Dear Skeptic, Open the Bible

In a society that expresses frequent concerns about prejudice, we largely ignore our prejudice against God and his Word.

We are prejudiced against the God of the Bible because we know that if he really exists, and if he entered the world through Jesus Christ, our lives have to change. By nature, we don’t want to consider this possibility. We do whatever we can to be excused from the jury.

The Bible is by far the bestselling book of all time, with over five billion copies sold. The evidence in the case at hand is more widely distributed than any other gathering of information in history. Through the Bible, God makes himself known and shows us how to find eternal life.

Neglecting the Bible

But many Bibles are never opened. Why?

The Bible can be intimidating. It can be daunting, at more than 800,000 words. It comprises 66 seemingly disconnected books, and it is full of unfamiliar people, places, and events. And its stories of a virgin birth, a resurrection, and a God who speaks may be hard to believe.

My invitation to people who don’t believe is to open the Bible.

My invitation to people who don’t believe is to open the Bible.

Discover the Bible

Discover this world with its awesome God, his often confused people, and his great promise to bring blessing to all. Listen to what he has said. Look at what he has done. You may find that, far from being a relic of the past, the Bible is the means by which God speaks to you today.

Through the Bible, God speaks to us in revelation. He gives us the building blocks to understand who he is, who Jesus is, and why Jesus came into the world and what God is able to do in our lives today.

Jesus invites us: “Come and see.” We discover a God who introduces himself as our Creator. We can look in the Bible and find people who lose their way and a God who keeps reaching out with grace and mercy to make things right with them and to turn things around.

Christians must follow the example of the New Testament apostles, who were not authoritarian preachers standing on soapboxes shouting “Believe.” They were compassionate pastors, laying out the evidence of what they saw and heard from Jesus Christ, so that people could consider it honestly and come to a verdict.

The Bible presents the evidence on which Christian faith is based. “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The evidence is compelling.

Don’t let prejudice stop you from opening God’s Word. An honest look at the evidence may change your life.