I sent one of my sons from the dinner table to his room the other evening because he was unappreciative of the food before him. What I wanted for him was to have a grateful heart. I wanted him to see all the blessings in his life rather than complain about the one meal (of homemade chicken pot pie, by the way) he didn’t want. When I walked into his room to talk with him after some time of separation, he said,
“Mom, what if the Bible isn’t true?”
I was thrown off the warpath of ‘my child will learn appreciation’. How did we get from chicken pot pie to questioning the truth of God’s Word? So, we stopped and talked as the pot pie cooled at my seat at the table.
My child is nine, and he asks good questions. He is a deep thinker who understands complex themes and patterns. I knew there was no point to use Scripture to back the truth of Scripture. He would point out that I used the very thing he was calling into question. I told him he had asked a really good question then paused to draw more out of him. He elaborated – How can we trust the people who wrote the Bible? What if they just made it all up? To this I replied – Well, they could have, but I believe God’s Word is true not just because it tells us it’s true, but because Jesus said it was true. (Luke 24:44-45 is just one of many places where Jesus speaks about the Word of God.) And since Jesus rose himself from the dead, I’m going to believe what he said about God’s Word. (I also mentioned how the resurrection of Christ is referenced in other sources besides the Bible so he would know there are other writings from the early first and second century church (Irenaeus, Ignatius, Polycarp) that speak about the resurrection of Christ.)
Jesus, during his earthly ministry, spoke these words – “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
“Do you believe this?” I hope your very life stands on the resurrection of Christ, and I hope your time in God’s Word is enriched by knowing what you read is true because Jesus, who not only believed in the Word of God but was the Word of God in the flesh (John 1), said it was true, and his words are trustworthy because he conquered death by raising himself from the grave.