Very few people want to discard the Bible altogether. It’s a holy book after all, and there are passages in the Bible that even the most cynical atheist would admit are beautiful and inspiring. But, sooner or later, everyone finds parts of the Bible that make them feel uncomfortable. There are teachings that disagree with what we believe. There are commands to do things we don’t want to do. And there are warnings against doing things that we want to keep on doing. When we come to one of those uncomfortable places, we’re tempted to conclude, ‘That part must be wrong.’ If the Bible contains errors, then we get to pick and choose the parts we like. So, how true is the Bible? Does it contain mistakes? How can we know? These are important questions to settle in your mind.

1. The Bible claims to be the perfect standard of truth.

Jesus famously prayed for His disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). He’s asserting that the Bible, the Word of God, is not only true but “truth.” He’s saying that the Bible doesn’t just conform to some standard by which we could evaluate it to be true, but rather that it is the standard by which all things are judged as true or not. Proverbs 30:5 says it more simply, “Every word of God proves true.” Notice that the Bible isn’t just true in a sweeping, general sense. It’s true down to every last word.

2. The Bible is true because it comes from God, Himself.

While the Bible was written over a period of more than 1,000 years by a variety of people with differing backgrounds, the incredible unity of its message is due to the fact that God is its ultimate Author. 2 Peter 1:20-21 describes the process, “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” The Bible is true because God ensured that what was written was exactly what He wanted to communicate, and God never lies (Titus 1:2).

3. The Bible is true in all that it intends to teach.

It’s easy to misunderstand what the Bible means by true. The Bible is true in all that it intends to teach, so it’s always important to ask, “What is this passage intending to teach?” People take verses like Ecclesiastes 1:5, “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises,” and conclude that the Bible has made a clear error. The sun doesn’t rise or set; it just appears that way. This is, however, just an example of descriptive language. The point of the verse is to stress the repetition of life not to make a scientific statement about the orbit of the sun. Similarly, when I say that I saw a beautiful sunset, no one accuses me of making a false statement or being ignorant of the fact that the earth travels around the sun.

4. Don’t be alarmed if someone says they’ve found a contradiction.

Every so often, someone will bring up an apparent contradiction and claim that they have found proof that the Bible contains mistakes. If that’s the conclusion you’re looking to prove, their claim may sound persuasive. But if you are at all open to the idea that the Bible’s apparent contradictions can be resolved, it’s often very simple to sort them out. For example, the gospel accounts describe the reaction of the women who discovered the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. Matthew 28:8 says, “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” Luke 24:9 says, “returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.” Mark 16:8, however, says, “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.” Matthew and Luke describe the women running to tell the disciples what had happened, but Mark says that they were afraid and didn’t say anything to anyone. If you’re looking for a contradiction, you might think you’ve found one, but the gospel writers are just describing the same events from different perspectives and with different emphases. It’s easy to imagine that Matthew and Luke were emphasizing the fact that the women went to tell the disciples and that Mark is explaining that there was initially so much confusion and fear that they didn’t tell anyone (until they’d had a chance to talk it through with the disciples).

People have been studying the Bible for hundreds of years and have believed that it is true and without error, not just because Jesus said so, but because they have seen its truths proved time and time again in their personal experience. Read the Bible and trust that it’s true. God doesn’t make any mistakes.

In awe of Him,

Paul