A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found “7 in 10 U.S. adults describe themselves as spiritual in some way, including 22% who are spiritual but not religious.”1 Yet, a Gallup poll found, “A record-low 20% of Americans now say the Bible is the literal word of God.”2
We in American think we are spiritual but reject the Bible as God’s Word. How can this be? Are we just living contradictions? What’s going on? Is it because 80% of Americans have read, studied, or researched the Bible and come to a well thought logical conclusion? Absolutely not!
Only 39% of Americans pick up a Bible three or more times per year.3 That means 61% of us practically never read God’s Word, so how can we know what it says or even if it is believable? It’s impossible. That means people’s opinions about the Bible come from someone else, typically someone who does not like God or know Him.
These opinions can come from the media, which has a plethora of voices that decry all things related to Jesus. They can come from misinformed educators, who propagate false claims about the Bible. Bad ideas can come from evolutionists and atheists, who deny God exists so they do not have to live under His authority. They can come from self-proclaimed religious gurus, who peddle their own made-up paths to prosperity. Or they can even come from an individual, who simply imagines their own god to be like a genie waiting to give whatever is wanted.
Can we really know if the Bible is God’s Literal Word?
In spite of the lack of knowledge and abundance of misinformation, it is possible to know the truth. If we took time to read the Bible, we would find that it could not be a manmade book. It is too accurate in all its details for humans to have made it up, even over generations. Archeology has confirmed the Bible’s historicity and its prophecies confirm its divinity. Consider this example.
“Until the late 19th century, the Bible stood alone as the only known historical work that discussed the Hittites in any detail.” “References to the Hittites in the Bible have been used by the enemies of divine revelation to discredit the historical accuracy of the book,” observed William Wright in his 1882 thesis “The Hittites and the Bible.” But this changed in the early 1900s as archeologists uncovered the capital of the Hittite people in modern day Turkey.4 This and other such discoveries proved skeptics were wrong.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-1900s also proved skeptics wrong. They claimed the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus were written after the fact. Yet, the scrolls were verified to have been written hundreds of years before Jesus lived and contained the same prophecies that are in our modern Bibles! “Thus, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide further proof that the Old Testament canon was completed by the third century B.C., and that the prophecies foretold of Christ in the Old Testament predated the birth of Christ.”5 No human can accurately foretell the future, let alone give multiple prophecies for hundreds of years after his lifetime. The Bible’s prophecies clearly demonstrate that is from God.
Since the Bible is God’s Literal Word, how should we live?
So, we know for certain that when the Bible says it is God’s Word, it is true. In fact,
The words of the LORD are pure words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth,
Purified seven times. (Psalm 12:6)
God’s Word is pure, right, and trustworthy. Since the Lord knows more than we do, we can have confidence in His instructions for how we should live. The Bible is to be our light in this dark and troubled world.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)
It is the only source of true wisdom.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright (Proverbs 2:6-7a)
The Lord gave this wisdom to keep us from the pitfalls of life.
A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself,
But the simple pass on and are punished. (Proverbs 22:3)
Friends, don’t be a simple one, drifting along in life with the crowd and suffering consequences of bad decisions made without God. The Bible is His Word. We can trust it and should let it guide our lives on Earth as we prepare for Heaven. But it can only do that if we read, learn, and apply it.
Let us make time for the Bible each day and then share it, so the sad statistics about America can begin to change. About half of the people who believe in a higher power “say they are more open to God today than before the pandemic.”6 They need to know the answers for life’s essential questions are in the Bible. You can help them!
- https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/spirituality-among-americans/ ↩︎
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx ↩︎
- American Bible Society’s “State of the Bible USA 2023” pg. 6. https://www.americanbible.org/ ↩︎
- https://armstronginstitute.org/954-finding-the-hittites ↩︎
- https://bible.org/article/dead-sea-scrolls ↩︎
- https://www.barna.com/research/rising-spiritual-openness/ ↩︎