So ultimately that's what woos us, but everyone has that grace applied to them.

And it's up to us whether or not we drink from the fountain of living water.

You know, there's that scripture that says faith comes from hearing even with God.

And I think as we get into the word, we get getting loose with our faith. And, you know, I.

Really need to know what the Bible says, then you'll understand the matter.

That's what's standing there.

If you don't mean it, you're not going to understand it. But as you do,

you'll get to that understanding.

And that's why Scripture says of itself that it is alive and active.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword, which really, it is molding what is taking it in.

And yeah so yeah scripture is

also something that definitely calls us into a closer

relationship with him so yeah thank you

again for joining us in our discussion of the reasons why

we should let the bible have authority in our lives if you are interested in

learning more about faith chapel and its ministries please visit gofaithchapel.org

in episode three next week we will recap why we give Scripture authority in

our lives and discuss what society says about love,

and then compare that to what the Bible says about love. Have a great day.