Why Should I Trust the Bible?

Come one now, don’t pretend you haven’t ask yourself this question! Whether you’re a Christian or not, if you’ve spent any time around Christians you’ll know that they talk about the Bible a lot. But can we really trust what it says? Is it reliable?

There are many people today who have been brought up in the church, they’ve been taught the Bible from an early age and that is a wonderful thing! However, one danger is that we might be tempted to disengage our minds and critical thinking when it comes to the Christian faith. Please don’t do that!

In Why Should I Trust the Bible? Timothy Paul Jones tells his own story; how he was raised with many wrong ideas about the Bible and evidence for its trustworthiness. During college Jones spent many hours in the library, he was challenged and started thinking through his faith properly. He wanted to see for himself that the Bible stood up to logic, how christianity dealt with evidence and if the claims of Scripture were true. Maybe that’s you! If it is then this book is for you.

“The words that I’ve penned in these pages are for people who fact-check every claim they see on social media and second-guess almost every story they hear. When it comes to trusting the Bible, this book is for people for whom skepticism has at some point felt more natural than faith”

But how on earth can you answer such a big question in just 200 pages?

“The Bible does not come with empirical proof and it certainly does not come without problems––but is also does not come without evidence. The evidences for the trustworthiness of this text are not scientific but historical. Such evidences do not result in the same type of certainty as scientific experiments or mathematical calculations. What historical evidences provide instead is a reasonable confidence that grows from reconstructions that are cultivated in a seedbed of testimonies and texts, manuscripts and artifacts.”

Jones pulls out all the stops and logically takes you through the evidence for why he thinks the Bible is trustworthy. The book has facts and figures, names of old and tables of stats, it has all the academic research of a doctorate but it’s written in an easy and readable way.

I’ve read a lot of books on this topic over the years, some good and some unbelievably boring, this one was a joy to read. I read it in a day and was enjoyed getting my head back into the topic.

Why should I trust the Bible? Jones argues that we should trust the Bible because Jesus rose from the dead. Jones first examines the Gospels and then the rest of the Bible and gives reasons why the Bible is trustworthy. Along the way he anticipates questions and responds to them, he debunks wrong ideas and false information that is often told in Christian circles as fact and he does it all in such a light (and sometimes funny) way.

The Christian faith is not a blind faith that calls you to step out into the dark with no evidence to support your faith. The Christian faith is built of evidence, the Bible is trustworthy, it is accurate and it is authoritative.

I highly recommend that you buy this book if you’ve asked the question before or if your skeptical about the Bible. This book will be a good start for your studies. At the end of every chapter there is also a list of helpful recommended resources, if you want to dig deeper into something more specific.

Buy it here from Christian Focus and enjoy reading and growing.

Timothy Paul Jones is professor of apologetics and director of the Center for Christian Apologetics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also hosts a popular weekly music and apologetics podcast, Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast.