Living on the Edge

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Is it intellectually feasible to believe that a collection of
sixty six manuscripts by forty different authors, written in three
languages over a period of fifteen hundred years could actually
be the very words of God? Is there any real
evidence that support such an outrageous claim? Find out today.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to this edition of Living on the Edge with
Chip Ingram. The mission of this daily program is to
intentionally disciple Christians through the insightful Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.
And if you ever questioned the accuracy of the Bible,
I mean, can we trust that every word from the
original manuscripts aligns with what we read today? Well, in

(00:52):
just a minute, Chip will address this concern that many
share as he continues our series dealing with doubts. Also,
you'll definitely want to stick around after the teaching for
additional insights from Chip that will deepen your understanding of
this critical tomic. So grab your notes as we joined
Chip for his message why I believe in the Bible.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
You may not know this, but before I was a pastor,
I was a basketball coach, and I honestly thought my
whole life was going to be a basketball coach and
I'd coached middle school and then high school, and then
my dream was I wanted Bobby Knight's job. I wanted
either Indiana or Ohio State. I wanted to be a
major college coach, and so I had to go to

(01:32):
graduate school. I didn't really want to go back to
graduate school, but if you don't have a master's degree,
then you know you can't coach in college. And so
I found a job as a resident assistant at West
Virginia University where I could kind of teach the freshman
level stuff and then they would pay my way, which
worked out really well, and I'll never forget. I was
walking in to teach one of my classes and I
had my books and I had my Bible on it

(01:54):
because I was leading a campus ministry at the same time,
and a very bright PhD student paw and then he
looked at me. Then he looked at my Bible. He said,
is that a Bible? I said yeah, and then sort
of with disdain, you don't really believe that, do you,
And in a moment of faith, I said, yeah, I

(02:14):
really do. And then he walked away. But before he
walked away, I got one of those glances that you've
probably gotten. Oh my gosh, I thought you, you know,
had all your marbles or are you anti intellectual? How
in the world could you be doing graduate work at
a secular university and actually believe the Bible. And all
I can tell you was I'm ashamed to say this.

(02:36):
I was ashamed of the Bible. I mean I felt like, Wow,
he was really big and I was really small. And
I remember walking down the hall feeling like, why do
I feel like this? I mean, God, You've changed my life.
And what I realized was I didn't have confidence. I
had a personal relationship with God and he was speaking
to me through the Bible, but I didn't have the

(02:58):
confidence that this is the word of God. I could
proudly say this is God's truth and by the way,
here's why. And so what I want to do in
our time is I want to answer some of those
tough questions that I went on a journey that I
had to know because I don't want to just believe it.
I just want God to speak to me. I want
to have a level of confidence that this is the

(03:20):
very word of God. And what I want you to
know you can have that same confidence. Here's the questions
that were plaguing me questions like is the Bible the
word of God or the word of men? Is the
Bible full of myths and ludgends and fairy tales? Or
is it historically reliable? Is all the Bible true? Or

(03:42):
are only parts of it trustworthy? Can the Bible be
translated that many times over hundreds and hundreds of years
and still be acrid? And finally, what makes the Bible
different than other religious writings? I mean, you get in
a discussion and that group their holy book, and that
group has their holy books? So what makes it unique

(04:05):
and distinctive? And so to go on this journey, I
begin to ask questions. So what I want to do
is I want to ask a handful of questions and
give you the reason of what I learned of why
I have confidence in the Bible is God's word. The
first question is isn't the Bible a collection of stories,

(04:25):
myths and legends. The answer to that is no. And
why archaeology the Bible is a historically accurate document. Are
you ready for this? There are over twenty five thousand
specific places in the Old Testament alone that are verified

(04:46):
in history, actual cities, actual people. I can go to
the New Testament. There's inscriptions, all the things we've heard
about Ponscious Pilot, Bethlehem, Jesus, the Census. All those things
are His historical facts that can be verified. The New Testament.
The Old Testament is not myths, dreams, legends or stories.

(05:10):
Its people, places, and real events that can be verified.
The second question, don't all religions have their Holy book?
What makes the Bible so special? The answer revelation. Revelation
the Bible claims to infallibly reveal the very words and
the mind of God. Two Timothy three p. Sixteen says this,

(05:34):
all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting,
and training in righteousness. In other words, all scripture, the
very words of the Bible, are inspired or God breathed
through human instruments and through their personalities. But God superintended

(05:55):
it in such a way that what we have is
the very word of God. Now you might say to yourself, well, Chip,
that is a little bit of circular reasoning, and I
will admit that. But over three thousand times, thus says
the Lord. It makes it unique. In other words, it's authoritative.
So there's lots of holy books. But here's what I

(06:16):
want you to get. The Bible claims to be the infallible,
revealed Word of God. That makes it unique. But there's
something else that makes it unique, its origin, its structure,
and its unity. You know a lot of people have
no idea. You know, did some guy just sit down
and write the Bible? No? Are you ready for this?
There's forty different authors, three different languages, over fifteen hundred years.

(06:42):
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. New Testament was
primarily Corny a Greek, but also Aramaic. And you have
these different authors from all these different time frames, And
are you ready for this, in different geographical places, with
one very central theme from Genesis all all the way
to Revelation. It's Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, the coming Savior,

(07:05):
Jesus Christ, the King, Jesus Christ, the one who will
fulfill all the prophecies. Jesus Christ now the center of
the Gospels. And now Jesus Christ descended, and the Jesus
Christ it's coming back again. Genesis to Revelation. The theme
of a book written over fifteen hundred years, in multiple
languages by multiple authors, one central theme, Jesus Christ. Now,

(07:30):
imagine two billion publications of the Bible since fourteen fifty five.
And then there's one last thing that makes it very unique.
It's authenticity. You know, most holy books don't show any
of the weaknesses of the characters. Think about this, Moses murderer,
David murderer and adulter Er, the Apostle, paul A murderer,

(07:53):
James and John anger management issues. You know, if you
are trying to convince someone that this is a book
from heaven, you certainly wouldn't be that authentic. And yet
that's what tells me this is from God. Because God
knows we struggle. He wanted to give us examples of
real people in real time to reveal his heart and

(08:13):
how he deals with us, not just when we're doing well,
but when we're not doing so well. The third question
I want to answer is it's obvious that the data
is strong. There's a strong case that the Bible is
very unique. But can it really be the very word
of God. Well, the answer is yes, because of one

(08:34):
very famous name, Jesus. Jesus actually believed the Old Testament
to be the very words of God, and he predicted
the New Testament to be likewise, not just in concepts,
not in generalities, but the actual words Jesus would say
were from the Father. They're God's word. Matthew Chapter five,

(08:56):
Jesus is preaching on the Sermon on the Mount. He says,
do not think that I can to abolish the law
or the prophets. I didn't come to abolish the law,
but to fulfill. For truly, I say to you, until
heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or
stroke shall pass away from the law until it's all accomplished.
And so he says to them, I'm not here to

(09:19):
change things. I'm going to fulfill the very word of God.
He actually believed that every word was God breathed or inspired.
In fact, are you ready for this? Jesus actually bases
his proof of the resurrection on a tense of the verb,
not just one word, but on the tense of a verb.

(09:39):
And the religious leaders are trying to trap him. And
so what they do is they come with this story.
It's a very familiar one for many of you, and
it is about this woman who has multiple husbands and
there's no heirs, and so they say, when this woman
is in heaven, like, who's going to be her husband
because there's seven men. And what they were really trying

(10:00):
to say is there is no resurrection. Listen to Jesus'
response in Matthew chapter twenty two, verse twenty nine. Jesus replied,
you are in error because you do not know the
scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection, people
will neither marry or be given in marriage. They will
be like the angels in heaven. Now get this, but

(10:21):
about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read
what God said to you. I am present tense the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead,
but the God of the living. Now, of all the
places that Jesus could go to support that he believes

(10:41):
in the resurrection, I mean, there's a passage in job
that's really clear. He could have reached into one of
the psalms, but he goes to one little tense of
the verb. You know what that says. Jesus actually believes
that every word is inspired by God. If the resurrected
Christ says, I believe in the Old Testament and I

(11:03):
believe the New Testament, every word's going to be inspired.
I will tell you for me that gives me a
lot of confidence. When Jesus talks about Abraham, Noah, Jonah,
Adam Eve, he doesn't say these are nice legends or
fairy tales. They were actual people in actual space time.
He had full confidence and believed that the Bible was

(11:24):
the very word of God.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
This is living on the edge with Chip Ingram Man.
Chip will be right back to finish today's message, but first,
throughout this series, we are identifying the notable issues that
can rattle our faith and cause doubt to seep in.
So let me quickly encourage you to join ship. After
this message, he'll highlight two valuable resources we've bundled to
help you process doubt and uncertainty. When they come, keep

(11:49):
listening for more details, But for now, let's rejoin ship.
As he continues his talk, why I believe in the Bible.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Now, this next reason is the one that God used
to say, Chip, you can believe it. You can walk
into any arena. This is not anti intellectual. This is
the very word of God. And this is prophecy. Notice,
prophecy sets the Bible apart from all other religions. Now,

(12:17):
let me give you a little background. Probably between my
third and fourth year in college, and I was growing
and things were great. I stayed for summer school so
I could play in a basketball league, and I had
this weird experience just out of the blue. One day,
I had this thought, and it was a deep doubt.
I mean, it was just like, I wonder if my

(12:38):
salvation is true. I wonder if Jesus is real. I
wonder if I could trust the Bible. And it was horrendous,
but I realized my faith can't be built on my
experience and on my feelings. It had to be on truth.
And so I hung in there, and I hung in there,
and I happened to be reading through the Old Testament,
and I was reading through Isaiah. I came across this

(13:01):
passage that I'm going to tell you. It was so
encouraging and so blew my mind. It's on Isaiah forty six.
It says, remember the former things, things of long ago.
I am God. There is no other. I am God.
There is none like me. I make known the end
from the beginning, from ancient times, and what is still
to come. I say, my purpose will stand, and I

(13:22):
will do all that I please. Now there's a bigger
context and in the context what he's going to do
in chapter forty four forty five, and they're in forty six.
It's a comparison of who is a true God and
who's a false God. And Isaiah, speaking for the Lord,
basically says, our God can tell the future beginning to end,
and he makes prophecies and they come through one hundred

(13:43):
percent of the time, and then he gives some examples,
and I just begin to think, wait a second, do
I believe this or not? And I mean I could
have gone to lots of different places, but I remember
someone saying there were over three hundred prophecies alone that
Jesus fulfilled in his first coming. And I thought to myself, okay,

(14:05):
I mean I knew a few of them, like, okay,
thirty pieces of silver. I remember that you'll be born
of a virgin. I kind of heard that, And then
I did some research and found out those things were
predicted seven hundred years before he was even born, and
all of a sudden, I began to realize, Wow. And
I did a study on prophecy, and what I realized

(14:26):
was a God who is sovereign and who is all
knowing and can say this is going to happen, and
it happens one hundred percent of the time is mind boggling.
And when he does it specifically about God the Son,
all I can tell you is my faith got infused
and I thought to myself, you know something, everybody trusts

(14:47):
someone's word. Think about that. I mean that PhD student.
It was like popular culture said, the Bible's out. He
trusted someone's word. We trust someone's word. Some kids their
mom and dad. Sometimes it's an authority figure. Some times
it's on you know what we hear on the TV.
Everyone trusts someone's word. You are going to trust someone's

(15:08):
word about all kinds of things in life. What I'm
telling you is the evidence is overwhelming. We can trust
God's word, and prophecy is the thing that took me
over the edge and helped me to hang on.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
This is living on the edge. And you've been listening
to part one of Chip's message why I Believe in
the Bible from our series Dealing with Doubts. Chip will
be back shortly to share some helpful application for us
to think about. Did you know there's a lot of solid,
verifiable evidence that supports the truth of scripture? And the
existence of Jesus. The real challenge lies in communicating that

(15:45):
proof and the hope of the Gospel to those sincerely
seeking answers. So how do we do that well? In
this series, Chip and guest teacher John Dickerson share ways
to effectively and winsomely address honest questions about our faith
that will attract meeople to the Bible, not repel them
from it. Also, we want you to have all the
necessary tools for those conversations, So whenever you hear a book, podcast,

(16:09):
or article mentioned in this series, visit Livingontheedge dot org
and check out our resources page. We want to point
to you to relevant biblically grounded experts who will equip
you to engage with the doubters and skeptics in your life.
Find that resources page at livingontheedge dot org or through
the Chip Ingram Map. Well, our Bible teacher Chip Ingram

(16:31):
is with me in studio now and Chip in this series,
you and John Dickerson are helping us develop a deeper
understanding of our faith so that we can share it
with others. Now, most people immediately jump to sharing our
faith with strangers, when in reality, we need to focus
on a group that's much closer to home.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's so true, Dave. I believe that the most important
group for apologetics in our day is our families, our
own kids. And I think one of the reasons I
wrote this book Why I Believe was first my own journey.
My experience with apologetic books is they're very thick, and
they're usually written by really really smart people with a

(17:10):
lot of language that a lot of us normal people
don't understand. And so this is a pretty thin book
that's really sort of simple and basic, and it's the
kind of book that I could sit down with my
preteens or teenagers or young adults or any friend and say,
you know something, this is why you don't throw your
brains in the trash. You could actually believe the Bible,

(17:31):
and here's the evidence or Jesus made this claim of
being God. Well, let's find out what the outside sources,
outside Christianity say and what he claimed. And I just
went through all the various things. This is why, in
terms of science and religion, why there is not a conflict,
And this is what the Word of God says, and
this is scientific discoveries. And in the back of the book,

(17:53):
I put tons of footnotes so those that want to
go way, way deeper and know where to get some
high intellectual, academic reasons, then they can go and get those.
But I long for families to train their children about
what your faith means, why you can believe it, and
how you can defend it in a very hostile culture.

(18:15):
There is great reasons to believe, and we need to
teach our kids what those are.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
That's right, Chip, Sharing your faith with your kids and
grandkids is so critical. In fact, we believe so strongly
in that idea. During this series, we've bundled Chips Why
I Believe book with our friend John Dickerson's book Jesus Skeptic.
We pray that together these tools will prove that Jesus
is real and the Bible is true and showcase the

(18:41):
profound ways Christianity has shaped our world for the better.
Learn more about this bundle by calling Triple eight three
three three six zero zero three, or by visiting Living
on the Edge dot org. App listeners tap special offers. Well,
here again is Chip to share some application for us
to think about.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
As we wrap up today's program, I would remind you
of the very last sentence in our teaching time, everyone
trusts someone's word about what's true? You do, I do?
Everyone does?

Speaker 2 (19:13):
You know?

Speaker 1 (19:14):
We trust our parents or the TV or a college professor,
or the internet or a book that we've read. And
that's what led me on this journey. I had real
doubts about the Bible. You know, I had all these
PhDs looking at me like, did you throw your brains
in the trash? I mean, what's wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Ingram?

Speaker 1 (19:31):
And so I had to find out, I mean, is
it intellectually feasible to actually believe that this really amazing
and miraculous book written over this long period of time,
with the central theme of Jesus? Could it really be
the word of God? And honestly, I said, like probably
a lot of people, it's pretty far fetched. I mean,

(19:53):
of all the things that have been a struggle for me,
it's can you really believe the Bible? But that's the
foundation of everything. It's the teaching about Jesus, It's the
teaching about what's real, it's about teaching about Heaven, is
teaching about how to live your life. And so as
I went on the journey, I began to start with, well,
where did this book come from and as you heard

(20:14):
in our teaching time today, the Bible is historically accurate.
That may not be a big deal to you right now,
but I will tell you if you've studied some other
religions like I have, or if you've examined some of
the cults or some of the other religious books, I
will tell you it is absolutely unique that you can

(20:35):
look at the archaeology for now a couple thousand years,
and I mean, ponscious Pilot was a person, Bethlehem is
a place, all these different things that happened. I can
go in space time history and know that what is
written in this book actually happened.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
To me.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
That was huge. The second thing was the outrageous claim.
There's a lot of religious books that say, you know,
here's some great wisdom, or here's some philosophy, or here's
what our spiritual guru or our leader says about this
or that. But the Bible claims to be the infallible
revealed very words of God. I mean, it's so outrageous

(21:17):
that the Bible was God breathed, that He's actually speaking
through this. And then you sort of lean back. At
least I did, and I thought over fifteen hundred years.
How would you weave all those languages and all that
time and forty different authors. I mean, it's mind boggling
to think of what it is and how it's come together,

(21:40):
and then the unity, the structure, I mean, even some
of the pragmatism. You know, two billion Bibles published since
fourteen fifty five, from Genesis all the way to Revelation.
One central theme there is a Massah coming. His name

(22:02):
is Jesus, he is immanual, he is God with us.
And those things were helpful to me. I mean, those
were very, very helpful. But as I shared in the
teaching time, and this is what I would challenge you with,
at some point in time, we need something irrefutable. We're
going to trust someone's word, and it's going to be

(22:23):
a sociology professor or some critic, or will be intimidated
by someone who appears to be very intellectual. But for me,
when I looked at what the Bible says about prophecy
and the one hundred percent accuracy things that happen in
the Old Testament the New Testament. I'm recently reading through

(22:43):
the Gospels and especially Matthew right now, and many of
you that are followers of Christ. You'll probably have a
version like mine that every time it quotes something from
the Old Testament, it'll be, you know, in a little
bit different kind of type. Maybe it's all block letters
or bold or italics or something thing. And as you
read through Matthew, the theme of that is there is
a king, and there's a reigning king, and he's fulfilled

(23:07):
all this prophecy, because Matthew was written to the Jews.
And as I read through that and begin to ponder
that seven hundred years before any of these things happened,
where he would be born, and what he would say,
and how it would happen, and thirty pieces of silver.
I don't know about you, and I don't know whose
words you're going to trust, but I can tell you

(23:28):
this that these things have convinced me that the Bible
is worthy of exploring with all my heart and trusting
it with all my soul. Now here's my question for you.
Do you really trust it? Do you really trust it
enough to read it? Do you really trust it enough
to obey it? Do you really trust it enough to
stand up against the criticism or the doubts that people

(23:50):
begin to throw at you or your kids or your grandkids.
You need to come to a conviction about is the
Bible true or not? I'd love to help you. This
is the time that I'd really encourage you to get
the notes, review them. Let us be a help to
you on your journey.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Thanks Chip. Let me take a second before we go
and thank the generous people who support this ministry every month.
Your faithful gifts help us inspire Christians to live like Christians.
If you haven't partnered with us, would you prayerfully consider
joining the Living on the Edge team. You can set
up a monthly donation at Livingontheedge dot org or by

(24:27):
calling Triple eight three three three six zero zero three.
That's Triple eight three three three six zero zero three,
or visit Living on the Edge dot org. App listeners
tap donate. Be sure to join us next time as
Chip continues our series dealing with Doubts. Until then, I'm
Dave Druie saying thanks for listening to this edition of

(24:48):
Living on the Edge.