The Reliability of Scripture: Evidence vs. Grace

• Reasons for Disbelief 00:01:15 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor lists six major reasons people might reject the Christian faith, including the resurrection, science, biblical errors, evil, hypocrisy, and Jesus' identity.
• Bible Translations 00:02:34 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor addresses the concern about multiple translations by explaining that the original languages (Hebrew and Greek) are well-understood and that language evolution necessitates new translations, not because the original meaning is lost.
• Textual Integrity and Manuscripts 00:06:25 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor compares the number and age of biblical manuscripts to classical works like Caesar and Plato, arguing that the Bible has superior textual evidence with over 5,000 Greek manuscripts and early copies like the Codex Sinaiticus and Dead Sea Scrolls.
• Archaeological Confirmation 00:10:51 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor cites archaeologists like Sir William Ramsey and Dr. William F. Albright, as well as specific discoveries like Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Hittites, to demonstrate that archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible.
• Archaeological Evidence for Biblical Claims 00:12:04 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor cites archaeological findings for Sodom and Gomorrah, the Hittites, King David, and Jesus' boat to refute skepticism about the Bible's historical accuracy.
• Definition and Refutation of Biblical Contradictions 00:17:11 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor defines contradiction using the law of non-contradiction and argues that differences in Gospel accounts are complementary details, not contradictions, citing examples of Jesus' death and Peter's denial.
• Jesus' Fulfillment of the Law 00:21:25 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that Jesus did not contradict the Old Testament law (e.g., 'eye for an eye') but fulfilled it by elevating the spirit of the law to the heart, rather than just the letter.
• Prophecy as Evidence of Authority 00:25:15 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor introduces the topic of prophecy as a test for the Bible's authoritative credibility, noting that accurate fulfillment of Messianic prophecies supports its divine origin.
• Biblical Authority and Credibility 00:24:33 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor argues that the ultimate question regarding the Bible is its authoritative credibility as a spiritual text, which is supported by Jesus's endorsement of the Old Testament and the accuracy of prophecy.
• Messianic Prophecy Fulfillment 00:25:21 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor details specific prophecies regarding Jesus's birth (line of David, Bethlehem, gifts) and death (betrayal, casting lots, piercing), noting that Jesus fulfilled all 332 distinct Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.
• Statistical Improbability of Coincidence 00:28:01 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor cites Dr. Peter Stoner's calculations showing the odds of eight prophecies being fulfilled by chance are one in 10^17, and the odds for 332 prophecies are akin to finding a specific atom in a trillion universes.
• Divine Inspiration of Scripture 00:29:58 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains the Greek term 'theopneustos' (God-breathed) to define inspiration, linking it to the Bible's enduring popularity and its role in teaching truth and correcting wrongs.

• Sermon Illustration 00:00:12 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses a humorous analogy about worrying about health and death to introduce the topic of reasons for disbelief, specifically contrasting the fear of hell with the comfort of heaven.
• Sermon Illustration 00:04:35 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses examples of changing language meanings (wicked, cool, hip, coke, hot, booty, spam, cloud, tweet) to illustrate why modern translations are necessary despite the stability of the original texts.
• Sermon Illustration 00:12:04 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor references the discovery of Sodom and Gomorrah, noting that skeptics claimed no evidence existed, but archaeological findings of ash and sulfur at Bab-et-Dra confirmed the biblical account of their destruction.
• Sermon Illustration 00:13:23 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor mentions the Hittites, who were unknown outside the Bible until their capital city and 40 other cities were discovered, validating the biblical record.
• Sermon Illustration 00:12:04 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor describes the discovery of Sodom and Gomorrah, noting that archaeological evidence of ash and sulfur matches the biblical account of destruction by fire from heaven.
• Sermon Illustration 00:13:23 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor recounts the discovery of the Hittite empire's capital city, which validated the biblical record of a people previously unknown outside the Bible.
• Sermon Illustration 00:14:21 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor details the discovery of the Tel Dan inscription, which provided the first non-biblical attestation of King David's existence.
• Sermon Illustration 00:15:05 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor describes the discovery of a 2,000-year-old boat in the Sea of Galilee that matches the New Testament description of vessels used by Jesus and his disciples.
• Sermon Illustration 00:20:38 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of trial lawyers looking for collusion among witnesses, arguing that minor differences in Gospel accounts indicate authentic eyewitness testimony rather than fabrication.
• Sermon Illustration 00:26:18 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor references the historical decree of a Roman census that forced Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah's birthplace.
• Sermon Illustration 00:28:01 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor cites Dr. Peter Stoner and his students calculating the statistical odds of Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by chance, resulting in odds of one in 10^17 for eight prophecies.
• Sermon Illustration 00:29:38 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses an analogy comparing the statistical improbability of prophecy fulfillment to a person randomly finding a predetermined atom among all atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] The world is full of reasons not to believe in God. But what if they don't tell the whole story? What if those questions deserve a second look? You might find that belief makes more sense than you expected.
[00:00:12] Welcome to MEX Online Campus. I recently heard someone talk about how there's only two things in life that you have to worry about, whether you're healthy or whether you're sick.
[00:00:26] If you're healthy, you don't have anything to worry about. But if you're sick, well, you got two things to worry about.
[00:00:33] Whether you're going to get better or whether you're going to get worse.
[00:00:37] If you get better, you don't have anything to worry about.
[00:00:40] If you get worse, you've got two things to worry about.
[00:00:45] Whether you're going to live or whether you're going to die.
[00:00:48] If you live, you don't have anything to worry about.
[00:00:51] If you die, you've got two things to worry about.
[00:00:55] Whether you're going to heaven or whether you're going to hell.
[00:00:58] If you go to heaven, you don't have anything to worry about.
[00:01:01] But if you go to hell, you've got two things to worry about.
[00:01:06] Original or extra crispy?
[00:01:08] Now, is that true?
[00:01:10] And how do you know whether it's true?
[00:01:14] Well, that's what this series is about.
[00:01:15] We're taking a look at the biggest reasons that people could have for passing on the Christian faith.
[00:01:21] Six reasons for feeling that at the end of all things, to worry about, heaven and hell are not going to be at the list.
[00:01:29] Because there are reasons not to believe.
[00:01:32] Here are arguably the top six.
[00:01:35] If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, if it conflicts with science, if the Bible is riddled with errors, if there isn't an adequate explanation for the existence of evil and suffering in the world, if judgmental, hypocritical Christians legitimately undermine its validity, and if
[00:01:53] Jesus was not who he said he was or who people claimed him to be, which was the Messiah, the Son of God.
[00:01:58] Now, so far, we've looked at the first of those two, whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, and we also looked at all things science. Today, we come to whether or not the Bible can be
[00:02:08] trusted, or whether it is so riddled with errors and contradictions it is virtually worthless as a spiritual guide or source of truth. So, let's see if we can put the Bible to the test with a series
[00:02:21] of questions and see if it holds up. Let's see if the Bible is a reason not to believe. Beginning with one of the most common concerns people have, how can I believe the Bible when there are so
[00:02:34] many translations? It doesn't seem like anybody knows what it really says, so how can you trust it? Understandable question. If you've been hanging around Meck for very long or joining us online here for any length of time, you've noticed that when I teach the Bible, I use
[00:02:50] multiple translations, not just one. So what is up with that? It's actually not as big a deal as you might have been thinking, the Bible was written basically in two languages, Hebrew and Greek. The first 39 books of the Bible, often called the Old or Older Testament, meaning the
[00:03:06] writings before the coming of Jesus, they were written in the language of its day and its authors, Hebrew. The last 27 books of the Bible, often called the New or Newer Testament, the ones that
[00:03:17] followed the coming of Jesus, were written in the language of its day, the language of commerce, which was largely Koine Greek. That means that all of our Bibles today are translations of those original languages, and each translation is the product of a team of scholars who have studied
[00:03:33] those languages and have translated it into English. That's the way it is, though, for anything that you read in English that was originally not written in English. The writings of Plato, the writings of Virgil, the writings of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, Rousseau, Kant.
[00:03:52] If you've ever read War and Peace as a novel or have enjoyed the story behind the musical Les Mis or liked the science fiction that was behind Three-Body Problem or you're looking forward to Christopher Nolan's new film on The Odyssey, it's based on a translation.
[00:04:09] In those cases, Russian, French, Chinese, and Greek, to be clear.
[00:04:13] So why are there so many?
[00:04:15] Well, it's not because we don't know what the ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts contain.
[00:04:21] We do.
[00:04:22] We have them.
[00:04:23] It's because modern language is a moving target.
[00:04:27] The way we talk, the words that we use, even the meanings of those words keep changing.
[00:04:33] Just think about the English language.
[00:04:35] Wicked used to mean something bad, right?
[00:04:39] Now a running back in a football game can make a great cut.
[00:04:42] And we say, what a wicked cut.
[00:04:45] Cool used to mean cool, not hip.
[00:04:48] And of course, hip used to mean, well, you're hip.
[00:04:53] Coke was a drink, not a drug.
[00:04:54] If someone was hot, it meant that you needed to turn on the AC.
[00:04:58] Your booty was what you hid from pirates.
[00:05:02] And just think about how technology has changed things.
[00:05:05] Spam used to be canned meat or something like meat.
[00:05:09] I'm not quite sure what spam is. A cloud has become the cloud. A tweet is a post, not the sound of a bird. You don't unplug an appliance, you unplug yourself. So when the Bible was translated in the 1600s, the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts were translated into the
[00:05:28] language of its day, which was King James English. That meant that there were lots of these and thou's and thine's and therefore's and other words that maybe we don't use today or that don't make
[00:05:38] a lot of sense to us. That's why the King James Bible is called the King James Bible. It was commissioned by King James and employed what was commonly known as King James English. There's nothing magical or holy about King James English, and we don't talk in King James English today,
[00:05:57] and Jesus didn't talk in King James English, neither did Moses or anyone else, which is why there have been translations since then, and there will need to be more in the future.
[00:06:06] Which leads to the next question people often wrestle with. What about those original Hebrew and Greek texts? Can the Bible be reliable when it's so old and it's been copied so many times over the centuries? When we talk about the writings of Paul or Moses, Peter or Jeremiah,
[00:06:25] do we really have what they wrote? Is there integrity in the biblical text? It's a good question, and a fair one. And it's actually pretty easily investigated. Here's how you do it.
[00:06:36] The integrity of any ancient writing is determined by the number of what's called documented manuscripts or fragments of documented manuscripts that we have to examine. For example, there are nine or so good manuscripts of Caesar's Gallic Wars in existence, the oldest of which is
[00:06:53] a copy dating about 900 years after Caesar's time. There are also around 10 existing copies of the ancient manuscripts of Plato, which are available to study and compare in order to determine the accuracy and the quality of the transmission of his writings throughout the years.
[00:07:10] The oldest of those manuscripts is a copy dating about 1400 years after Plato's original writings.
[00:07:17] But that's considered enough. No one discounts what we know about Caesar or the teachings of Plato. So how does the Bible compare against those kinds of gold standards? If we're going to take the integrity of the Bible seriously, and the biblical text seriously, as we do other
[00:07:33] ancient texts, the Bible better have at least eight to ten good documented manuscripts, and those copies better be within a thousand or so years of the originals if it's going to have the respect that we give the writings of, say, the Caesar or Plato. How does the Bible do? Well,
[00:07:52] when you check it out, you find that there are not eight or ten good manuscripts. It's not in that class. It's in a class of its own because there are over 5,000 handwritten manuscripts in
[00:08:05] the original Greek language to support the New Testament alone that help us ensure the accuracy of its writings. Many of the earliest copies are separated from the originals, not by 900 years, much less 1,400 years, but by only 50 years. And there are even some, such as the Model and
[00:08:21] Papyrus, which is thought to be written within 25 years. The Model and Papyrus is called that because it was found at Magdalen College in Oxford, and it's from the book of Matthew.
[00:08:31] Let me just give you a quick bit of what that looks like.
[00:08:35] I've actually seen pages from one of the oldest of the Bible's manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus at the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai Desert of Egypt.
[00:08:45] You can also find sections of it in the British Library.
[00:08:48] Handwritten well over 1,600 years ago, it contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament in Greek.
[00:08:56] The Old Testament is equally rich, supported by such findings as the famous Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves of Qumran in 1947, providing manuscripts a thousand years older than any previously known Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible and representing almost every book of
[00:09:10] the Old Testament, some dating back to the third century BC.
[00:09:16] Here's what they look like.
[00:09:17] You know, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered, there were more than a few skeptics who said, okay, now we're going to find how much the Bible is off course. We'll find out just how
[00:09:28] much it's been altered through copying over time. Now that we've got thousands of new manuscripts and so much closer in age to the originals, we'll see how far off the Bible we've had is.
[00:09:42] But that's not what we found. In fact, what they found backed the Bible up because instead of revealing errors, it revealed what can only be called uncanny, freakish continuity. In fact, the integrity of the Bible was so affirmed through the Dead Sea Scrolls that many of the primary
[00:10:01] archaeologists who started off as skeptics became believers in God through the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[00:10:08] They could not believe a manuscript could be copied and recopied so many times over so many centuries and not deviate from the originals. They concluded there had to be a God providing, protecting the text, preserving the text, because there's no other explanation for just how exact
[00:10:25] they were over time. So, where does scholarship land on the integrity of the biblical text?
[00:10:32] Hands down. It's the most documented ancient manuscript in all of history in terms of textual credibility. That leads to another question. Just because a book may be sound doesn't mean that what it records is historically accurate. So when the Bible says that something happened, did it really
[00:10:51] happen? The text may have been preserved with integrity, but that doesn't mean that what it says is true. So how does the Bible stand up under outside examination, particularly through something like the science of archaeology? This is a fascinating area to explore. Sir William Ramsey
[00:11:07] The Oxford University is regarded as one of the greatest archaeologists to have ever lived, and he took up a thorough examination of the biblical record.
[00:11:15] At the end, he concluded that the writers of the Bible were historians of the first rank that should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.
[00:11:24] In fact, what he found in the archaeological evidence alone was so overwhelming, Ramsey himself eventually became a Christian.
[00:11:32] Dr. William F. Albright, late professor emeritus of John Hopkins University, he declared that there can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed every aspect of the historicity of the Bible. Historian and archaeologist Joseph Free notes that to this day,
[00:11:47] even the most recent of discoveries continue to produce material that confirms the scriptures at point after point. Let me give you a few modern examples. The book of Genesis makes mention of the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were said to have been destroyed suddenly
[00:12:04] by God for their utter abandonment to wickedness and refusal to turn. The problem was no record of such places existed outside of the biblical accounts. No archaeological evidence ever could be found, which was just led to a feeding frenzy by skeptics questioning the Bible's historical
[00:12:22] credibility. I mean, they said, look, if there had been a Sodom and Gomorrah that had been destroyed suddenly by fire from heaven, we would have archaeological evidence of it. There would be remnants. There'd be ruins. There'd be a place of the city covered in ash and sulfur. There isn't
[00:12:38] any, so this proves the Bible is not historically accurate. Then we found Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:12:44] Let me show you some of those pictures. We have now unearthed the places of pagan worship for the inhabitants of the two cities at Bab-et-Dra, including evidence of sudden and unexplained destruction around 2000 BC. The remains of the city were covered in, yes, ash and sulfur, which
[00:13:06] as the Bible records is how the city was destroyed. Fire was rained down on it in judgment. Here's another example. As civilization, the Hittites were unknown outside of the Bible. The Bible talks about the Hittites, no record of the Hittites anywhere. Since a review of the known literature
[00:13:23] of the day revealed no mention of such a people. The conclusion was that the Bible was simply an error. Then the capital city of the Hittite empire was discovered as well as 40 other cities that
[00:13:36] made up their empire. Another example, King David. Over a thousand times he's mentioned in the Bible over and over again, yet until recently, no record, zero of such a person could be found outside of
[00:13:50] the Bible. Again, people said, if we can't find some archaeological support, obviously the Bible must be wrong. And this led some to put the biblical King David on the mythical footing of the mythical King Arthur and the sword and the stone, you know, about as much historical integrity
[00:14:07] as that. But then, over the course of 1993 and 1994, take a look at what we found. This came from the northern Israel site of Tel Dan. It's pieces of a 3,000-year-old monumental basalt stone
[00:14:21] that bore inscriptions about, yep, the king of the house of David, the first non-biblical attestation of David's existence. And there has been more since. Now, let's move forward to the records about Jesus. Several times the biographies of Jesus mention how Jesus and his disciples
[00:14:39] would be out on a boat in the Sea of Galilee. And you might think, okay, no big deal there.
[00:14:44] But some historians said, whoa, time out.
[00:14:47] Now we know this isn't true.
[00:14:49] We already know now the record of Jesus is filled with errors because no boats like that existed.
[00:14:54] No boats like that have ever been found and certainly not big enough to have carried Jesus and 12 other men, as the Bible claims.
[00:15:05] Then they found one dating to the very time of Jesus during a severe drought in the mid 1980s, which brought the Sea of Galilee to unusually low levels, two brothers discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old boat buried in the mud along the shore. This is what it looks
[00:15:21] like. A boat that could either be towed or sailed and could hold up to 15 men, perfectly matching the New Testament description. There are so many other archaeological finds that we could talk about. We have found, for example, the burial box of Caiaphas, the high priest Jesus was brought to
[00:15:40] for his trial before his crucifixion. We have found inscriptions related to Pontius Pilate, fifth governor of Roman Judea, also a key player in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. We have found inscription support for the entire Philistine empire, so prominently featured in the Old
[00:15:57] Testament, giving support to even the names of the leaders and the cities that the Bible records.
[00:16:03] We've even found the signature seal of the prophet Isaiah.
[00:16:07] So, here's the real headline.
[00:16:10] Not only has the Bible claims been supported through archaeological research, there has never been an archaeological discovery that has ever refuted a single biblical claim.
[00:16:24] The Bible bats a thousand when it comes to archaeology.
[00:16:27] A renowned Jewish archeological expert, Dr. Nelson Glueck, has observed that it may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.
[00:16:41] In fact, there have been so many archeological discoveries that have supported the Bible that Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, a former dean of the Greenleaf Law School, noted that if you were to apply the federal rules of evidence to the gospel records, the four biographical
[00:16:54] accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament, this rule would establish competency in any court of law. So, the Bible stands up textually, stands up historically in terms of outside evidence. Now, let's think about another area. What about all those contradictions and errors, mistakes? Because
[00:17:11] that's what everybody says is in the Bible, right? The Bible is just full of errors, so full of errors, how can you believe it? That it contradicts itself. For example, how the four accounts of
[00:17:20] Jesus in the Bible say different things about what he said or what he did? Well, let's start off with understanding what we mean by a contradiction. In philosophy, this is detailed in what's called the law of non-contradiction or the idea of a logical fallacy. And here's what it
[00:17:38] means. You can't have a and non-a and both of them be true. That's what a contradiction is.
[00:17:46] You can't say it's raining and it's not raining and have both be true.
[00:17:52] You can't say it's hot and it's cold and have both be true.
[00:17:57] That's the nature of a contradiction.
[00:18:00] So think about the four biographical accounts of the life of Jesus in the Bible, named after the men who wrote them, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[00:18:07] A biblical contradiction would be like Mark's account saying that Jesus died on a cross and Luke's account saying Jesus didn't die on a cross.
[00:18:16] he, I don't know, drowned in a river or something like that. That would be a contradiction. But if you just have Mark recording something that Jesus said on the cross, and John's account comes along
[00:18:28] and adds something else that Jesus said, or even maybe leaves out something that Mark recorded, that's not a contradiction. John's account never contradicted what Mark recorded. John just added another detail or didn't include a detail, Mark did. And that's what people often highlight
[00:18:48] erroneously as supposed contradictions in the Bible. But that's not a contradiction. That's just a difference in recorded detail. Let me give you an example. In Mark's record of the death of Jesus, it talks about the agony that Jesus went through. That was one of the things
[00:19:01] Mark described. In Luke's account, he points out that while on the cross, Jesus showed a lot of concern for his mother and wanted her cared for. So does Mark's record of Jesus' agony contradict Luke's record of Jesus having concern for his mother? No. He could have been in agony and been
[00:19:23] concerned with his mom. Or think about this one. In Matthew's account, we're told that Peter will deny Jesus before the cock crows. In Mark, we're told that Peter will deny Christ before the cock crows twice. Is that a contradiction? Not even close. Peter was to deny Christ before the cock
[00:19:41] crowed. Mark simply adds an added detail. He didn't just crow once, he crowed twice.
[00:19:47] Not exactly a problem. Or just think about the resurrection. You know, in Luke, it records that an angel spoke, that there was one angel that spoke. John mentions that there were two angels present. Contradiction? No. Luke just mentions the one that spoke. You know, John throws in,
[00:20:05] by the way, there was a second guy, angel there too. He just didn't say anything. Again, not exactly a problem. All the supposed contradictions that people talk about in the Bible are just different details that one account might add that another account leaves out. But that's not the definition
[00:20:21] of a contradiction. So why the different details? Well, that's easy. It's because they actually were authentic eyewitness accounts. They didn't get together on the front end and work their story out. In other words, there was no collusion. That's an important point in favor of the biblical
[00:20:38] record. You talk to any judge or trial lawyer, and they'll tell you that one of the things that they look for in witnesses or between witnesses is whether they say exactly the same thing with
[00:20:49] every detail in exact order, or whether there are minor trivial kinds of differences in emphasis that is common among those telling the truth, but not having collaborated to convey a particular spin. If there are signs of collusion, that's a sign that you aren't getting a real eyewitness
[00:21:07] account. But if there are minor differences in detail, then you're onto something real. And that's exactly what you have in the Bible. Minor differences in emphasis, but a complete agreement on everything major down to the very words Jesus said. Which brings up another concern. The words
[00:21:25] of Jesus. Some might say, well, okay, I'm with you on all this, but didn't he blatantly contradict some things that had been taught earlier in the Bible, like an eye for an eye? Didn't he teach
[00:21:35] against having an eye for an eye mentality? Didn't he just take that one on head on and just say it was wrong? Well, again, let's remember what a contradiction is. It's saying it's raining when it's not raining. Jesus didn't contradict anything that had been taught. In fact,
[00:21:52] he went out of his way to say that he did not come to contradict anything that had been said in scripture. Let me read his words. He said, don't suppose for a minute that I have come to
[00:22:03] demolish the scriptures, either God's law or the prophets. I'm not here to demolish, but to complete. I'm going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. Okay, that's an important distinction. There is a difference between contradicting something
[00:22:20] and fulfilling it, bringing it to its fullest meaning.
[00:22:25] Let's take the famous eye for an eye idea.
[00:22:27] In the Old Testament, it says this, the punishment must match the injury, a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn,
[00:22:38] a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.
[00:22:41] But in the New Testament, Jesus said this, you have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
[00:22:48] But I say, do not resist an evil person.
[00:22:52] If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.
[00:22:58] So which is it?
[00:22:59] An eye for an eye, as it says in the Old Testament, or turn the other cheek, as Jesus said in the New Testament?
[00:23:05] The answer is simple.
[00:23:07] Yes.
[00:23:09] The eye for an eye passage in the Old Testament is all about whether you should pursue private vendettas and retaliate when you have been wronged.
[00:23:18] And the answer is no.
[00:23:19] That's for the judges to decide.
[00:23:21] Instead, they're to follow a principle based on an eye for an eye, meaning compensation and restitution in direct proportion to the crime.
[00:23:29] They were to match the damages inflicted and no more.
[00:23:33] You will not have blood feuds or private wars.
[00:23:36] So an eye for an eye was this literary device to give a formula for compensation.
[00:23:42] Then Jesus, though, gave its fulfillment and fullest meaning.
[00:23:45] He said, you have heard of an eye for an eye, and that's good.
[00:23:48] But I tell you, go farther.
[00:23:51] Don't retaliate at all.
[00:23:53] Don't harbor a spirit of resentment.
[00:23:55] If someone does you wrong, meet it by doing them something right.
[00:24:00] And that kind of fulfillment ran throughout Jesus' teaching on a number of things over and over.
[00:24:06] The letter of the law was met with the greater, more challenging spirit of the law.
[00:24:11] He said, you have heard that it's said not to commit adultery.
[00:24:15] That's good.
[00:24:15] I tell you, though, don't even lust in your heart.
[00:24:18] You've heard not to commit murder. That's good. I tell you don't even give in to hate Jesus wanted to take the law and put it into people's heart. So there's no contradiction Just bringing the law to its fullest expression and its fullest application
[00:24:33] Which leads to the question of the Bible's?
[00:24:37] authoritative credibility as a spiritual text because that's that's the ultimate thing right after you walk through his textual credibility his historical credibility and so on Ultimately, the real question is whether this text is truly from God, but how on
[00:24:49] earth can that ever be determined? Well, one way is to determine whether Jesus really was who he said he was. He claimed to be God himself, the second person of the Trinity come to planet Earth, and he fully endorsed the Old Testament and laid
[00:25:02] the groundwork for the inspiration and authority of the New Testament. So, if he was the Son of God, that endorsement is enough. But let's bracket that off for now. Is there anything else to go on? Because you may not be there yet in
[00:25:15] terms of how you feel about Jesus? Well, one area that many have considered relates to prophecy.
[00:25:21] If the supposedly inspired authors of the Bible foretold events with accuracy and were never wrong in those prophecies, that would be convincing evidence of the Bible's authoritative credibility as a spiritual text. If such prophecies did not come true or were at best average in their success
[00:25:42] or eight, the Bible's position as an authoritative spiritual text would be dramatically weakened.
[00:25:49] So, how does the Bible do by such a test? Well, let's just consider the prophecies surrounding the life and ministry of the Messiah, the promised Messiah, which Christians believe was made in relation to Jesus. Let me just give you three. It was prophesied that when the Messiah
[00:26:06] was born, he would be a descendant of the house of David from the tribe of Judah and from the line of Jesse. Very specific. Jesus was. Second, it was prophesied by the prophet Micah that the
[00:26:18] Messiah would be born in a small, obscure, backwater little town of Bethlehem. And though never planned by Joseph and Mary, the national decree of a census by the Roman government that forced the uprooting of thousands of people took Joseph back to his hometown, which happened to
[00:26:36] be Bethlehem. And it was while there, Mary gave birth to Jesus. Oh, one more. The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that upon his birth, the Messiah would be presented with lavish gifts, which came through the gifts given to Jesus by the Magi. Now, there's lots of ways you can engage
[00:26:56] things like that. You can say, well, gosh, interesting, but coincidence. And no doubt, it would be easy to take anyone's life and line it up with some of the biblical prophecies and find areas of common ground. The problem is that Jesus didn't just fulfill three of the prophecies.
[00:27:14] He fulfilled every single one. Specific prophecies made hundreds of years earlier, not only about his birth, but his entire life and even his death. For example, prophecies about how the Messiah would be betrayed for a very specific amount of money, how they would cast lots for his
[00:27:30] clothing, even how he would be put to death. For example, the prophet Isaiah said that he would be pierced as part of his death. That was hundreds of years before crucifixion as a mode of execution
[00:27:43] was even practiced. All fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Now, the chance of that happening in a single life by coincidence, pretty mind-boggling. Scientist and mathematician Dr. Peter Stoner, who was former chair of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City
[00:28:01] College, he was later chair of the Department of Science at Westmont College, worked on this with 600 of his students. Their goal was to calculate the odds for the detailed accuracy of just one biblical prophecy about the coming Messiah to have come true in the life of Jesus
[00:28:21] the way it did by chance.
[00:28:24] Eventually, they determined that the odds of such an event were one in 400 million.
[00:28:29] Then they went to work on the odds for eight prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one person by chance.
[00:28:39] For eight of them to occur by chance, the odds were one in 10 to the 17th power.
[00:28:46] Let me show you just what that number looks like because that's a one with 17 zeros behind it. That's for eight to have happened by chance.
[00:28:57] But as I said, you don't find just one or two fulfilled in the life of Jesus, much less eight.
[00:29:02] You ready for this? There are up to 332 distinct Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah and all 332 were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.
[00:29:17] Now, for this to have happened, by chance, would be akin, it has been calculated, to a person randomly finding a predetermined atom among all of the atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the size of our universe.
[00:29:38] For anyone who is trying to determine whether or not to give authoritative credibility to the Bible, the odds in your favor on prophecy alone that the Bible is the inspired word of God are overwhelming.
[00:29:53] And you know, that word inspired is key to understand.
[00:29:58] Here's how the idea is talked about in the New Testament.
[00:30:01] It says, but you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught.
[00:30:04] You know they're true, for you know that you can trust those who taught you.
[00:30:07] you have been taught the holy scriptures from childhood and how they were given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.
[00:30:26] It corrects us when we are wrong, teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. Now, the Greek word used by the author there for inspired
[00:30:39] literally means the apanoustos, God breathed. That's the idea behind the inspiration of the scriptures. God breathed, breathed out by God, exhaled by God, produced by God, which may explain why after thousands of years, Bible sales in the U.S. remain strong. It's the best-selling book in
[00:31:03] all of human history. In fact, this past year, it reached record highs. Last year, over 19 million Bibles were sold in the United States alone, a 12% increase over 2024, driven by people seeking spiritual comfort, spiritual insight, spiritual truth. And in the Bible, they didn't
[00:31:21] find a reason not to believe, but something that they felt breathed out by God. And as we've seen, for good reason. Well, we have a few more areas to explore in this series. Next week is a big one.
[00:31:39] Is the presence of evil and suffering in the world a reason not to believe? Some say it is.
[00:31:47] Next week, we'll dig in. Until then, let me pray for us. Father, thank you that when we look at the writings of scripture, we see your hands, your preservation, your words. Thank you that it stands
[00:32:02] up under any amount of intellectual scrutiny, that it truly can be and is the very word of God for our lives. For those of us who have embraced it as such, we thank you. For those who are still
[00:32:15] searching and exploring, I pray that this only fuels their curiosity to find out more about you and what you can mean for their life. I pray all this in the name of Jesus, who has made our relationship with you in this prayer possible. Amen.