Don't Believe in the Bible?

"I don't believe in the Bible."

How often do you hear that statement?

I would like to ask someone who uses that regularly, to ward off Christians a few questions:

Which book do you not believe?  There are 66 books in the Bible.  Thanks to the cigarette industry (for creating that thin paper), we carry a small library to church every week.  To quote Chuck Missler, there are "66 books, by 40 authors, and yet we now discover it's an integrated message system from outside our time domain."

So which book do you not believe?  Do you have trouble believing the history books that chronicle the lives of Queen Esther of Persia or Ruth the Moabitess?  Do you not believe the books that tell the history of the Jewish people, for instance the conquest of the land of Canaan, or the official chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel?  Do you not believe the songbooks compiled by King David and other great song writers?  Do you have a problem believing the collected proverbs of King Solomon?  Do you not believe that there were books of law written for the Jewish people to live by?

Do you not believe that Jesus walked the earth right around 30 A.D. or that for instance, a physician named Luke chronicled his life story and then the sequel -- the lives of the early apostles who set up the earliest churches?

Do you not believe that men such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, or Obadiah wrote books of prophecy predicting destruction if nations failed to repent?  Do you not believe that many of those predictions came true?  Have you checked out the history of those nations?

Which of the 66 books do you not believe?

Perchance, is it that you don't want to believe the integrated message of God's grace to those who do repent?  Is it because you would have to examine your life and because you're pretty sure you personally would be found lacking?

In most cases, the blanket statement about not believing the Bible really means that you know you're guilty but don't want anything to change.  You also don't want to hear that there's a heaven and hell, and that those who don't receive God's gracious forgiveness for their sins by believing in Jesus will ultimately suffer in hell for eternity.  These are hard truths, but they are found in the Bible, God's message to mankind woven seamlessly into all 66 books.

God desires more than anything, that all mankind should be saved from that eternal punishment and find grace through faith in the person of Jesus Christ, His only Son.  Read the Book of John and find out for yourself.  Maybe you don't believe the Bible because you've never read it.

Does This Still Work?

Every now and then I find myself wanting to write something like a blog post, but I forgot where this one was.  Since Google changed things, this may not always work, but I'm going to try to collect my thoughts again, now that I've found it.  Not sure if anyone will follow me, but that's okay.  I mean, don't we all post all our thinking processes online nowadays?  (Hi, NSA!)