“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16)
When I was saved in 1991, one of the first outward and visible signs of my salvation was found in the Bible. You see, shortly after my salvation experience, my pastor encouraged me to read my Bible and suggested that I begin with the Book of John.
I was stunned when I opened the Scriptures. The verses jumped off the page. The Holy Spirit had removed the blinders and my Bible, which I thought had long ago lost its luster, now had real meaning. Jesus hit the nail on the head when he said of the lost, “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God”. (John 8:47)
When I started writing this column in January of 1996, I targeted a Christian audience. I knew how much I struggled with everyday living and wanted to see a column that would honestly and boldly address contemporary problems through a Christian perspective. I use God’s Word repeatedly through my column to demonstrate that it has not lost its effectiveness. The truth is no problem is too difficult for the Christian who is willing to reach out in faith and trust Christ, regardless of the outcome. Indeed, God’s Word can make all the difference.
I feel sorry for the Christian who does not believe all of God’s Word. Sadly, they sit right next to us on the pew sometimes, but we often don’t recognize them.
They are the ones who will promptly tell you that the Old Testament is not for today’s Christian in spite of the fact that Jesus once said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) Some of them don’t even know that the “Law” and the “Prophets” comprise 22 of the 39 books of the Old Testament.
There are also Christians who think the Bible is full of scientific errors. Unbelievers have convinced some Christians that the Bible is a book of religion, not a book of science. Obviously, the Bible was not written to teach us about science, but to teach us about God, but former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Adrian Rogers, warns us to be careful about such views. “…The God of salvation and the God of creation are the same. Science doesn’t take God by surprise,” he reminds us.
He is right you know. The ancients believed Atlas held up the earth. But today we know the earth is suspended in space, a fact that the Word of God records in Job 26:7, “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.” Isn’t it interesting that God revealed facts about the universe long before man had the capacity to understand it?
When Ptolemy charted the heavens, he counted 1026 stars in the sky, but the invention of the telescope proved there are an infinite number of stars. Jeremiah told us the same thing 3,000 years ago. “The host of heaven cannot be numbered,” he prophesied. (Jeremiah 33:22)
Every now and then science may disagree with the Bible, but as Dr. Rogers so aptly puts it, “…science just needs time to catch up. For example, in 1861 a French scientific academy printed a brochure offering 51 incontrovertible facts that proved the Bible in error. Today there is not a single reputable scientist who would support those supposed ‘facts’, because modern science has disproved them all.”
Don’t let a believer or unbeliever take away any of the truth that God’s Word offers. It will rob you of the freedom that comes from a faithful relationship with Christ. Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he said “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”? (John 8:32)
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