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What are the “best” and “most convincing proofs” leaves a good deal of latitude for the person in answering this question. With this in mind, it is important to clarify the word “proof.” The idea of proving something to be “true” is a scientific term. To prove means to allow for replication and repeatability. When we speak of God and faith, much like history or a criminal investigation, we speak instead of evidence for belief in God and faith in Christ. Below are five examples of evidence that support the trustworthiness of the Bible. Read Full Answer.

This question touches on a passage in the New Testament where two sisters show different behaviors when they come into the presence of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus enters a village and is invited into the house of his friends Martha and Mary. While Martha is busy being hospitable, Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet to listen to Him. On first glance it is easy to see why Martha was annoyed, she had been left alone to take care of her guests, however, if we look deeper into what is going on we see that at the root there is difference in what the sisters viewed as important. Mary had chosen to sit with Jesus and listen to what he had to say. Read Full Answer.

While it seems that we would be a lot better off if God could have stepped in and prevented Adam and Eve from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it sets up a relationship dynamic He did not intend to have with us. We are made in God’s image, capable of responsibility and choice, to reflect Him. We were not made to be robots or sustained in an infant state where we do not understand the consequence of our decisions. Read Full Answer.

We learn from Scripture that God is holy, just and loving. The characteristic of holiness is hard to condense into a few words but ultimately it means that God is set apart from us, He is pure and perfect; He is the creator and He has set a standard of behavior we call the moral law. To break the moral law is an affront to God and is in effect saying that we know better. Because God is holy and just He will not stand by as his commands are disobeyed, there has to be a response. We are grateful when we think acts such as murder, torture and cruetly will be met with God’s justice but are less excited when we think of acts a little closer to home such as lying, envy and greed. All sin, however, calls for justice. Read Full Answer.

The Baptist pastor, Mark Dever is known to sometimes begin his talks to college campus ministries and their students by saying, “If you call yourself a Christian but you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, I worry that you might be going to hell”. He doesn’t do that for shock value, or to somehow add something to what Christ has done for us on the Cross. He does this to show how essential and non-negotiable a healthy local church is to the life of a Christian! Read Full Answer.

Pain and suffering are a reality in this world today, but it was not what God intended from the beginning of time. God created the world good (Genesis 1-2). However, humans rebelled against God’s good and perfect rule, and as a result, God’s good creation became cursed. This is called ‘The Fall’. ‘The Fall’ is pervasive, it affects everything (Genesis 3:14-19) – the serpent is cursed, the woman is cursed, the man is cursed, the very environment is cursed. God’s perfect harmony is disrupted, and this disruption spoils humanity’s relationship with God, humanity’s relationship with creation, humanity’s relationship with one another, and even the harmony within a person’s own body. You could say that even our DNA has been affected by the fall. All disease and pain came about as a result of ‘The Fall’, ultimately. Read Full Answer.

In John 3, Nicodemus asked Jesus a similar question, “How can a man be born when he is old? (v.4)” Jesus replied, “You must be born again. The Wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (v.7-8). The word for “wind” is the same Greek word for “Spirit”. Read Full Answer.

The questions we ask of God come in a myriad of forms. For example, we may question God’s will, wisdom, actions, and outcomes in our own lives and the lives of others. We may question whether we believe in God based on our understanding of science, sociology, psychology, history, etc. In this regard, it’s important for the person attempting to answer such a question to understand the specific nature of the question and the motive(s) of the questioner. Read Full Answer.

These verses speak about God bringing bad things to pass (the King James version from the 17^th century translates some words as “evil” where modern translations use “calamity”, “disaster” or “ill”). They talk of God bringing disaster on people as His righteous judgement for their evil ways, or using a “bad circumstance” from someone’s perspective for ultimate good. It is God’s nature, role and right to punish those who sin. Read Full Answer.

It is true that the Apocrypha and Gnostic Gospels were excluded from the Bible. However, it does not follow that the Bible is a human construct. The question is why they were rejected. Broadly, there are different reasons why people reject certain books. It may be that these books do not reflect reality. For example, the Chinese reject a popular Japanese history book that glosses over the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the second world war. Read Full Answer.

Rather than truth being based on many perspectives, it is more accurate to say that multiple perspectives are needed to understand that one truth. God is an infinite being (He is eternal) therefore no amount of perspectives can describe Him fully, and hence we can admittedly speak of adequate and not exhaustive understanding. And, this adequate understanding is possible because God has revealed who He is to us in His Word, the Bible and through His Son Jesus. Read Full Answer.

“Hearing God’s voice” does not always mean a booming and audible voice being piped into your ears. This ‘still, small voice’ that many  people claim to have heard is essentially the Holy Spirit reminding us of God’s truth in situations where we are faced with an ethical or moral dilemma or perhaps contemplating a difficult decision (2 Timothy 2:7, John 16:13). Read Full Answer.

Jesus expects us to respond to Him as the truth by receiving him and believing in Him (John 1:12, 20:31), and becoming a child of God, on the basis of His perfect life, and death and resurrection in the place of sinners. He calls for us to have ‘childlike faith’ (Matt 18:1-4), modelling ourselves after innocent children not in their immature behaviour but rather in their total dependence and trust of their parents. Read Full Answer.

Legalism is the term used by Christians to denote a doctrinal system where salvation is earned through good works or through the adherence to precise rules.

This position is often seen as contrary to idea that salvation is by grace alone, and there is nothing we can do in our human capacity to “earn” our salvation. Ephesians 2:8 states “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Read Full Answer.

Before we can answer this question, let us define legalism. Legalism is defined by the “Dictionary of Bible Themes” as “the belief that salvation demands or depends upon total obedience to the letter of the law. Examples of legalism include an excessive concern for minute details of the law coupled with a neglect of its fundamental concerns, and a preoccupation with human legal traditions. Read Full Answer.

The first incident involving Lot’s daughters appears in Genesis 19:1-11. Two men who were really angels appeared in Sodom where Lot lived with his family. The wicked men of the city surrounded Lot’s house seeking to have homosexual relations with the angels. Lot begged the men of the city not to do this evil thing and he offered up his two virgin daughters to them instead.
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Explaining  “inconsistencies” is indeed important to our understanding of the Bible. In fact, people use apparent inconsistencies to pass judgment on the whole of the Bible, reasoning if one part is “wrong” then it all is wrong. Yet, we need to understand a bit about the Bible before we jump to this conclusion.

It would be impossible to call someone who believes in God, and not Jesus Christ, a Christian believer. The Bible says that God has been revealed to us through His Son Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 18), hence any ‘god’ that one believes in that does not urge repentance and faith in Jesus, that does not make Jesus prominent is not the God of the Bible. The first thing to do, is hence to establish that, whoever this ‘god’ the person is believing in, it is not the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, we would want to try and show that it is only possible for us to know God, if He reveals Himself to us. And, the Bible teaches us that He has done so through Jesus Christ alone (John 1:14,18, 14:6).

The claim that Jesus turned water into wine is in fact accurate. This miracle, Jesus’ first, is recorded for us in John 2:1-12. However, to take that as full license to drink is another matter altogether. Other parts of Scripture prohibit drunkenness (Ephesians 5:18), and emphasize moderation (1 Timothy 3:8, 5:23), but do not prohibit the consumption of alcohol per se. In Christ, we are given liberty in our eating and drinking (Colossians 2:16-17), but we are told that everything should be done to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Read Full Answer.

It is important for us to take into account the purpose, genre and context of the scripture. Ecclesiastes is known to be a part of the ‘wisdom literature’ genre in the Bible, along with Proverbs. A method commonly used in these books is to state apparently contradictory principles (e.g., Prov 26:4-5) and leave it to the listener to work out which principle applies in a given situation. In Ecclesiastes, the writer also shows the complexities of life in a fallen world, which may result in individual exceptions to the conventions of biblical wisdom. Read Full Answer.