Part One: Can We Trust the Bible?

Trust Issues – Who Can You Trust?

Before the pandemic, I would have said there were many in society who had issues with authority, but COVID restrictions certainly emphasised that. Mask mandates, vaccination mandates, lockdowns, protests, conspiracy theories, etc. all served to highlight at least a general sense of distrust. In the end, though, you have to trust someone, so that leads me to the question of what makes you trust someone, as opposed to responding with suspicion. I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s honesty, vulnerability and reliability. If I am going to trust people, I want to know that they are real with me, not just telling me what they think I want to hear, but the genuine truth. I also want to know that I can count on them to be there for me when I need them. It is these same characteristics that I see in the Bible, which leads me to proclaim confidently that we can trust the Bible.

Honesty and Vulnerability – History Written by the Victors?

There is a common saying that history is written by the victors, meaning that those in power shape historical records to their own benefit. They may do this through selecting only the events that make themselves look good, distorting negative events to be more positive, or even completely fabricating events. Some sceptics have claimed that the Bible fits this pattern, covering things up in some instances and inventing them in others. Contrary to this, the Bible gives us plenty of reason to trust that the narratives describe what really happened, and not just what the authors wished had happened. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-12, the Apostle Paul gives a summary of some of the events in the early books of the Bible and it is clear that God’s own people were repeatedly disobedient to Him. Far from these failings being covered up, Paul says that these were recorded for instruction, so that bad examples would not be followed. Even those who are considered heroes of the faith were not made out to be perfect. Consider people like the Prophet Moses, King David, or the Apostle Peter, who did great things for God, but also had some spectacular failures (Exodus 2:11:14; 2 Samuel 11; Matthew 26:69-75). The example of Peter is particularly striking, because even though Peter denied Jesus early on (Luke 22:54-62), he was later described as a pillar of the church (Galatians 2:7-9). This seems highly unlikely to be fiction. The Bible wasn’t written to make a person or a group of people look good, but to show God to be the only true Hero.