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October 28, 2024
Why Are You a Christian?

By Jason Neill

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 3:15

Jane and Steve, both college students at a public university, found themselves discussing the larger issues of life after leaving their world religions class. As they walked out of the huge lecture hall, Steve, who identifies as a Christian, asked “so, what do you think about the Bible Jane?” “The Bible?” Jane said out loud as she pondered the question. “Well, I think it’s a religious book similar to other religious books. Like the Koran. I mean I know we learn about all these different religious views, but don’t they all say essentially the same thing?” Steve, puzzled as to what to say, knew the Bible was different from other religious texts but struggled with Jane’s comment. “How do I respond?” he thought to himself. “I know the Bible is unique, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. But how is it different?”    

Steve’s response isn’t too uncommon today. Unfortunately, believers aren’t taught why the Christian faith is unique and therefore, when someone offers an alternative viewpoint may find it difficult to refute. Nevertheless, faith has its reasons.  At least that is what I want you to take away from this week’s blog.  Apologetics is a fancy word that simply means “providing reasons and/or a defense for the faith.”  In this particular context I am addressing why it is reasonable to believe in the Christian faith.  The Christian faith should be able to withstand assaults, accusations, and misrepresentations of its message.  I found that to be the case in college. 

I started college in the mid-1990’s.  Although I went to a Christian university there were questions being raised that I was unprepared to answer and, quite frankly, never conceived.  Questions such as:  Does the Bible have errors?  Is Jesus who He said He is?  Why does Christianity claim to have the corner on truth?  What about other religions?  Couldn’t all religions eventually lead to the same goal (e.g. to God)?  I suppose the most frustrating process of the experience was those that I turned to for answers didn’t have any.  I felt alone in my faith journey. How was I supposed to remain a Christian if there weren’t reasons to believe it? I experienced a mix of anger and sadness; anger for the simple fact that no one had any answers; sadness because I wondered if I had placed my faith in the wrong place.  

These questions led me to have a crisis of faith.  Being from the South there was a lot of religiosity. There seemed to be a church on every corner and attending appeared to be more of a cultural duty than reflecting a genuine relationship with Christ.  It was from that point that I began asking myself why I held to Christian beliefs.  Was it because it was the cultural thing to do?  Was it only because I was taught the Christian faith?  There were two main issues I thought needed to be addressed in order for me to remain a Christian.  So, for this week’s post I want to address one of those main apologetic issues: the Bible. Is the Bible true?

Since there were no Xerox machines during the first century, how do we know someone didn’t tamper with the text? Does the Bible have errors? And if so, how do we know which “ones” are errors? If we can’t trust certain parts, then how can we trust the entire Bible with confidence? Consider the following example. Suppose you were to copy, by hand, Paul’s letter to the Philippians then ask a friend to make a copy of your copy by hand. Then suppose your friend asked someone else to make a copy of his copy, so on and so forth. This procedure is done five or six times. How would you arrive at the original text? You would compare all the copies your friend and his friend’s made. Obviously, there would be “mistakes,” but the mistakes may not be the same for each copy. Therefore, since there are so many copies of the New Testament, how do we know the copies we have are not full of errors?

New Testament scholar, Bruce Metzger (2003) stated:

"It should be mentioned that, though there are thousands of divergences of wording among the manuscripts of the Bible (more in the New Testament than in the Old), the overwhelming majority of such variant readings involve inconsequential details, such as alternative spellings, order of words, and interchange of synonyms. In these cases, as well as in the relatively few instances involving the substance of the record, scholars apply the techniques of textual criticism in order to determine with more or less probability what the original wording was. In any event, no doctrine of the Christian faith depends solely upon a passage that is textually uncertain" (p. 327).

This is amazing to think about in light of the 5,795 copies we possess of the New Testament to which the earliest dates back to A.D. 130 or earlier. As we’ve seen, the scriptures are reliable and are not merely human writings but divinely inspired.

Next week I will talk about the second issue I needed to understand in order to remain a Christian, the Resurrection. For more on the topic of apologetics, I recommend the following resource: A Popular Survey of Apologetics for Today: Fast Facts Every Christian Should Know by Ron Rhodes and Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell.