Your Inquiry: What makes the Bible credible? How am I supposed to think that the Bible is accurate?
As God cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18), the Bible will be entirely true, infallible, flawless, and error-free if it is the Word of God (Psalm 19:7). This is because every word in the Bible is a direct quote from God (2 Timothy 3:16). According to Psalm 19:10, whatever that God speaks is accurate and good.
The true query therefore becomes, “How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word?” The answer is straightforward for Christians: we hold that the Bible is the inspired word of God because it is revealed to us by Jesus Christ, our Lord!
Attitude of Jesus to the Old Testament
First, think about Jesus’ perspective on the Old Testament. Because Jesus constantly obeys God the Father, He referenced and followed the Old Testament (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10,; 26:53–54). God’s word is unchangeable, according to what Jesus said (Matthew 5:18). According to Luke 24:44, the Old Testament that exists now is identical to the one that Jesus had two millennia ago. Thus, according to Mark 7:5–13, the Old Testament is the Word of God.
Jesus about the New Testament
Now, let’s consider what Jesus says about the New Testament. Jesus chose His apostles to be with Him for three years to SPEAK with Jesus’ authority (Mark 3:14); and at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to help these eyewitnesses remember and understand everything Jesus had done and said (John 14:26; 15:26-27; 16:13-15), so that they would be able to WRITE with His authority. So, Matthew’s Gospel and John’s Gospel are the Word of God, because they are written by the apostles Matthew and John. The letters of Peter and John, and the book of Revelation, also were written by the apostles, and so they are also the Word of God. Peter is behind Mark’s gospel, so Mark’s gospel is the Word of God, too. Jesus also chose Paul to be an apostle (Acts 22:14-15), and the apostle Peter confirms that Paul’s letters are also Holy Scripture, so Paul’s epistles are also the Word of God (2 Peter 3:15-16). Paul, in turn, confirms that Luke’s writings are Holy Scripture, too (1 Timothy 5:18 – look at the footnotes), which means Luke and Acts are also the inspired word of God!
Christians consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God for this reason. Since Jesus is our Lord and Savior and the Son of God, we believe all he says. Jesus also teaches us that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Consequently, the Bible as a whole is true if Jesus is correct.
No other explanation
However, even if you’re not a Christian, you can see just by reading the Bible that the Bible must be the Word of God: there is no other explanation! Consider, for example, the predictions made by the Old Testament prophets. They said that one day, a man would be born who would crush Satan (Genesis 3:15). We would recognize him, because he would be a Jew, from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), and a descendant of King David (2 Samuel 7:12-13). He’d be born to a virgin (Isaiah 7:15), in the village of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), during the Roman Empire (Daniel 2:40-45). He would die for our sins (Isaiah 53), rise to life again (Psalm 16:9-11), be given a kingdom that would last forever (Daniel 7:13-14), and be worshiped by people in every nation of the world (Psalm 72:17). Who fulfilled all these prophecies? Jesus!
God is in charge of history
This makes us wonder: how did the Old Testament prophets know all these details about Jesus hundreds of years before He was born? They even described the details of his crucifixion before the Romans had even invented crucifixion (Psalm 22:12-18)! How did they know? Could it all have just been a lucky guess? No, there’s only one explanation: God is in charge of history, and God told the Old Testament prophets in advance what He was going to do (2 Peter 1:21). So when Jesus came, and everything happened exactly as the prophets had predicted, it proved that all that the Old Testament says is true (2 Corinthians 1:20). But if the Old Testament is true, and if the Old Testament teaches us to believe in Jesus (Luke 24: 25-27, 44-47; John 5:46-47), then Jesus must really be the Promised One (Acts 17:2-3), so we must believe and obey everything Jesus says and teaches (Acts 3:22-23).
Put another way, the Old Testament and Jesus mutually validate each other. Each demonstrates that the other’s claims are entirely accurate. The Bible is thus the inspired word of God.
