Evangelism:
The Joy of Sharing the Good News.
Part 18.
This week is another look at objections you can expect to encounter when you share the gospel. In part 16 we discussed objections related to the existence of God. Last week we looked at objections related to truth and the idea that Jesus was a good man and great teacher, but nothing more. This week, we address objections that the church is full of hypocrites and the question of whether the Bible is reliable.
First, how should you respond when someone asks if Christianity is true, why are there so many hypocrites in the church?
I do not recommend answering with, “There is always room for one more!” Here is a better approach:
“I’m sorry if you’ve had unpleasant or hurtful experiences with churches or individuals professing to be Christians. While I admit that there are some people who give the church a bad name, I wouldn’t say the church is full of hypocrites. That certainly hasn’t been my experience. The fact is, in every organization there are individuals who misrepresent what the group stands for but that alone is not a sufficient reason for dismissing the claims of Christ. I think there are some false assumptions people need to avoid.”
What false assumptions? Some are below. You don’t haven’t mention all of them — choose what’s most pertinent to your conversation.
- Profession means possession. Not everybody who claims to be a Christian is actually a Christian. A Christian is someone who believes in Christ and follows him as a way of life. There are people in the pews who are not genuine believers.
- Christians claim to be perfect. One cannot expect Christians to behave on a level that they themselves never think of attaining. Christians do not claim to be sinless, so such a person cannot be charged as a hypocrite if he fails at times. The issue is not perfection but progression – are Christians growing to be more like God?
- All sin is hypocrisy. While all hypocrisy is sin, not all sin is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy refers to pretense or an outward show; pretending to be someone you’re not. Again, Christians do not pretend to be perfect. We know we’re not, that’s why we need the perfect forgiveness of Christ.
The fact is, Christ himself condemned hypocrisy — and so does the entire Bible. The real issue is not the performance of Christians, but the person of Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life and I encourage you to look to him for forgiveness and eternal life, not to me.
The other objection we will discuss this week is when someone asks, “How can I know the Bible is reliable?” This section fairly extensive, so it is good to summarize.
To that question, respond with a question of your own: “How do you know any ancient document is historically reliable?” Your response to their answer can be something like this:
“There are three basic tests historians apply to documents to determine their reliability. When we examine the Bible by the same tests applied to secular literature, we discover that it is the most reliable document in ancient history by far.”
They may say, “How can you prove that.” Your response? “I’m glad you asked!”
The bibliographical test
This test seeks to determine how many manuscripts copies we have of the document and how far removed they are in time from the originals.
There are a number of ancient historical works that no one seriously doubts which are only attested to by a handful of manuscripts. On average, these are 1,000 years removed from the originals.
For instance, the works of Aristotle were originally written in the 3rd century B.C. The earliest copies we have date from 1,100 A.D. That’s a 1,400 year time span. At most only five copies of any one work are known. But no one doubts Aristotle wrote them.
The same is true for Herodotus, considered the “Father of History.” The earliest manuscript we have from his book on history is dated 1,300 years after the original. Only 10 extant manuscript copies are known.
The second-best attested document of ancient history is The Iliad by Homer. We have 643 manuscripts, the earliest being 500 years after the original.
But the document of ancient history with the greatest support is the New Testament. We have than 5,300 Greek manuscripts, and in one case the manuscript is dated only 25-30 years after the original. There is not another document in ancient history that comes even close, and yet no one doubts secular works.
Even if all the manuscripts of the NT had been destroyed or lost before the third century — which is not the case — we could still reconstruct it from the citations of the early Church Fathers with the exception of only 11 verses.
In his book History and Christianity, John Warwick Montgomery wrote: “To be skeptical of the text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.”
The internal test
The second test is the internal test. This test asks whether the document itself claims to be actual history written by eyewitnesses.
Historical and literary scholarship continues to follow Aristotle’s dictum that the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not the critic. This means that we must not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies.
The writers of the four Gospels were either eyewitnesses or received their information from eyewitnesses.
- Matthew and John wrote their gospels as eyewitness – John 19:35
- Luke interviewed and collected his information from eyewitness to write his gospel — Luke 1:1-4.
- By tradition, we know Mark received his information from Peter who was an eyewitness — 2 Peter 1:16. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis around 130 A.D., writes as follows on the basis of information obtained from the “Elder” (i.e., the Apostle John): “The Elder used to say this also: Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he mentioned, whether sayings or doings of Christ …”
The external test
The third test is the external test, which asks whether material external to the document confirms its reliability.
Josephus (Jewish Historian 37-100 A.D.)
He wrote of “the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, whose name was James” (Antiquities XX 9:1)
In a more explicit (but disputed) passage Antiquities says:
“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus … Pilate condemned Him to be condemned and to die. And those who had become His disciples did not abandon His discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and the He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (XVIII.33, Arabic text).
Tacitus (Roman Historian 55? -177 AD)
He wrote of Nero’s attempt to alleviate himself of the guilt of burning Rome:
“Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the region of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also” (Annals XV.44).
There are also references from Lucian, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, and the Jewish Talmud (see Norman Geisler’s Christian Apologetics). Combining this secular testimony to Christ we get the following picture:
- Jesus was crucified under Pontus Pilate at the time of Passover.
- He was believed by his disciples to have risen from the dead three days later.
- Jewish leaders charged Christ with sorcery and believed he was born of adultery.
- The Judean sect of Christianity could not be contained but spread even to Rome.
- Nero and other Roman rulers bitterly persecuted and martyred early Christians.
- These early Christians denied polytheism, lived dedicated lives according to Christ’s teachings, and worshipped Christ.
This picture is consistent with that of the New Testament.
With these three tests, you can say that we have demonstrated that the New Testament is a historically reliable document. But what does it say?
- It tells us that Jesus Christ claimed to be God incarnate.
- He substantiated his claims by his miraculous life and resurrection from the dead.
- As God, Jesus declared the Old Testament to be the inspired Word of God (Matthew 5:17-18; Luke 24:47; John 10:35) and promised the New Testament as his Word (John 14:26; John 16:13).
To summarize: based upon the authority of Christ as God, the Bible is the perfect Word of God.
Of course, the Holy Spirit must ultimately attest to the divine inspiration of Scripture in our hearts. We recognize it as the Word of God because he moves us to submit to God’s authority.
Finally, in his book Every Thought Captive, Richard Pratt covers some related objections and provides additional answers.
The Bible contradicts itself
- The unbeliever has not examined the Bible and other resource material enough to know that he has not simply misunderstood a passage which he thinks is contradictory. It is often the case that non-Christians call passages contradictory when just a little reflection shows them to be quite harmonious.
- The unbeliever cannot examine the Bible and other resource materials enough to know that he has exhausted all the possible explanations of his so-called contradiction.
- Until he can say with absolute certainty that there are contradictions in the Bible he cannot reject biblical authority on this basis.
The Bible contradicts history
- No non-Christian has dealt with biblical archeology and history enough to know for certain that he has not misunderstood the historical research or the Bible. There are plenty of examples where earlier research pointed to discrepancies between the Bible and actual history which have now been shown to be mistakes in historical research.
- Since certainty in these matters is impossible to find, it is impossible for the unbeliever to reject the Bible with certainty.
The Bible is not God’s Word since it was written by men.
- The unbeliever has not established and cannot establish with certainty that the humanity of the Bible necessarily means there are errors in the Bible. He cannot rule out with certainty the divine protection of inspiration which the Christian claims.
- The non-Christian has no way to prove that he can reject the authority of Scripture just because it was written by humans.
The Bible is unscientific since it claims many miraculous events.
- To deny the reality of miracles would require a complete analysis of every claim of miracles and a complete explanation of every other event that has ever occurred in the universe. Both of these requirements are impossible and therefore the certain rejection of the Bible on this basis is impossible.
I don’t believe we should say one religious book is better than another.
- The non-Christian has not experienced all that would be necessary to show that one book is no better than another.