When it comes to believing what the Bible says, it isn’t necessary to accept it just on blind faith, says Voddie Baucham.
“The fact that we have a Bible mitigates against the idea of blind faith,” says Baucham, a noted Christian apologist, author, conference speaker and pastor of preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas.
For the person of reason, the Bible provides a collection of documents written by witnesses who are reliable and whose stories are corroborated, Baucham says. “God provides, protects and preserves for us his self-revelation in the Bible. He wants us to know him and trust in him based on the consistency of his character.”
The Bible offers “internal consistency” and “external corroboration,” he says in a Web video, “Why I Choose to Believe the Bible.”
Baucham says many believers, perhaps 90 percent, can’t answer the question, “Why do you believe what the Bible says?” He says most Christians answer in one of two ways: 1) “Because that’s the way I was raised” or 2) “I tried it, and it works for me.”
Both answers fall apart under the harsh light of logic, he says.
For every person who believes the Bible because he or she was raised to believe it, there is another person who was raised to believe something else. “Those two cancel each other out,” Baucham says.
And for the person who believes the Bible solely because of personal experience — that is, because it “works for” him or her — there are others who have tried other religions or belief systems (Malcolm X, for example, who embraced the Nation of Islam before renouncing it) and found that it “worked” for them. “According to your own logic, their holy books have as much authority as your Bible,” Baucham says.
Baucham, who was raised in the “drug and gang-infested” projects of south central Los Angeles by a single, teenaged mother, didn’t hear the gospel of Jesus Christ until he was a freshman in college. He chose to believe the Bible not because he was raised to (to the contrary — his mother was Buddhist). While he was studying at Oxford University, in response to a professor who pressed him to state why he believed what the Bible says, Baucham crafted the following response:
“The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in the fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.”
Baucham notes that the Bible is made up of 66 different books written on three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) in three languages (Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic) by more than 40 authors, most of whom never met one another because they wrote over a period of about 1,500 years. He also notes that the accuracy of historical events presented in the Bible is supported by the findings of more than 23,000 archeological digs.
The Bible was written by eyewitnesses, which “changes everything,” Baucham says. Many of the documents of the New Testament were written during the lifetime of eyewitnesses to the resurrection. “When you do the math,” Baucham says, “when First Corinthians was written, there were at least 300 witnesses to the resurrection who were still alive.”
The witnesses report supernatural events (2 Peter 1:18), and that the events took place in the fulfillment of specific prophecies (2 Peter 1:19-20). The witnesses also claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin (2 Peter 1:21).
“This is where the Bible goes,” says Baucham. “We’ve got no choice but to go there.”
Baucham is quick to point out that his job is not to defend the Bible. “My defense is of my choice to believe the Bible,” he says.
When it comes to defending the Bible, Baucham defers to Charles H. Spurgeon, who said, “Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself.”
— To view Baucham’s message on why he believes the Bible, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWU12DzPTUo.