Daily Bible Nugget #424, John 17:17

The Nugget:

John 17:17  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.  (KJV)

Joh 17:17 Make them holy by the true word: your word is the true word. (Basic English Bible)

My Comment:

The Bible claims to be the literal word of God.  The Bible claims to be true.  One might argue that it is not valid for a Book to testify in its own behalf.  That is an invalid argument on the very surface.  A person accused of a crime in a court of law is allowed to testify in his or her own behalf.  The real issue is, can the claim of the Bible to be true be sustained?

Once again, I ventured back to view the Pew Research article that investigated why some Americans left religion behind, and found in the comment section two more interesting comments that are to a degree typical of some who reject the Bible:

Ron Lee • 2 days ago

 

There is no logical reason for anyone to accept your god(s), mythology, or the Christian Bible as “truth” over any others.

At least Ron Lee knew enough to capitalize “Christian” and “Bible” which is better knowledge of the proper conventions of written English than I have seen most Christian posters on the Internet and Facebook demonstrate or put to use.  Take it from a retired English teacher:  the word “Bible” when it refers to the Christian Bible is always capitalized!

However, the truthfulness or validity of Ron’s claim cannot be established.  I have whole shelves of books here in my personal library that present very strong evidence to the contrary.  I do not know anything about Ron Lee, but if this is the opinion he holds, he most likely falls into the category of unbelievers and skeptics that have never seriously read and studied a scholarly work written in defense of the Bible and its claims.

Unfortunately, some of the best books on subjects like this go out of print.  The best book I have ever encountered on this subject is A Lawyer Examines the Bible by Irwin H. Linton, published, actually reprinted, by Baker Book House about 1969. An important feature of Linton’s book is that he cites the scholarly arguments of the greatest apologists of the past in enough detail to convey the full strength of their arguments.

Another volume in an altogether different vein is titled Why Christianity of All Religions? by Hendrik Kraemer, a solid top scholar in the field of world religions, a work published by the Westminster Press in 1962.  Hendrik Kraemer has written a number of other books, including The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World and World Cultures and World Religions:  the Coming Dialogue.  Hendrik Kraemer, former professor of the history of religions in the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, received his doctor’s degree in Oriental Languages, Cultures, and Religions from Leiden University.

So, for someone on the Internet to post a comment saying “There is no logical reason for anyone to accept…the Christian Bible as ‘truth’ over any others” would indicate the poster may not have done his homework before making such a claim.

Another poster commented:

Anonymous • 2 days ago

 

I left Christianity for the same reason I don’t believe any other religion; “if you can’t show it you don’t know it.” Aron Ra, And every religion claims some special knowledge about some deity/s and/or an afterlife that they have absolutely no evidence of. “That which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Christopher Hitchen

 

I left “Faith” before I knew these people existed. All it took was a little probing to discover everything I was taught in church was complete conjecture. It had no foundation in reality at all.

If this “Anonymous” poster is stating the truth, it appears that what he was taught in church did not register, or was inadequate.  That ought to alert all pastors and Christian readers here that every church must do a better job of teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of teaching Christian evidences, of teaching the Bible and how to read it and study it for yourself, and the need to teach the evidences which confirm the truth of the Bible.

As a public high school English teacher, I told my school administrators, “If the student did not learn, the teacher did not teach.”  They were amazed that I would ever say such a thing, especially since I was the Union Representative for the school!  The same principle holds for the Church:  if the student did not learn, then the Church did not teach!  You may need to re-focus your Christian education program at your church so that this does not happen, or happens very rarely.

“Anonymous” claims what was taught in church “had no foundation in reality at all.”

You may be very sure that whoever “Anonymous” might actually be, this person was not a pupil in my Sunday school class, or in the Bible Discussion Club I was asked to sponsor by the school administration at Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

Everyone involved in Christian ministry at any level needs to learn better how to present content, not pablum, when it comes to teaching and sharing the Gospel.

The foundation in reality Anonymous somehow missed is the historical fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb on the third day, the most attested and documented historical event of all history (1 Corinthians 15:1, 2, 3, 4) before the age of the printing press.

This entry was posted in Apologetics Issues--Agnosticism, Apologetics Issues--Atheism, Apologetics--Christian, Bible Historicity and Validity, Daily Bible Nuggets, Education Issues and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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