This is an expanded version of the notes I use to teach Systematic Theology to my church’s youth group. The goal isn’t to make it “kid-friendly,” but rather to create something valuable for those not exposed to decades of theology. Use this in your own Christian walk or as a guide as you disciple a child or new believer.
You can get the shorter notes used in my class here, or access a printer-friendly version of this article here. The entire PDF series is available here on my Google Drive.
2. Understanding the Bible
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)
Christians today and throughout history have shaped their lives around the Bible. This book has shaped how we think about marriage, politics, war, death, money, and even our purpose in life. Many have even died because they believe the Bible teaches about our loyalty to Jesus Christ.
But why do we trust the Bible so much in the first place? Some might say, “I trust the Bible because it tells me to.” And it’s true: the Bible, also known as “the word of God,” is filled with statements like the verse above that tell us it’s a source of truth. But if we’re honest, we must admit that this is circular reasoning: “I believe the Bible because the Bible tells me to believe the Bible.”
Should we trust something just because it claims to be trustworthy? Why not also trust the Muslim book of the Quran? Or the Roman Catholic pope? There must be something more to our confidence in the trustworthiness of something beyond “It says I can trust it.”
Why do we trust the Bible?
It’s tempting to answer this question by reaching for various pieces of evidence proving that the Bible is true. We might point out the strengths of its historical reliability, scientific insights, or how it makes us feel. However, this can be dangerous because doing so places the Bible under the authority of human knowledge or experience. In other words, if a human could disprove something about its historical or scientific accuracy, the Bible would cease to be trustworthy.
For example, historians doubted its historical accuracy because there was no evidence of King David outside the Bible until archaeological discoveries in 1993. Did the Bible become more trustworthy in 1993 than it was in 1992? For some, yes, because the tie their trust in the Bible to the limits of human discovery. If experts point out an error in the Bible, some will doubt this God-given book until it can prove itself to those human experts. We even see this today with modern science’s claims on the universe’s age and origin, causing many to either doubt the Bible or interpret it differently so that it doesn’t contradict modern-day experts.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t use evidence to support the Bible’s truth claims. In fact, seeing the many ways that the Bible shows its trustworthiness is a way God strengthens our faith. However, we must think carefully about who has the authority to declare whether or not we trust it.
Consider these statements:
1. God is all-knowing and is our ultimate source of truth.
2. God has given us the Bible to help us know what He says is true.
3. Thus, we should expect the Bible to be as trustworthy as its source.
Putting God as the authority for the Bible’s trustworthiness reframes our thinking. Consider the existence of King David, as discussed above. If the Bible speaks about King David as a literal person who existed in history, we can trust what the Bible said despite the lack of evidence. However, because the Bible was given to us by God, it was unsurprising when archaeologists uncovered evidence about such a prominent ruler. In this case, the Bible’s trustworthiness didn’t increase or decrease based on human evidence, but that evidence aligned with the fact that a God who cannot be in error gave us this book.
Of course, it’s easy to get excited about the Bible’s accuracy when we’ve already been proven something is true. So, let us consider humanity’s origins, something that we can’t as easily poit to and prove the Bible is accurate about. We’ll consider it from two perspectives: one in which the Bible submits itself to human knowledge and one in which we trust it because it comes from God.
If evidence must prove the Bible:
1. Scientists claim humans evolved from a single-cell organism over six million years.
2. The Bible says that God personally created Adam in a single day.
3. The Bible is false or must be re-interpreted to align it with scientific evidence.
If God determines the Bible’s trustworthiness:
1. Scientists claim humans evolved from a single-cell organism over six million years.
2. The Bible says that God personally created Adam in a single day.
3. We believe God created humans as Genesis describes, despite scientific claims.
The primary reason we believe the Bible is trustworthy is that God says it is. While we cannot place the Bible under any authority higher than God, we should expect to find additional evidence supporting its truth. Having said that, do we have the sort of evidence we’d expect from a book given to us by a perfect and all-knowing God?
External evidence – Does the Bible show that it’s trustworthy outside of its pages?
External evidence is anything outside the Bible that helps prove its credibility. Though people have written entire books on the subject, we can examine just a few items that give us confidence that the Bible is what it claims to be.
Scientific accuracy
The Bible is a collection of historical writings, none of which claim to be a science textbook. We want to respect the different genres without assuming that every comment related to the world is a cold-hard fact when it’s obvious the author is saying something poetically. However, the Bible does make some basic assumptions about God’s creation that, despite various scientific theories throughout the years, have proven accurate in relation to what scientists and philosophers eventually “discovered.”
The universe isn’t eternal (Genesis 1:1). As early as 300 B.C., people like Aristotle taught that the universe had always existed because they understood it was impossible for something to create itself out of nothing. In the 1900s, scientists could better observe our universe and see that it was moving outward, meaning that if we could “rewind” this motion we would see that the universe had to start from a single point. Although this led to the original “Big Bang Theory” without giving any credit to an intelligent Creator, this discovery recognized what the Bible had always claimed about the universe having a beginning.
Creatures can only reproduce with their kind, producing offspring of the same kind. (Genesis 1:21-25). As humans have grown in our knowledge of the animal world, we understand a biological principle that only allows animals to reproduce with creatures similar to their genetic makeup. Likewise, creatures who reproduce will never give birth to a kind of creature. This aligns with God creating each animal “after its own kind.”
There is a single human race rather than different evolution ancestries (Genesis 3:20). Polygenism is a theory that we’ve seen throughout history, from ancient creation myths to modern-day scientists, which teaches that things like different skin colors are due to humans having different ancestors from one another. However, as modern science has examined humans at some of the deepest biological levels, they’ve understood what the Bible has always claimed about our origins: that we all come from a single ancestor.
We see geological evidence of a global flood (Genesis 7:17-20). In The New Answers Book 3, geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling cites 6 pieces of evidence for the global flood described in the Bible:
- Fossils of sea creatures high above sea level
- Rapid burial of plants and animals
- Rapidly deposited sediment layers spread across vast areas
- Sediment transported long distances
- Rapid or no erosion between strata
- Many strata laid down in rapid succession
These work together to show that the world agrees with the biblical account of a world-spanning flood.
Historical accuracy
Civilizations outside of Israel speak of the historical events of the Old and New Testaments, and non-Christian writers of the time affirm the existence of a man named Jesus (though they obviously didn’t believe He was God). Archaeologists have also doubted the existence of people and groups mentioned in the Bible, such as King David (discussed above) and the Hittites, only to have later archaeological discoveries attest to the Bible’s historical accuracy.
Its ability to radically change lives
While this can only be done by the saving work of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer, God still uses the truths of the Bible to direct His people toward holiness and changed lives. It’s also difficult to ignore the global impact the Bible has had, which has reached greater numbers of more diverse people than any other religious text. It impacts lives in a way that we’d expect from a divinely inspired book.
Preservation
Because the books of the Bible were written thousands of years ago on materials that naturally deteriorate over time, none of the original manuscripts have survived. However, Textual Criticism (the science of studying copies of documents to determine what the original ones said) shows that our Bible teaches the same core truths as the originals. As we find older copies of the original documents, we see that the Bibles we have today have faithfully preserved the text across thousands of copies. Although there are errors, they are easily understood as “copying errors” and never affect a meaningful aspect of the Christian faith.
Summarizing “External Evidence”
A single piece of evidence doesn’t necessarily prove the trustworthiness of the Bible. Indeed, we shouldn’t expect all of these together to convince someone to obey the words found within this important book. That’s because the Bible’s trustworthiness isn’t based on whether we can gather more convincing evidence than those who oppose it. However, external evidence does show that the Bible is consistent with what we’d expect from a historical document with divine origins.
Internal evidence – What’s inside the Bible that makes it trustworthy?
Internal evidence isis what we see within the pages of the Bible that show it’s a divinely inspired historical document. We can point to this evidence when discussing why it’s evident that the Bible is more than just a human creation but something divinely inspired by God himself.
What it says about itself
So far, we’ve been talking about letting the Bible shape our lives. But does the Bible itself assume it should be capable of such a feat? After all, we’d laugh if someone read Green Eggs and Ham or The Hobbit and became convinced that people should dedicate their lives to living out the truths contained within. Those books lack any external evidence to make us believe they’re true, and neither Dr. Seuss nor J.R.R. Tolkien assumed their books were more than pieces of fiction.
Thus, we need to examine what the Bible says about itself and what role it’s meant to play in our lives.
It’s divinely inspired:
We call the Bible “inspired,” but what does that mean? Simply put, the term means that the Bible is a divine and human book. While the human authors wrote in their own unique styles and historical contexts, they were guided by the Holy Spirit to write exactly what God intended. Because God is the divine author, we also describe the Bible as “inerrant,” or without error in the original writings.
In the Old Testament, we see clear evidence that the biblical writers understood that the things they wrote were from God:
They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 7:12)
Through His Spirit, God gave His words to the Old Testament prophets. He didn’t just do this to make Israel feel good or give them data, but to call them to change their ways and follow God. When they didn’t, we even see God become angry with them. It’s evident that not only are the writings of the prophets from God, but they’re also binding on the lives of God’s people at that time.
Notice that even Jesus assumed the Old Testament was divinely inspired:
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:2-4)
When Jesus said, “It is written,” He wasas using the Old Testament to remind the devil of what obedience to God the Father looks like (in this case, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3). Jesus is God and treated the Old Testament as authoritative. That’s because the Word of God reveals the will of God. It’s what God has given His people to understand who He is, what He’s doing, and what He wants us to do today.
However, not just the Old Testament has a divine origin. The New Testament does as well, and should therefore impact the lives of God’s followers.
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16-17)
If we use the O.I.A. method discussed in the last chapter, we’ll make some interesting observations in this passage. Peter is telling his audience to remember what the Apostle Paul wrote to them in his previous letters. Peter then notes that Paul sometimes writes things that may not be easy to understand. Peter then says something fascinating, warning his audience that not only do evil people twist Paul’s words, but they do the same thing with “the other Scriptures.”
We don’t know how much God revealed to the New Testament writers about how future Christians would use their writings. However, Peter plainly understood one thing: the writings of apostles like Paul were just as authoritative and divinely inspired as the Old Testament. Peter even encouraged his audience to be just as on guard for false teachers twisting Paul’s words as they were against those who would twist the Old Testament, understanding that both were God’s word and binding on their lives.
Understanding that God inspired the Bible, we can examine a few other things it says about itself.
It’s true
John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)
Because God is a God of truth, we shouldn’t be surprised that His word is just as true as He is. It’s not something a true God gave while secretly deceiving or misguiding us. God’s word is as true and reliable as He is.
It’s life-changing
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. (Psalm 19:7-9)
This Psalm uses several terms:
- Law of the LORD
- Testimony of the LORD
- Precepts of the LORD
- Commandment of the LORD
- Rules of the LORD
Despite different phrases, they’re all a poetic way of saying the same thing: the Word of God. Although the writer likely only had access to the Bible’s first five books, we can say the same things he said about the entire Bible. The book really is life-changing, exactly as God intends it to be. That’s not because the book itself is somehow magical, but because it contains the words of God Himself.
It’s our only authority
We’ve discussed 2 Timothy 3:17, which clearly marks God’s word as something that equips us to live as God wants us to. However, also note that even Jesus assumed the Bible was all people needed:
He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16:31)
For context, Jesus is telling about a rich man who died and went to Hell. He just begged for God to resurrect a man named Lazarus and send him to the rich man’s family, hoping something so miraculous would convince them to trust and obey God. The text above is the response he received: If his family won’t trust the written word of God given by the prophets, not even the most extraordinary miracles would convince them.
Think about that. God doesn’t want our trust in Him based on experiences, emotions, guilt, supernatural signs, fun church environments, external evidence, or anything else we may think people need to trust Him. Instead, the Bible is what we need to know and trust God. The Bible, alone, is meant to be our authority.
Consistency
In addition to being preserved, the original writings never contradict themselves despite being written by around 40 human authors across 1,500 years. This shouldn’t surprise us since God is the ultimate author of Scripture and cannot lie (Titus 1:2).
Fulfilled prophecy
In the Bible, prophecy isn’t the same as forecasting where a meteorologist looks at data in the present to make an educated guess about the future. Likewise, it’s not like fortunetelling where a mystic gazes into a crystal ball to see a future that they have no input in. Instead, prophecy is God telling a prophet what He will do in the future. God isn’t hoping for the best or looking forward to what happens; instead, He declares what will happen. In fact, God was so unfailing in His prophecies that in Deuteronomy 18:20-22, He commanded Israel to execute anyone who made a prophecy that didn’t come true because a true prophet would never be wrong. God is very clear throughout the Bible – His prophecies will never fail.
Thus, it’s both amazing and unsurprising just how much prophecy in the Bible has either been fully completed or is still awaiting completion. No prophecy in the Bible has missed its window and been shown to be false. Instead, God consistently declares what He will do in the future and, against all odds, never fails to do so.
For example, in Micah 5:2 God promised that the Messiah would be born in a little town called “Bethlehem.” 700 years later, Mathew 2:1 reveals that Jesus Christ was born there instead of any other place that would have been a more likely place for a child to be born. According to Dr. Hugh Ross, the odds of Micah correctly “guessing” the birthplace of Jesus Christ is 1 in 104. This would be like taking a bag with 10,000 grains of rice, marking one of them, and then asking you to close your eyes and find the correct one.
Yet this is just one example. Dr. Ross took 10 specific prophecies and calculated that their chances of being fulfilled are 1 in 10110. To come close to putting that into perspective, consider that if we counted all the atoms in the universe, we’d have 1 in 1080. The odds of 10 prophecies being accurate are lower than the chance of correctly identifying a single marked atom out of all the atoms that exist. Yet the Bible doesn’t just have 10 fulfilled prophecies, but 2,000.
If all this evidence is true, why would people still reject the Bible?
Like the rich man who begged for his family to receive a miraculous sign, it’s tempting to think that all this evidence should be enough to convince people to place their faith in Jesus Christ. Yet people of all ages, backgrounds, and intelligence levels can look at this evidence and still refuse to believe it. But how could people possibly reject the Bible if it’s as trustworthy as we claim?
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:12-14)
Not only did God give us the Bible, but He is the reason we believe it in the first place. Trusting God isn’t a matter of intellect, emotion, or meaningful experiences. It’s not about overwhelming proof or winning debates against skeptics. Even the most well-crafted arguments will face resistance if the Holy Spirit doesn’t enable them to understand.
What is the Bible about?
The Bible is God’s revealed word to His creation. Though its contents are vast, readers will soon realize that God included and omitted things for a reason. So when reading the Bible, knowing what it’s about will aid us in understanding why we’re reading what we’re reading.
Simply put, the Bible is a history of God’s future kingdom and His saving work through Jesus Christ. Genesis through Revelation is a unified account of God’s plan to redeem His people and establish His kingdom. It reveals who God is at a personal level and who He is as the sovereign ruler of everything. As we read the Bible, we see the promises, prophecies, and fulfillment of God’s plan centered on Jesus Christ as both the Savior of individuals and the King of all creation.
History of God’s Kingdom in the Old Testament:
Law: God creates humans to have dominion over the earth. After Adam’s sin, God chooses to establish His future kingdom through Israel.
History: God blesses and disciplines Israel.
Poetry: These books describe God’s greatness, show how to live with godly wisdom, and look forward to His kingdom.
Major and Minor Prophets: God selects men (called prophets) to deliver specific messages to Israel and others, often dealing with God’s promise to rescue, bless, or discipline His people.
History of God’s Kingdom in the New Testament:
Gospels, Acts: Jesus Christ arrives to begin the next step in establishing His future kingdom and saving His people.
Letters: Discuss various aspects of the church and Christian living.
Revelation: Reveals the future as Christ judges sin and establishes His promised kingdom on the earth. Old Testament followers of God and New Testament Christians will inhabit this kingdom.
Seeing God’s saving work through Jesus Christ:
Law: Christ is promised and foreshadowed.
History, Poetry, and Prophecy: Christ is anticipated through types and prophecies.
Gospels: Christ arrives to take the punishment for the sins of His people.
Acts, Letters: Christ’s church begins and grows.
Revelation: Christ establishes His kingdom and spends eternity with His people.
Seeing God’s global kingdom and individual salvation
We often think of the Bible as “God’s love letter to us” and think it’s only about Jesus coming to save us. Some people even think the Old Testament is boring because it doesn’t feature Jesus nearly as much as the New Testament. However, we must read the Bible for what it is — God establishing His kingdom through Jesus Christ. The Savior’s dying to save His people is an essential part of this, but we must view Jesus as both Savior and King.
The Bible is for us, but it’s ultimately about God. Seeing its full purpose helps us better understand the Bible and gives us reasons to be excited about the future. After all, Christ dying to save us isn’t the end of the story, but something that brings us one step closer to spending eternity in His kingdom.
Why we must understand the Bible
Let’s wrap this up by answering an important question: So what? Why does it matter if we understand the Bible correctly? Why should we let it impact how we read it or how it affects our lives?
As we’ve seen, the Bible makes some significant assumptions about itself, which external evidence certainly supports. As a historical document, it deserves our care and attention. As a divine revelation from God, the Bible also demands that we understand and obey what God says in it. Take time to study the following passages focused on the Bible’s role in our lives.
The Bible tells us how to be saved.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:13-17)
In this passage, Paul gives a very logical sequence of events in how someone is saved from their sins. I’ll reverse his logic, starting at the beginning instead of working backward from the end as he does:
1. God sends Christians to share the gospel with others. This call starts with the command of Christ, as seen in Matthew 28:18-20.
2. These Christians preach, or proclaim, the truths of Jesus Christ. These truths aren’t just matters of opinion, but the truths found in the Bible.
3. People hear these Christians proclaiming the truths of the Bible, especially regarding their sins before God and their need for Jesus Christ to save them from the penalty of those sins.
4. Some who hear will believe that Jesus paid the price for their sins, taking the punishment for those who trust in Him.
5. They then call on Him, trusting that only Jesus Christ can save them.
6. Because they called out in true belief, they are saved from God’s wrath for eternity.
None of this is possible without the Bible as a foundation for the Christians who share the gospel and those who believe in Jesus Christ.
The Bible equips us to grow as Christians and serve God.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17)
The Bible is more than a tool we only reach for when we need help. It is, in fact, central to everything we need to live the Christian life. If it makes us “complete, equipped for every good work,” then we must acknowledge that not using it will make us incomplete and poorly equipped for serving God.
The Bible exposes our sins and leads us to the truth.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:11-13)
God uses the Bible, or other Christians who use the Bible, to reveal sinful areas in our lives.
The Bible reveals how to know and obey God’s will.
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24)
Again, we see a logical breakdown of how God’s word works in the lives of people.
If we love Jesus, we’ll keep His words.
If we don’t love Jesus, we won’t keep His words.
But how do we know His words? Because He’s preserved them in the Bible. They’re both the words recorded in the Gospels and what the Holy Spirit has inspired all the biblical authors to write.
The Bible refreshes God’s people
The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:7-11)
As we discussed above, this Psalm is just listing factual statements about God’s word, all of which have a similar theme. God doesn’t intend for the Bible to be a burden to His peopl, and even the most difficult or convicting things we read are meant to refresh God’s people. Is it possible to rest and find joy when the Bible reveals the depth of our wickedness? For those who have the Holy Spirit living within them, the answer is “Yes, absolutely!”
The Bible is complete and sufficient for us, meaning we don’t add what we prefer, ignore what we don’t like, or change what doesn’t make sense to us.
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)
Throughout the pages of the Bible, God cares about His word being protected and obeyed. Whether it’s commanding that His words not be altered or that false prophets be executed in Deuteronomy 18:20-22, God makes it plain to all that His word is all we need. And if He cares so much about it, we should take notice and make it our highest priority as well.
The Bible gives us hope for today and eternity.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25)
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)
The Bible comforts Christians by giving them hope, and God tells us to comfort other Christians with it by pointing them to the hope contained within. As we discussed in “What is the Bible about?”, that comfort comes from realizing that the difficulties in this life pale in comparison to the future hope we read about in the Bible. Christians may live a long life of relative ease or a short life of persecution and suffering. Yet, no matter what, our greatest hope and joy is in spending eternity with our Savior.
