The Reliability of the Bible

Mark Finley: Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn't retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy.
Narrator: This is HopeLives365 with Pastor Mark Finley. Today's message: The Reliability of the Bible. Enjoy and remember you can always catch up with past messages and stay up to date with HopeLives365 and Pastor Mark by going to hopelives365.com. Stay with us for a free Bible study offer later in this program. And now, Pastor Mark Finley.
Matt: Pastor Mark, there seems to be a noticeable revival around the world with religion. In the United States, we notice that if you look at some of the studies, especially among young people, there seems to be a rise in people interested in the Bible. Have you noticed this?
Mark Finley: I really have. You look at some of the Barna reports, for example, when they're looking at the varying age groups, Bible study interest is up dramatically.
Matt: How long have you been studying the Bible yourself?
Mark Finley: I've been studying the Bible since I was 17 years old. I'm 80 going on 81, so 63 years of studying the Bible. But I didn't always. I was brought up in a home where my father was a Protestant and my mother was a Catholic. They went to their respective churches, but I never studied the Bible very much. I was looking for meaning in life. I would come at night and lie in my bed and say, "What happens when you die? Is death a dark hole in the ground? Is it a long night without a morning?" I'd lie there and think, "What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? Why am I on earth?" I didn't understand anything about those questions. So, I really began to study the Bible to see if maybe I could find meaning. I didn't know anything. If you would have told me in those years that it was David in the lions' den and Daniel slew the giant, I'd have believed you. If you told me it was Abraham that built the ark and Noah sacrificed his son, I would have believed you. I knew absolutely nothing about the Bible. It wasn't that I had meager knowledge; it was that I was biblically illiterate. The first thing that got me interested in the Bible was an aching longing in my heart to know God. I love the way it's put in Ecclesiastes 3:11. I think this is something that is often missed by Christians who look at unbelievers or what I would call seekers in a different way. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it says God has made everything beautiful in his time and he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end. In other words, you'll never know his complete majesty. But God put eternity in your heart. The Bible says in John chapter 1 that Jesus is the light that lights every man that comes into the world. So every person born, the Holy Spirit is working in their heart, working in their life to draw them to Jesus. I think that was happening in my life. I felt this angst, I felt this lack of purpose, I felt guilt because of my sin. I didn't know how to deal with all this. Confession to the priest was not satisfying my inner desires. Going to the mass wasn't satisfying. Trying to get enough merit to get out of purgatory wasn't either. So I was a young person at 17 that was conflicted and longing to know about eternal values. When I read the Bible, it answered every question I had and introduced me to the most wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ.
Matt: When your father became a Christian, a few years later you began to study the Bible and he had his influence on you. What was the turning point before you went from just an interest to making this a lifestyle?
Mark Finley: I began to learn the new truths of scripture, and I was very conflicted. So I determined that to be honest with myself—because I was pretty involved, I was 17, I was the captain of the Catholic basketball team—I felt that I had to go to my priest and ask biblically-based questions. I knew the priests really well. So I went up into the rectory, which is the priest's house, and said to him—I called him Father at the time; I didn't know what the Bible said about that—"Father, look, I have some questions about the Bible. Could you get a Bible for me and we could review these questions?" He left the room and came back and said he couldn't find a Bible. Right then, I'm in my spiritual mentor's home and he can't find a Bible. I was young, so I was a little brash, but I tried to be kind. I asked a question. I said, "You know, many of the priests smoke, and I understand from the Bible that I just started reading that your body is the temple of God." He said there's no evidence that smoking is harmful. I was too sharp to get that one. I asked about the Sabbath and he had no answers at all. I left there and it was a turning point in my life. I knew I could never go back because if I'm looking for truth, the Bible says in John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy word, thy word is truth." John 8:32 says, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." I knew at that point that if I was genuinely looking for truth, that was not where I was going to find it.
Matt: For those people who are still skeptical, what other evidence do you think you could point to to prove that the Bible is inspired? I immediately think of the archaeological evidence and the prophecies. What would you say?
Mark Finley: I would say both of those: the archaeological evidence and the prophecies. I can give you just a couple of simple prophecies. Micah 5:2 says, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth that is to be ruler in Israel." Jesus is predicted 700 years in advance to be born in Bethlehem. It's interesting it says Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah. There were two Bethlehems, one in the north and one in the south. Judah is in the south of Israel. Here it says Bethlehem Ephratah. It's not just any Bethlehem; it's Bethlehem Ephratah. So here of the two Bethlehems, the Bible tells you exactly the one that Jesus would be born in and it tells you Judah. Now, Jesus' hometown was in Nazareth, some 90-some miles away. What woman at nine months pregnant is going to ride a donkey and come from Nazareth to the exact place that Christ would be born, predicted 700 years in advance? There are so many predictions regarding the life of Christ. Isaiah 7:14 says he's to be born of a virgin. The book of Zechariah says he'd be sold for 30 pieces of silver. Psalm 22 says that Jesus would be crucified, and that's a thousand years before crucifixion comes into existence. So you see these prophecies of the Bible. The Bible names Cyrus as the leader of Persia that would overthrow Babylon 150 years before he was born in Isaiah 44 and Isaiah 45. So prophecy is certainly a major one that influences us and informs us that the Bible is inspired. Then you asked about archaeology. I'll just give you a couple of finds that to me are really interesting. I mentioned Cyrus. The archaeologists have discovered something called the Cyrus Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylinder is the record of Cyrus attacking Babylon and overthrowing it. We see this in the rock records, then you read it in the Bible of exactly how that happened. When Napoleon in 1799 came down and attacked Egypt, he brought 150 scholars with him and 150 artisans. They were digging at a place called Rosetta. They found a stone, and that stone is a black basalt stone. It's in the British Museum today, written in three languages: hieroglyphics at the top, then a Demotic language—not demon, but Demotic is like a cursive Egyptian—and then Greek at the bottom. Nobody understood hieroglyphics. The Bible mentioned a group of people multiple times called the Hittites. The scholars said they never existed. When Jean-François Champollion in the early 1800s interpreted the hieroglyphics based on understanding the Greek on the Rosetta Stone, he was able to figure out the top hieroglyphics. Then we could understand the hieroglyphics on the monuments of Egypt, and it talks about Pharaoh fighting the Hatti, or the Hittites. So archaeology confirmed the truthfulness of that. We can go throughout scripture and find the Bible and archaeology coalescing. For example, there are over a hundred names and places of people mentioned in the Bible that we've now found in archaeology.
Matt: That's pretty strong evidence. Another thing that I think of is when I've had conversations with people who don't believe in the Bible, one of the things they've said to me is that the Bible has a lot of contradictions. As a pastor, you've probably come across a number of people that have said that. What kind of contradictions do people say the Bible has, and what's the answer to that?
Mark Finley: One of the things they'll say is they'll read the four Gospels and they'll read different accounts of the resurrection story. Was there one disciple there, were there two? So they look at and try to compare the resurrection story and they see more than one account. But if you have a room and you're looking at one window on the east side, another window on the north, another on the south, and another on the west, you're going to look at it from different perspectives. So rather than looking at what you appear to see as contradictions in the Bible, recognize that these are just different perceptions. I am more interested in not looking at the few little things that might appear to be a contradiction than looking at the cohesive unity of the Bible. Let me give you an example. The Bible was written over a 1500-year period of time. It has 66 different books in it with over 40 authors. Take Moses, for example. He writes on heaven. He doesn't know Isaiah. Isaiah wrote on heaven. Isaiah doesn't know John. John wrote on heaven. So you have people from different backgrounds, people from different cultures, and in very different time periods, but yet they don't contradict one another about heaven. So there's this cohesive unity in the Bible. Rather than looking and being picky and saying there's a contradiction here or there, look at this as a different perspective. Let me give you an example in the Bible. You take the question of death. Consistently, 53 times the Bible says death is but a rest. 1600 times the Bible uses the term soul and never "immortal soul." You can find Moses talking about the rest of death. David talking about the rest of death. You talk about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So rather than looking at what one would call an apparent contradiction, which is cleared up as you see it, look at the unity of the Bible. Look at how God has brought things together in the Bible.
Matt: We have a number of things that are evidence that the Bible is inspired and accurate. As you mentioned, sometimes people point to some of the Old Testament where it talks about killing. I think that might be one of the largest things that really throws people off when you're reading the Bible and you come to one of those Old Testament writings. How do you explain that?
Mark Finley: When I start people reading the Bible, I start them reading with the Gospel of John if they've never read before. There they see God's love revealed in Christ. There they see the beauty of Jesus, who touched the eyes of the blind and they were opened, touched the ears of the deaf and they were unstopped, who healed the lame man. They see the Christ that wanted men and women to be healthy and whole, the Christ that lived for us and died for us. You never judge the acts of the Old Testament and evaluate God by the acts of the Old Testament. You evaluate the acts of the Old Testament in the light of God's character. In other words, I don't say, "Okay, here's all this killing in the Old Testament, therefore God must be a cruel, vindictive judge." I say, "What do I know about God?" 1 John 4:8 says, "For God is love." Jeremiah chapter 31 says, "With lovingkindness have I drawn thee." So what do I know about God? I know, based on the teaching of scripture and the totality of scripture, that God is a God of love. Now I have to say, "How do I interpret the killing in the Old Testament in the light of God's love?" The first thing that I would have to determine is that that was not God's original intent. When Israel left the bondage of Egypt and came through the Red Sea, they then had to face a number of their enemies. How would God deal with that? First, let me read you an interesting passage in Exodus chapter 23. God's original plan was not for Israeli armies to attack the Amorites, the Hittites, or any of those people. That wasn't God's plan. But how would Israel conquer the land then? Exodus chapter 23, verse 27, God says, "I will send my fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you." So first, God was going to cause confusion among the heathen tribes so they would flee. They would go to their own land, but they would flee. Ultimately, God's people, the Israelites, would be such a powerful witness to them that they would come to know the true God. If they did not flee, what was the next thing? Verse 28 says, "I will send hornets before you, drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, the Hittite from before you. I'll drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you." So God was going to send hornets. First, he sends fear, then hornets. Now, what happened? Many of those people—the Hittites, the Canaanites—attacked Israel. It was not God's intent to have Israel go to war, but when they attacked Israel in self-defense, God then used Israel as a theocracy, a God-guided army, to destroy them. But a loving God says, "First I'll send fear to try to drive them out. If they're too rebellious, I'll send hornets to drive them out." He tells them not to touch his people as they march through the land. But then, when they attack God's people, God then allowed Israel to cut out the cancer of rebellion that they had to preserve the faith of the Israelites.
Matt: That makes sense. I understand why that would be difficult for people to understand and to overcome in light of the New Testament where Jesus is so loving and, to some people, the Old Testament seems unloving—almost like there are two different Gods. Just to go a little bit deeper, is the God of the New Testament love and the God of the Old Testament judgment and fire? Are we talking about two different things here, or can we harmonize the whole Bible?
Mark Finley: When you look at the scripture, the scripture talks throughout about this God of incredible love. Let me just read you a couple of passages. These are Old Testament passages. Here we have the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 3: "The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.'" This is the God of the Old Testament. You go over to the book of Micah in the Old Testament, and again you have this wonderful picture of God. I think Micah 7 has one of the more beautiful pictures of God in the entire Bible. It's amazing to look at the scriptures from the eyes of the Bible prophets. Here are the eyes of the Bible prophets revealed to us in Micah chapter 7, verse 18. What did the Bible prophets think about God? What kind of character of God did they portray? Here is the Old Testament: "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will have compassion on us, subdue our iniquities, he will cast our sins into the depths of the sea." So here is a God who, according to the prophet, delights in mercy, a God that's graceful. So in the Old Testament, you balance God's love, God's grace, and God's goodness with God's judgment. The wrath of God is the judgment of God against sin.
Matt: We actually see in the New Testament, if you want to talk about balance, that even in the New Testament in Revelation, it talks about a God of judgment. So when you look deeper, when you really read the whole thing, you see consistency in it.
Mark Finley: Yes. One more thing that I wanted to share is this: You remember when the Bible says that Philip comes to Jesus in John 14:8 and he says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it's sufficient for us." And what does Jesus say? "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" So when we look at Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, forgiving sin, reaching out in kindness and compassion, breaking the bread and feeding people, that's what God is like.
Matt: For someone who is maybe just starting out studying the Bible, or maybe someone who has fallen away and they're coming back and they want to get more involved with studying the Bible again, what kind of tips can you give someone for just studying and getting more out of the time they spend reading?
Mark Finley: Let me give you three quick things. First, start with the Gospel of John and you pray over it. For example, it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." Verse 3: "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made." So I pray over that passage: "Lord, all things were made by you. You are the all-powerful Creator. Reveal yourself to me today." Thirdly, don't worry about something in the Gospel of John or anything that you read that you don't understand. You just keep reading. A lot of people come to things they don't understand and it confuses them. I don't worry about that. There are things in the Bible I don't understand today, but I don't worry about them. A week later, I'm reading something else in the Bible and it clicks, and both of those things come together. So first, start with the Gospel of John, pray over it, and don't worry about the things you don't understand; just keep reading. The third thing that I would say is to have a piece of paper, and when you come to a text that you can apply to your life, just write that down. So when I'm reading, for example, in the Gospel of John and I come down to verse 12, it says, "As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God, even to those that believe on his name." I might write down and summarize it: "As many as receive Jesus, to them gave he the right or the authority to become the children of God. Lord, I want to be one of your children, and thank you that I can receive Jesus and I can be a child of God." If you want to get a lot out of your Bible, start not with something complicated. Some people start with Genesis and they never get to Exodus because they're discouraged. Start with the Gospels, start with the Gospel of John, read it, pray as you read that God will reveal it to you, and don't worry about the things you can't understand; just keep reading. Thirdly, I call it seeing with a pencil. You see my Bible? I see with a pencil. I'm marking, I'm circling words, I'm writing text down. So see with a pencil. You're circling, you're writing. Like here in John chapter 1, verse 12, I put a circle here and I look up what does that word "right" mean. Maybe I look it up in another translation: "the authority or the power to become a son of God." So if I accept Jesus, I have authority from heaven that I'm a child of God. And that encourages me today. If I get a little discouraged, I say, "Wait a minute, I'm a child of God." So have a pencil when you read, write a note down, circle something in the Bible. Somebody says, "Pastor Mark, what's your Bible marking plan?" I don't have any. I just read and write in my Bible as the Holy Spirit impresses me.
Matt: There's something else I noticed. I've seen you study before and I want to show people this, if you don't mind. If Pastor Mark's Bible was a set of tires, he'd be on the metal belts right now. I don't know how many times you have to study your Bible to wear it out like that. For somebody who's read and understands the Bible so much—you became a Christian over 60 years ago—what do you think the most important thing that you've ever learned is?
Mark Finley: John 5:39: Jesus says, "Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; but they are they that testify of me." Looking at every book of the Bible, every chapter of the Bible, through the eyes of Christ and making a full commitment to Christ so I can say to him, "Jesus, all to you I surrender. Whatever you want me to do, I'm going to do that, and whatever truth you reveal to me because of your sacrifice on the cross, I want to follow that truth."
Narrator: You've been listening to Pastor Mark Finley. We hope you enjoyed today's message and that it increased your faith in God and his Word. If you'd like to learn more, Pastor Mark invites you to visit globalbibleschool.org for an inspiring, interactive Bible study experience. That's globalbibleschool.org. And now, a final thought from Pastor Mark Finley.
Matt: Pastor Mark, thank you for sharing this with us. For those who are just coming to learn, can you pray for us, pray for them?
Mark Finley: Father in heaven, we thank you for the inspiration of the Word of God that reveals to us a God of love, that reveals the living Christ. Thank you for the word that has been inspired by the Holy Spirit. I pray for each one of our viewers today that the Spirit of God would impress them to lead them back to his Word. Father, we know there's a revival of interest in Bible study. That indicates that we're living in a crisis time of earth's history where people are looking for meaning, and it indicates we're living right on the very verge of eternity. So Lord, fill our minds with your divine truths to keep us from being deceived by Satan and prepare us through the grace of Christ to be ready when you return. In Jesus' name, Amen.