Why The Bible Is The Most Reliable SECULAR Source Ever Written

As the spiritual leader of your home, you need to be ready to defend the hope you have (1 Peter 3:15). We’re in the middle of a series designed to help equip you to explain the faith that you have in the Bible and answer the question, “why do you trust the Bible?”

• Part 1: What the Bible claims about itself:
  
  ”But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” - 2 Peter 1:19-21
  
  

• Part 2: Why you can trust how the church fathers chose what went into the Bible:
  
  Their requirements were:

  1. Universality: Was it received, collected, read, copied, and circulated by the people of God?

  2. Apostolicity: Was it written by an apostolic witness (a.k.a. someone who witnessed the actual events)? The Church fathers had a rule, “When in doubt throw it out.”

  3. Orthodoxy: Was it in alignment with the regula fidei, the gospel as it was being practiced by believers? (For example: The Gnostic gospels failed since they did not sustain the same gospel.)
     
     

• Part 3 (this week): Why you can trust the Bible as a reliable secular literary source:
  
  The Bible has over 21,000 manuscript copies testifying to Jesus’ life and works, many made only decades after he lived. Other ancient people and documents that we take for granted as legitimate have only a fraction of that. For example, for the existence and writings of Aristotle, we only have 390 fragments dated centuries after he lived.
  

• Part 4 (next week): How external and internal evidence shows the Bible to be trustworthy.
  
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