John 3:16 -18 in the New International Version of the Bible says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
This is interesting but it raises so many questions. What is the bible anyway? Just another book? Why trust it? It sounds like someone’s opinion.
I remember as a small boy my parents would take me to the country for our summer vacation. We lived in Brooklyn, and they felt it was important to get away. I would love it, and we would normally go to a small farm and eat plenty of eggs, fresh milk, and lots of fresh vegetables. It was special when I could lie in the grass and look up at the night sky filled with thousands of stars. I often pondered where they all came from and wondered about the order of them. I wanted to know more about them.
As I grew, I learned to love physics and the world that we live in. I learned much about math, the stars, electricity, weather, wind, water, gravity, pressure and so much more. And I learned that math could describe just about everything. Not only describe it but predict it. I love this world that we live in and as I thought about it, I love the creation of this world. The Big Bang is often described as being caused by electrons or particles interacting in some way. Yet they also say that outside of the earth there exists a complete vacuum – no electrons, no particles, nothing at all. To me, this suggests that the origin of everything wasn’t random but intentional, as though God spoke it into existence. And God in this view is the ultimate master mathematician.
The dictionary describes an accident as an undesirable or unfortunate happening which results in harm, injury, or damage. Our world is not an accident, it is in many cases predictable. You can predict the tides, you can predict the location of the stars, you can measure the rotation of the earth, and so on. Celestial navigation depends upon your knowledge of the stars and their location to get your latitude and longitude. Our world is not an accident. And I think I have always believed in God because of what I see around me.
The Bible is an amazing document it was started around 1500 BC and originally written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. It’s been a bestseller for as long as I can remember. When we were in Israel I saw a copy of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was compared with today’s version of Isaiah. It is almost the same. The Bible consists of 66 books written by 40 different authors. 2 Timothy 3:16 says “All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteous.”
But this did not make me a Christian. I had problems with the concept of Jesus being the son of God. I read and re-read the Bible and couldn’t understand most of it. I read lots of books where they would talk about God wooing you like a special courter. I read a number of books by C. S. Lewis; and then I read “More Than a Carpenter” by Josh McDowell. “This book talked about the Prophets and all the predictions they made, (over 300) where Jesus is the only one who could fulfill all of them.
Where are you in this story? Did you accept Jesus as a child? Are you fortunate enough to have been raised in a Christian family? Or are you full of questions? The questions are good! The Bible has the answers.
Is God wooing you?
