How Do We Know the Bible is True?

I have a friend who is working with students this summer and she’s been given a topic on which she is supposed to speak: How do we know the Bible is true? It’s a tough question to be sure, and if something inside doesn’t at least resist the question a little bit, then we’re not seeing all that is at stake in answering. My friend asked me to visit with her about it, and I began to give it some thought. This is far from the last word, but it’s my first attempt to think it through. Here’s how I think I would answer… also know as evidence as to why I’ll never be a youth minister!

One problem that all of us have, having been raised in a society in which we have been taught to think that truth is a bunch of propositions about which we can make up our minds; as though the truth is a perfect idea which corresponds to reality. On these terms the bible is only true if it corresponds to reality. But who gets to decide what reality is? Science? Theology? Philosophy? Politicians?

The most basic definition of truth is “that which corresponds to reality.” The problem is that our reality has to be shaped and formed before we can know what that means. We have to know what reality is. That’s what the scriptures do for us. They shape our view of reality so that we can know what is true.

If I say two plus two is lemon, then you would say this is not true – it does not correspond to reality. But if I say, for instance, what does it mean for a wife to be true to a husband, or for a teacher to be true to his students? Now we are talking about the most essential nature of truth. What does it mean for a man whose wife has just been diagnosed with breast cancer to be true to his vows? What does it mean for a parent to be true to her children, or a child to his parents? What does it mean for a human life to be true? What does it mean to be a friend that is true? Now we are getting to the kind of “truth” the scripture is really interested in. We all know that it is possible to live a life that is a lie, a falsehood, and that this is somehow destructive to the human soul.

The bible is true not because it explains empirically verifiable data about life in scientific, historical, or philosophical terms. The Bible is true because it teaches us how to be true human beings. The Bible is true because if we live according to the life that we find there – namely the idea that Jesus is the world’s true lord – then our whole life will come into harmony with ultimate reality. Our lives become true, and we become truly human as God intended human to be. The truth is not a bunch of words, the truth is a person – Jesus Christ – the way the truth and the life. The bible is true because it teaches us to know this Jesus and to follow his way of being human.

The bible does not transmit timeless truths, the bible teaches us how to view reality so that we’ll know how to live in the way of Jesus, we’ll know him to be true, and our lives will become true as well.

How do we know the Bible is true? I think it’s possible that we cannot even begin to approach this question unless we’ve first been formed by the bible itself. It’s kind of the wrong question. The question we should really ask is, “Is my life true, or is it a fake?” Because there is no way to live your live in faithfulness to Jesus and his teachings and to live a fake life – a life that isn’t true. There is no other way to live a true life – a life that exists in harmony with ultimate reality – apart from living in the way of Jesus. The bible teaches us what this means.

If you want to know if the bible is true or not, live according to the bible. If you want to fall in love you don’t read a book called “How to fall in love,” and then decide whether or not you think it’s true. If you want to fall in love, you do what lovers do: you hold hands, take long walks, have long conversations and it just happens. Same goes for the truth of the scripture. If you want to know if the bible is true or not, then live like it is: follow after Jesus, love your enemies, live in peace, care for the poor, sick, blind, naked, alien, and so on. Do this and you will understand what it means to say the Bible is true.

To students, especially, I think we have to say: The things that are really true in this life are not typically things you read in books. It’s that your mom and dad love you. It’s that feeling you have inside when you die to yourself and lay down your life for a friend. It’s that you are truly free when you embrace the idea that the first shall be last and the last shall be first with every fiber of your being, and then live faithfully to that reality. As soon as we make the question about the truth of the bible into an argument about who really wrote Genesis, or did the creation really happen in six days, we’ve lost the thread. The things that are really true in this life are those things that have come into harmony with the most basic truth about reality: Jesus is Lord.

How do we teach this to students? I really don’t know if we can teach it to them, we can only live it in front of them, for them, and especially with them over time.