Why Should I Trust The Bible? - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

How do you decide if you’re going to trust something? How do you decide what to believe these days? I remember there was a news story a few years ago where a lawyer used ChatGPT to write his legal brief. The problem is, these were the early days and people didn’t know how it worked. Chat GPT MADE UP citations - like the brief referenced previous court cases that set precedent, but they weren’t real court cases - those cases did not exist! [picture of lawyer new story] And then the case got thrown out by the judge and the lawyer got sanctioned. And what’s bonkers town about that story is that it was in the news 3 years ago, and we all said, “That’s nuts. I can’t believe that dumb lawyer did something so silly.” And then without even taking a breath we turn around and say, “hey Claude, can you help me write this email?” We learn NOTHING from our mistakes any more. Or maybe you saw this - did you guys hear about the Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt fight scene? Back in February of this year, a new AI video generator Seedance 2.0 created a 15 second clip of a fight between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. But what freaked everybody out was that it was completely fake and nobody could tell. It was created using a two sentence prompt and Hollywood lost their mind for a hot minute. [head line picture]. We are rapidly losing our ability to tell what is real and what is fake in this world. So how do you know what to trust? And not just trust - but what do we use as an authority in our life? For example, I use a weather app to find out whether Michigan is going to serve winter or summer today, and I trust it. I trust it and I let it help me decide which clothes I get out of my drawer. Trust gives it authority and authority means that I change my actions because of it. And it’s no big deal when it’s a weather app or a fake fight scene between two super famous actors that lasts 15 seconds. But what about when people’s jobs are threatened? In 2024, there was an athletic director at a high school who got fired from his job. Then he sued the school, claiming that the principal fired him because he was racist. This was a Maryland school called Pikesville High School and the principal’s name was Eric Eiswert. And as evidence the athletic director presented an audio recording - I think it was a voicemail - of the principal, Eric, saying a bunch of racist stuff about the athletic director. It went viral, the principal was put on leave. It was a whole big thing. And then they found out that the audio recording was fake.

[AI firing photo] The Athletic Director used AI to replicate the sound of the principals voice to make a fake, hateful recording. How can you decide what to trust in this life?

Today we are starting a brand new sermon series called “Can I Ask That?” For the next few weeks, we are going to diving into some of the most common questions asked about faith - and today we’re going to get after this idea of trust and authority, specifically - Why should I trust the bible? And so what we’re going to do is walk through the most common objections to the bible, and then I’ll show you how a Christian should respond. But before we get into the bible, and arguments and counter arguments - I want to say a quick word about this series. For some of you - you might be thinking, “psh, I don’t need this sermon.” Why should I trust the bible? Well I already trust the bible. And maybe that’s not a question that challenges you. And if that’s you today, I want you to see this conversation as a tool to help you love your doubting neighbor. Maybe you trust the bible - but you’ve got a grandkid, a nephew, a co-worker - who doesn’t. These conversations are not just about you and your questions - but they can actually help you love OTHERS who have questions too. My goal, today, and for the next few weeks is not to help you win arguments. I don’t want you to take the answers I give you today and go out there tomorrow and finally win that argument with your dumb atheist neighbor who is always ragging on Christianity. No, no - that’s the wrong spirit for this. More than finding answers, what I hope you learn today is how to go after the questions in a godly way - and that will help you - not just with your doubts - but it will help you walk alongside those in your life who also have doubts.

And so if you want to grab your bibles, we’re going to spend a little time in 2 Timothy chapter 3, and what I want to show you today is that the bible is not only a trustworthy text, but that trust can make the bible an authority in your life and that authority can bring life change. Now, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15 - this is a letter written to a guy named, you guessed it, Timothy from his buddy Paul. Long story short - Timothy is leading a church in a town called Ephesus and Paul is writing him a letter to give him advice and help him lead his little church family. And he says this, in verse 15 [read v.15-17]. All of scripture is inspired by God, and useful to teach us what is true. I think when we ask the question “Why should I Trust the bible?” the first objection we come up against is that the bible is that it is WRITTEN BY HUMANS. And that’s true! The only part of the bible that God handed to his people is the 10 commandments, which he carved into stone and gave to Moses. The rest of it WAS written by humans. In Islam, Muslims believe that the Quran was given directly to Muhammod. Muhammod was just like a puppet, like a vessel for God’s word. They believe that God speaks arabic, that arabic is a sacred language and the Quran is verbatim what God said. Christians don’t believe that. We know the bible was written by humans. That’s why I said at the beginning, “open your bibles to 2 Timothy, which is a letter written by a guy named Paul to his buddy Timmy in a church in Ephesus.” We care about the context, because we recognize that it was written by humans. But here’s the important part - Christians believe the bible is written by humans, but inspired by God. 2nd Timothy says, “all scripture is inspired by God and useful to teach us what is true.” 

You see, one of the things we’re going to do a lot in this series is try to find the reason behind the question. What I have found as I have tried to love my neighbor over the last 37 years of my life is that the question is not actually the question. Most of the people who bring up the fact that the bible is written by humans do not actually care about the authorship of the bible. What they usually are going after is that IF it was written by humans, then it’s just like any other book - and so I can dismiss it, I don’t have to take it seriously, I don’t have to listen to it - I can throw it away. And probably there’s a reason for that. Maybe there’s something in the bible that they find hurtful. Something that challenges them or confuses them. Maybe even something that scares them. And so I’m about to show you some evidence that the bible is inspired by God - but I don’t want you to use that evidence to attack your neighbor. Our goal is not to win arguments with facts. Our goal is to walk alongside people and love them. If you find yourself in those situations, maybe ask the question: what is it in the bible that challenges you? What do you disagree with or struggle with? Maybe you can share the parts of the bible that have challenged YOU, or share the parts that have transformed YOU.  Written by humans, BUT inspired by God - now let me show you what I mean. 

This is the most important book that has ever been written. Did you know that? This book has been translated into more languages than any other book in history. It is the best selling book of all time, and has been for over a THOUSAND years. It is the most GIVEN book, like as a gift, of all time. It is the foundation of faith for the largest religion in the world. It is a collection of 66 different books written by 40 different human beings in three different languages over the span of one thousand five hundred years on three continents. Some of the authors are fishermen, some are kings, or  shepherds, or kings and shepherds, tax collectors and doctors, prophets. And they created one unified text that introduces God to his creation. Now personally, that’s impressive enough - just the plain facts of it’s composition are mind blowing, and then we get this. [hyper linked picture] I have shown you this a couple of times, but I think it is so beautiful and it helps makes my point. If you’ve never seen this before - Pastor Christoph Romhild and his buddy Chris Harrison assembled a digital dataset of cross references found in the bible. These are moments where the bible references another part in the bible. A prophecy that comes true, or a story that is completed hundreds of even thousands of years later. Down at the bottom are a series of white bars, those are the chapters in the books of the bible. The lines arching across the screen are the connections. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the bible are depicted by a single arc and the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters. If the bible is a tapestry - like a giant picture of God saving the world, this picture is the back of the tapestry - all the threads messy and tangled - the intricacies of this story woven together across millenia in a way that defies human comprehension. Written by humans, inspired by God.

You know last Sunday, we were in the book of Ecclesiastes, and I quoted this line from chapter 12 about caperberries. Which apparently were used to stimulate sexual desire - and we didn’t really talk about it, I just read it, made a little joke and moved on. But then Josh, our student pastor, and I were chatting about it in staff meeting and he mentioned that HIS translation doesn’t say anything about caperberries. The word is not even in there! It just says “desire” in his version. Have you ever had this - where the guy up front - his bible says one thing, and the one you’re looking at says something different? And this gives rise to the second major objection - this has been translated too many times. How can I trust that, how can I give that authority in my life if it’s been translated too many times. And there’s all these different versions -  NLT, NIV, KJV, ABC - which one is the right version? Sure - maybe the original was inspired by God, but like a giant game of telephone, passed through the generations - how can we trust the translation? Now - this is where I have to be careful, because I personally find this stuff fascinating, and so I’m only all too eager to geek out about it, but I’m going to contain myself and give you two quick responses. 

First - we have lots of translations, because language evolves. Let me show you what I mean. (point to an older person) What does the word “fire” mean? It’s not a trick question, just super simple. If you see something and say “that’s fire” - what are you looking at? (point to a young person). If YOU look at something and say “that’s fire” - what are YOU looking at? Aha, see? To the younger generation “that’s fire” means that’s cool. I heard a friend, who is much younger than me, say to another person, “the fit is fire” - and I had to translate that in my head to “those clothes look good”. When I was growing up if someone said, “no cap” - that meant I forgot my hat. Now it means - well, to be honest, I have no idea what it means. But I know they’re not talking about my hat. And that’s just one generation! If you go back a couple hundred years - loads of people were using the King James Version - very famous translation. And it sounded SO good to people of that time period. But it’s literally like reading shakespeare to our modern ears. They use words like doth and thine and thou - and we just don’t talk like that anymore. And so over the years we have created newer translations. Now, if scripture was VERBATIM what God said, then we could never update the lingo, but - going back to Timothy, verse 16-17 [read it]. God uses scripture to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. The bible is not a mystical spell-book that needs to be chanted in its original form. It is used to prepare and equip. Now, I’m not going to get into the weeds too much on this - but if you want to do a deep dive. A good translation of the bible usually has an introduction from the translators explaining their priorities in the beginning of the book. Some translations go word for word, other translations go thought for thought. This bible I’m holding was translated in 2007, so it’s pretty fresh and there’s a note in the beginning explaining, "Here's the process we used, our priorities and a full list of all the scholars who were involved.” Translations are a good thing, because God didn’t hand us stone tablets to memorize, he gave us his word to prepare and equip us to do every good work. If you think the goal of Christianity is to sit around reading these words in their original greek or hebrew - you are missing the point of this book. Prepare and Equip for every good work.

So - written by humans, that’s not a problem - because it’s inspired by God. Translated over the generations - that’s not a problem, God has used it to prepare and equip us for good works in every generation. So this brings us to the biggest objection in scripture. You shouldn’t trust the bible because it is FULL of contradictions. Has anyone ever heard this? I’ll give you two examples. First - how many times did the rooster crow for Peter? You might remember there’s a story where Jesus tells Peter, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. There are four books that tell the Jesus story - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We call them the gospel. And in three of them, the rooster crows one time. BUT in Mark 14, the rooster crows twice. And so some people will grab that and say “Aha! How many times did the rooster crow? One or two? They contradict each other!” First time I ever heard that argument was not from a friend - but actually from a character on the TV show called House. Do you guys remember that show? I thought it was very clever - sort of a medical drama show. And there was a character who was an atheist and when they asked him about it, he said, “I left the faith because the bible has contradictions! How many times does the rooster crow.” Another really famous example is Genesis 1 and 2. The seven days of Genesis 1 are in a different order than Genesis 2. We have two different, contradicting creation stories. A lot of times these are presented in arguments as a sort of “gotcha” - aha! Contradiction! How can we put our trust in a book that SO OBVIOUSLY has contradictions! 

Let me see if I can sum up my answer with this picture. [picture of boats]. Why are there boats in the sky? For those who can’t see what I’ve got on the screen here, we are looking at a park, looks like some tents and people. And then there are some trees above that, and what looks like a bunch of boats floating in the sky at the top of the picture. These are real. There’s no AI, there’s no photoshop, there’s no editing. But if you tilt your head a little bit, you realize, the boats are in the water. The water just happens to be baby blue, and looks like the sky from this angle. That’s not the sky you’re looking at, that’s a picture out over the bay. Huh. How about this one [picture of the big cat]. Why is that cat so big? What we see is a giant black cat stalking behind a man, looks like the man could literally ride on it’s back like a horse. But of course, if you look a little closer - you’ll see that the cat is on a ledge, and much closer to the camera, it’s not actually huge. Here’s a few more, just because I think they’re fun. [the obama photo]. This one is a two parter. We think we’re looking at an african american man with long hair, but when the head moves we realize his hair is actually from the woman who is standing behind him. Or this one [the water dress photo]. It looks like that man is wearing a dress, but it’s actually a perfectly placed fountain of water. And here’s my point with all of this - in your life, both with these pictures, with the bible and with pretty much everything else - in life, if you are confused by what you see - you can jump to conclusions OR you can look closer. Tilt your head. Try to see it from all angles. What I want you to realize is that contradictions are not scary. Contradictions are actually an invitation to look closer. To dive a little deeper. 

So what’s the deal with the roosters - is it a contradiction or not? Well, Luke, chapter 1 verse 1 tells us [read Luke 1:1-4]. This is the start of Luke’s version of the story of Jesus. He says - here’s my project: I have carefully investigated everything from the start. I have collected eyewitness reports and I’ve put it together for you. And so here we are - we have three versions - Matthew, Luke and John that all say, “Peter denied Jesus and then the rooster crowed.” And then Mark  says, “Peter denied Jesus and the rooster crowed TWICE.” We have a contradiction, a picture that doesn’t fit. But if you squint at it, tilt your head and think for a second - do roosters ever crow just one time? Matthew, Luke and John do not say, “he crowed once and then never crowed again.” So it’s not actually a contradiction. I’ve got chickens, I’ve been around roosters - they crow one time, and then another and another! There was a guy named Lee Strobel, who an atheist who set out to prove Christianity was false - but he ended up accidentally convincing himself that Christianity was TRUE. He wrote a book called “The Case For Christ” and in it he talks about how eye-witness testimony works. This is a quote, “When multiple people witness the same event, they don't recount it in identical detail—they highlight different moments, emphasize different angles, and remember what stood out to them.” In fact, he goes on to say, “If the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance, and that would have cast doubt on them." The slight differences between accounts actually make it MORE likely that it is authentic and trust-worthy. When you bump up against contradictions, or supposed contradictions, that is an invitation to come closer, look harder, learn a little more. And if you’re still curious about Genesis 1 Vs Genesis 2 - come find me after service and I’ll talk you ear off about the structure and purpose of hebrew poetry. Back in Timothy, [read v.16 again]. There are no contradictions in scripture, but God uses it to teach us what is true. When it seems like there are contradictions - we don’t have to get defensive or upset - because that moment is an invitation to look a little closer, learn a little more. 

For just a second, I want to show you why I love this book. Some people think this book is used to abuse or control people - an “opiate of the masses” people have accused. Some people think it’s a law book - others think it’s a fairy tale. Some people seem to think it’s the secret to wealth and happiness. But I want you to imagine for a second that there is an all powerful creator of the universe out there. And in his perfect love and abundant creativity he made every single one of us. But the all powerful thing that is out there is infinite, spirit, invisible, impossible for us to grasp or understand. In our day to day life, we get little glimpses where we sense that there is something more - but we have no way to capture it. No way to calculate it, describe it, quantify it. We can’t even see it. It is SO much bigger than we are - the only way we could EVER understand what is out there, is if he showed us. If he revealed himself to us. The all powerful creator of the universe - what we call God - he made you and he loves you so much. And like a father kneeling down to speak with a toddler, he kneels down to speak to you. He gave us this book so that we could know him. [Read Timothy 3:15]. They have given you the wisdom to receive salvation. I want you to follow Jesus with your life. To connect with the God who is out there. This book helps you do that. 

And so my challenge for you today is to read your bible. God gave it to us so we could know him - and scripture is a worthy authority in our life. So get into this book. We have never had so many tools to read and understand this book. I want to recommend three to you real quick. The First I want to recommend the youversion app. These are all free, by the way. There’s the bible, and then there’s devotional plans that you can download. What’s great about the bible app is that it will read the bible to you. Some people say “I’m not a great reader” - that’s fine! You open the bible to the passage you want, there’s a little play button - it will start to read it to you out loud, it’s like an audiobook. You can listen to it on your drive to work or while you’re doing the dishes, or while you’re mowing the lawn. Second, I want to highlight - The Bible Project. [put the picture up on the screen]. There’s a scholar named Tim Mackie and his team - they do a really great job summarizing and explaining the bible. They’ve got a youtube channel and an app - they have summary videos for every single book in the bible, like 5-10 minutes long for each one. But I also want to mention - Tim Mackie is a wonderful bible scholar and his team has been really trustworthy. At the same time, there are a lot of quacks out there. There’s a lot of opinions out there, and a lot of them are really BAD opinions. If you go on the internet looking for an opinion - you’ll find it. And that’s not a good thing! And so the third resource is just - go back to the text. Not some digital devotional or explainer video - just read the bible for yourself! That’s what I hope you’re doing every week! If you have questions or find something confusing - shoot me a message, I love that kind of stuff. But even I’m not always going to get it right. I work really hard to study this stuff and bring you the truth - but I always want you to read it for yourself. 

I think about these news stories with AI causing us to doubt everything we see. [put them all on the screen] We’re living in a world where truth is becoming an endangered species, trust is becoming a fairy tale. But into the hurricane of misinformation and fake news steps the story of Jesus. There is more historical evidence for the existence of Jesus than Julius Caesar or Plato. And Jesus built his life around the scriptures. He quoted them when he was tempted. He obeyed them when he was challenged. We don’t trust Jesus because of the bible, we trust the bible because of Jesus. 

And so to end today, we’re going to celebrate communion. It’s an ancient tradition, but it celebrates God’s story across the entire scripture - echoing through the ages. You see, thousands of years ago - the people of God were slaves in Egypt…