Why Can We Trust the Bible?

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Melissa Kruger
I think we’ve all woken up one day and said, I’m kind of spending my whole life on this. Is this right? Because that is exactly what God’s word asked you to do, right? Yes, the wise man heard these words, and he built his home on this. And you know, when the winds and rain came, the house stood firm.

Melissa Kruger
Hey friends, welcome to the deep dish Podcast. I’m Melissa Krueger, and I’m here with my co host, Courtney doctor, and we are joined by our good friend Vanessa K Hawkins. We’re so glad you’re here, Vanessa, and today we are going to be talking about kind of a deep topic, I think a deep topic, and it’s basically the reliability of Scripture, and so, yeah, it’s, it’s not a light, fluffy afternoon conversation we’re having today. We all just did eat lunch. So I’m convinced my brain’s not working that well, but we’re hoping that this is going to be beneficial. And so I want to ask you, Vanessa, I mean, you minister in New York City, you know, you’re in the middle of a lot of ideas, a lot of cultural moments, and culture shaping things happen in your city when you hear people question the reliability of the Bible, or question the scriptures, what do you think is behind some of that? What types of questions have you heard? You know, because you’re kind of in the epicenter, yeah. Of a lot of questions,

Vanessa Hawkins
yeah. I think sometimes I hear the questions behind the questions Yes, and which often scream is, can there really be a God who’s that good? Because what I see in the in the Bible, is this bloodthirsty God who is, you know, who’s killing people. And I see things that it’s hard for me to believe could be true, or that into intelligent people could believe, you know, you know this, this fantasy. I hear things like, it’s, it’s not culturally relevant, it’s outdated. So can I trust it? Because it wasn’t written in our time? It does it if it were, if it was true, does it still ring true? And so some of those types of questions or start stories that defy the law of science, yeah, the miracles in Scripture. And so I hear, you know, lots of those types of questions.

Melissa Kruger
So it sounds like the doubts you’re hearing deal with almost the moral nature of God, if he’s over this book, and this is kind of reporting his people, can he be good, right? Or then you hear, could it even scientifically take place? Are these just maybe it was the sandbar he didn’t really walk on the water type thing. Like, what are people talking about when they’re talking about demons coming out? Maybe, you know, like, are they just making up stories to, kind of answer questions about that? Now we now we answer through science,

Vanessa Hawkins
right, right? And, and I think very much in that space, you hear questions that that lend themselves to almost thinking science is the only way that we can know something. Yeah, and, and we know things a lot of other ways. I mean, we know things by history. We know things by oral account, you know, just lots of other ways. But yeah, that’s, that’s exactly it. The veracity of Scripture, I think, is questioned in a myriad of ways, and at the core of a lot of them is, can there really be a God who is that good, and could he be sovereign over a world? And the things that happen happen?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, that’s really interesting. What about you? Courtney, well,

Courtney Doctor
I think that, just along those same lines, I think that some of the questions end up even coming the other direction where it’s like, I don’t really if it’s true, I don’t like what that means for my life, like the authoritative nature of it, that if it’s true, it’s authoritative, yeah. And so what it means is I have to do something with my life or stop doing something with my life that I don’t really want to do. And so we don’t necessarily want to believe it. So I think there are different ways people come at doubt. People arrive at a place of doubt. I think we hear a lot about the the inconsistency, supposed inconsistency, of the nature of God, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, you know. And it’s like the Old Testament is a God of wrath and the New Testament as a God of grace and and, you know, we can talk about that, because we see so much grace in the Old Testament right from page one of of the story. And then we also are told of God’s wrath in the New Testament. So God is the same forever, but, but I think people at a at a quick cursory glance might see it as two different, you know, characters of God, or even two different gods. And then I think experientially, people run into places where they are. They they arrive at a place of doubt. And so sometimes that’s just like, Wait a minute. I was reading something. So I think of a proverb, you know, Train up a child and way should go. And when he is old, he will know. Depart from it, and it’s like, Well, that didn’t play out for me, because I was reading that as a promise, right? And so therefore I’m gonna throw the entirety of scripture out when you know, we would want to say, no, no, no, no, no, let’s read it faithfully in the way it was written, right? The genre matters, and we can talk more about that, right? So I think people arrive at places of doubting the scriptures in a lot of different ways, and so maybe it’s they, they felt like they were trusting it and it didn’t play out. Or maybe they realized that if it’s true, it’s authoritative and it means some significant changes for their lives. Or maybe they’ve just done kind of a cursory glance over of the whole thing and think, Well, this sounds either too good to be true or too difficult to believe.

Melissa Kruger
So it sounds like some of the doubts. Just to summarize, because these are all helpful, some of the doubts are okay, can these stories be true? I don’t like the God of these stories if they are true. I don’t like what they might require of me if they are true. And then what I’ve heard a lot in my context, underpinning all of those, is, is the text actually the word of God? Right? So that’s a whole different doubt, right? Because, you know, I mean, I went to University of North Carolina, we have a professor there who’s fairly famous, Bart Armen, and basically one of his, all of his writings, attack the formation of the New Testament canon. And they basically say, look at all these inconsistencies in the canon. Okay, by the canon, by what we basically just the Bible as we have it, right? So there are 27 books in the New Testament, and his work is primarily there. So that’s where he’s kind of focusing in on. And he pretty much, you come in as a freshman, and to be quite honest, in our high school youth groups, we were playing toothpick Lifesaver games we were not really delving into. And so you come in to this very academic environment, and he is, in some ways, an apologist for let me educate you. Let me tell you how maybe all those fantasies you heard about in the scriptures you need to understand. This book is full of errors, and it’s got all these mistakes in it. So why can you trust it? And I have to say it’s happening right at the intersection when morally there are maybe some choices people would rather be making that are against the scriptural call on their lives. And so it was very convenient, to be quite honest, it was this underpinning of doubt of can I even trust this book was it just written by men. And I even remember the tradition I grew up in did not believe in the infallibility of Scripture. So I can remember having conversations with leaders in my life when they said, Well, you can’t believe everything in the Bible, right? I mean, it was written by men.

Courtney Doctor
Is that not the original lie. So Genesis three. I mean, that’s exactly what the serpent comes on the scene saying, Did God really say? And so we should not be surprised that all the different ways we are tempted to doubt the Word of God, it’s not original. It is. It is the foundation of all sin, because more than anything, the Lord is asking us to trust His word. Yeah. And so, of course, this is a battlefield, and

Melissa Kruger
that’s a really good point about Genesis, because it’s, did he really say, and is he really good? Yeah, because he’s basically saying, isn’t he keeping something from you, because if you eat of it, you’ll be enlightened, and you’ll know that what good and evil? Yeah. So it, yeah. So the same attack to God’s word is coming to us today. Did he

Courtney Doctor
really say? Because if he did, he’s he is keeping the good life, yeah, he’s keeping whatever that is, sexual freedom. I mean, whatever it is, it’s being kept from you, right? Yeah. And so, so we don’t want to believe it and are tempted to not believe it. That’s

Vanessa Hawkins
so good. I think about when you’re talking about the infallibility of Scripture, I think of b b Warfield, who makes this statement, and it’s always stuck with me that, you know, it’s the of course, it’s based on First Timothy three that says that all scripture is God breathed. But B, B Warfield goes a step further and says, And God can’t breathe out error. And I just, I love that, because he says, All scripture is God breathed and it’s good for correction, reprove, training and righteousness, and it is. And if we, if there can be some doubt introduced in its veracity, man, are we? You know, we’re weakened. We are we are at such a disadvantage in our ability to fight and to live and and we’re crippled in a myriad of ways. But I just love that he cannot breathe out error. Yeah, he’s a holy God. He is perfect in all his ways, and cannot breathe out error and scripture. Is his

Melissa Kruger
very breath. So, okay, so we’re saying scriptures. God breathed Jesus treated as So, yeah, but so how did we actually get these words? Yeah, that’s good. Okay, you know, you know I’m saying because, I mean, look, that’s a really honest question. I don’t think I asked for many years of my life. I just like, oh, that’s the Bible, yeah. And I never really thought, Well, how did God get the Bible in? Yeah? How do we answer that question for people who are asking, Well,

Courtney Doctor
I think one of the most beautiful things is throughout Scripture. So, so first of all, it wasn’t written, and I’m going to go ahead and contrast it with some other religions of our day. Oh, good. So, so both Islam and Mormonism were a one time revelation given in secret. Both of them were one person receiving the revelation from God. So of all the religions that are based on Revelation instead of right, discovery or enlightenment, so the religions based on Revelation, Christianity and Judaism are the two that are. They are given over the course of 1000 years, and they’re given all of the key moments are very public. They’re all eyewitness accounts. So So Moses, when he’s given the law, it’s an eyewitness account. The gospels are eyewitness accounts, and they’re they’re given to us by these different people, so that, and sometimes people point that out as the inconsistency in the gospels, but the reality is, it’s actually verifying the fact that we are getting different people telling the same story, and they they heard it from, from different ways, and so even Mark’s gospel, Mark was not the eyewitness count, but Peter was the eyewitness count. So we get a lot of the perspective of Peter in Mark’s gospel, but the fact that these were not done in in private or in secret, but they were done so that people could testify to the reality of the events that are being told actually gives a lot of validity to the received word,

Vanessa Hawkins
absolutely and you know, it helps that the New Testament is the best attested text of classical antiquity. It is the best. I mean by and the most attacked and the most attacked, but the best attested to in its original manuscripts. I mean by scores, any other historic document, even Romans, or you know, any other you know, not Romans the book, but by other historians, I mean literally hundreds of papyrus, Papyrus, Papyrus, you know, for just pieces of documents, but also scores of, you know manuscripts, and you know partial manuscripts and so, but more tested than any other book in antiquity, yeah. And so we’ve got yeah and so that’s also that lends itself to its plausibility, as well as the plurality of voices speaking the same message.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, exactly. And there and historians are still finding manuscripts, yes. So there’s this huge, basically dumpster pit in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, and the reason they’ve survived is because the air temperatures and they’re finding manuscripts even today. Manuscripts are, yeah, well, and there are different types, so, so this is what is interesting. I think when you go back to the early church, the word was important from the beginning, like these written down accounts of the scriptures. And there’s even a lot of evidence that people were traveling with all four gospel Matthew, Mark, Luke and John together from a really early time period. So it wasn’t like, Oh yeah, that guy over there wrote it, and that guy over there wrote it. And now come fourth century, we’re gonna sew it all together, right? But from an early time, especially the Gospels, yeah, they they date them all to the first century, right? Right? Yeah, exactly which. And then the first list of the whole New Testament. And when I say canon, I mean the books of the New Testament the 27 those those books were first listed out by a man named origin, writing on it in 250 ad, okay, so we’re still close to to when those things were

Courtney Doctor
happening, as writing on the foundation of our country. Yes, we’re still very close.

Melissa Kruger
Yes. Yes, exactly. So, so that just adds a lot of historical validity to what these manuscripts were saying, whereas, actually, if you look at like copies of the Iliad and Odyssey, we have a lot less of those, right? So not only what it speaks to is the importance of these books to Christians, because they kept copying. Them. They kept writing them over and over and over again and getting them out. So you know that was going on.

Courtney Doctor
Those are the manuscripts. Those are the measures they would receive Matthew, and then they would write it to send it on. And so that’s a second manuscript. If you wrote me a letter, and I wanted to make sure that 12 people got it and I copied it 12 times because we couldn’t it’s rewritten. Yes, those are the that’s why we have different Yes.

Melissa Kruger
Okay, just Yes. And I even think, and we can fact check this, when Paul says, make sure I travel with the scrolls, it does he say scrolls and manuscripts when he asked for his cloak? Oh, yeah, I don’t know. It’s actually a distinction between the two. That’s good. And it shows you know the scrolls were the Old Testament, and they were actually differentiating, already a school scrolling the parchments two types, and the New Testament was coming in these parchments, but he wanted the scrolls that were the Old Testament. So it’s interesting that this distinction was already happening that’s really cool in Paul’s day. I

Vanessa Hawkins
think what I find really notable about the validity and the veracity of the New Testament is this, is that when you look at the contemporaries, the historians who attest to Jesus miracles, even who were who were not in agreement with Christianity or the principles that Jesus taught, but they attest to the truth of what he did and how it defied science. Like Josephus would say that he wrought surprising feats, and so they would attest to His miracles, yeah, you know, and really attesting to the veracity of the gospel in doing so,

Melissa Kruger
yeah, yeah. Well, and that’s what you know when we talk about the Gospels with our kids. I remember when we started to study the Gospel of John together. The thing I said to them is, I asked them this question to start it, how do you tell a good lie? And okay, to tell a good lie, you don’t say a lot of facts, because you’re gonna get caught. And you keep it really short, yeah, yeah. You say very little. You say Jesus was died and rose again. Like details. You don’t get a lot of details, no, yeah. And you keep him get caught, yeah? And you don’t name names, right? And you don’t name places, right? Because you might forget you think about you’re gonna commit murder. You’re gonna keep those details. Sorry. Let’s go there. You’re gonna keep details really low when you read the gospels. I always tell people read the gospels, you know? Why do you have to mention Rufus? Yeah, yeah. And why do you have to mention all these names about who carried the cross of Jesus on the Way? They wanted to be fact checked. Yeah, yeah. They were like, actually, you can go to the town where he lived and you can ask him verifiable, yeah, you can go to because it doesn’t even just say Simon. It says Simon of Cyrene. Yes, yes. Why? Why? Why? Why go ask him you’re telling a lie. Don’t do that, right? But sure, you know. And so the facts that we see put forth in the New Testament help us start to think, well, this is really a dumb way to lie the funnest

Courtney Doctor
day in this month, in this year, in this place. I mean, it’s so historically grounded, or grounded in historical settings, yes. Yes. And why is that? Well, again, because it happened, because it happened, and because the Lord wants us to know it

Vanessa Hawkins
happens, right? I mean, down to the reigns of kings, yeah, right, yes. Who’s king? You can it’s, it’s verifiable, yes.

Melissa Kruger
Fact, yes. And we have 12 men who were sent out as apostles to testify to this? Well, here’s the other thing, if you’re gonna lie, do it just you yourself and I, because what happens if 12 people commit a crime together? Someone is gonna snitch, someone is going they’re gonna get you on a room and they’re gonna put the light on you, and Courtney’s gonna spill everything, you know, whatever,

Courtney Doctor
or then if you threaten to take my life, yeah, I don’t tell the truth on your story. Yes, you better bet I’m gonna tell the truth on your story, right? I mean, I’m not gonna get beheaded, I’m not going to get crucified, maybe upside down. I’m not going to, I mean, I’m, it’s not worth it. That’s right for me to protect your story anymore, and that’s, that’s what we see play out, is these men lost their lives,

Melissa Kruger
and every one of them pre crucifixion, they tell us, yeah, they hid, and they all scattered, yes. So something happened, something happened. So we went from men who were like, I am not with that guy who loved him, but Peter denied him three times. How do you get that guy to then become a writer of these epistles, a church father and allow but die for his faith? There’s something going on in this book that doesn’t. Makes sense, if it’s all a lie. So yeah.

Courtney Doctor
And the other part that I really love, and I’ve heard people refer to it in this way before, is the way God calls his shot over and over and over again throughout. I mean from the beginning. I mean from the from even Genesis 315, right? That when he steps on the scene after after the fall, after the sin, and He says, you know, this is what I’m gonna do, like, I’m gonna send, it’s very specific. I’m going to send an offspring. I’m going to send a child. And then it’s he the singular male offspring, Genesis 315 I’m going to send a singular male offspring who will crush the head of the enemy. Yeah. And so he’s just calling a shot over and over. But my favorite one is in Genesis 15, where he’s talking to Abraham. This is so early in the story, and we haven’t even talked about the fact that it is a story, which I think is important, because it’s progressive revelation, like any story is. But where he says this, starting in verse 13, he’s like, know this for certain, your offspring will be res again, the details like you were saying, your offspring will be resident aliens for 400 years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will just promise, my promise. This is my promise. You’re gonna be, yeah, you’re gonna be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. It’s so specific. And then I will judge them, and afterwards they will go out with many possessions and it just and then he’s like, but you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age well ever and all of it, right? It’s down to the smallest detail. It’s true. That’s what happened. And nobody can call their shot 400 years down the line, except the one who transcends time and the one who holds it all together and so, so even that throughout, throughout the story, is just such a powerful testimony to the power of our God, but the truth of His Word. Well,

Melissa Kruger
so let me ask you that question, how does what you read in the Old Testament and make you believe what’s in the New Testament. Even more so because, because I think what’s really interesting the more I read, I’m more convinced. And you know, because, look, I can get that one guy can make up a story. So what we believe is that men were inspired through the Holy Spirit, carried along by the Spirit, carried along by the Spirit. The Catechism says, who wrote the Bible, holy men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. And here’s the thing I get that like if the three of us wanted to write a story, you could do the beginning, you could do the middle, and I could do the end, because we’re going to all sit down, we’re going to chit chat. Here’s the plot line that’s going to take and all that they didn’t talk to each other. These, these, you know, it was hundreds and hundreds of years in between these stories, and yet, they’re all telling the same story. So tell me how, how do what we see in the Old Testament? Because it can feel like, well, those are just random stories. You’ve got no with a little ark, and we got Moses happening. How did those stories correspond with what happens in the New Testament?

Vanessa Hawkins
Oh, my goodness, there’s so much beautiful overlap. And particularly, I think I go to the prophets. I just love the prophets. But I think Isaiah, some seven, 800 years prior to Jesus, predicts his birth. I mean, who could do that, but God, I mean, and so as you read and then, and even in his talking about the suffering servant, how he would die, he talks about his birth, and he talks about his crucifixion.

Melissa Kruger
And can I say something about this? Yes, crucifixion wasn’t invented when Isaiah prophesied, yes, but when you read

Vanessa Hawkins
it, yes, yes, more like beyond human recognition, he’s describing his crucifixion as a suffering servant. And so as As you read, even reading critically, and I invite people read, read Scripture critically, you don’t have to throw your brain out the window to read. It does have it does help to have some good rules for reading and some good practices, so that you understand how to approach the various genres of Scripture. You’re going to have much different rules for reading the book of Isaiah than you have for reading the Psalms. You know, there are different genres with different you know, you know rules for reading, but it’s just clear these some of the predictions, particularly like that, that one that I’m mentioning, Isaiah, predicting the birth of Christ, and then also his, his horrible crucifixion is powerful, beautiful and compelling. Y’all

Melissa Kruger
taught y’all use the word genre a couple of times. What do you mean by genre and how? Give me a few of the genres of Scripture. Well,

Courtney Doctor
type of literature, and we sort of intuitively know we’re going to read an email differently than we would read an instruction manual. Or, you know, those are different genres,

Unknown Speaker
right, right? Well,

Courtney Doctor
the thing I love about the genre, the type of literature. Is that there is one, one genre that that rides over all of them so, so at its core, the entire Bible is narrative. It is a story from beginning to end, has a main character, it has a plot line. Has a glorious conclusion. It has all the parts of a good story has an introduction where the characters and the setting are introduced. It has a conflict, the thing that’s going to be you need to be resolved. And it has a great climax, or high point where the conflict is resolved, and then it has a glorious conclusion, where we’re given a glimpse of what the world looks like when all is finally made right again. And so it is narrative, and understanding that it’s narrative helps us understand how to read it, because we read any story, knowing that we are learning more about the characters as the story progresses. And so we have we call this progressive revelation, and we know more about God at the end of the story than we knew at the beginning, which helps us be good readers, because we are going to be. We’re not Abraham, right? We, we can. We can receive a commandment from Paul, much in a much more direct line than we would say something God said to Abraham because of where we are in the story. But then, like you were saying, there are other genres, there’s prophecy, there’s poetry, there’s historical narrative, there’s Gospel accounts, there’s apocalyptic but the reality is they all fit into the greater story. And so we intuitively know that I love to talk about the book of severe mercy. It’s a it’s a fabulous book written by a man named Sheldon vonakin. It’s it’s the account of his wife and her illness. But in this narrative account, this historically accurate narrative account, he receives letters from CS Lewis, and you read the letters in the story, well, you don’t wonder what they have to do with the story. You understand that they are actually furthering the storyline. They’re adding dimension to the storyline. And so even the epistles, I didn’t talk about that, but the letters in the New Testament, those are not taken out of the story, but they’re part of the story, and the Psalms are part of the story. And so learning to read those as such actually helps us be more faithful readers,

Melissa Kruger
absolutely. And so you have texts that are describing what is happening, and yet you have texts that are prescribing how to live. And so that can be really tricky, right? So we don’t look at David’s actions, right and say, Oh, I should be like, David and have many wives, right? Right? Yeah. It’s like, oh, this is actually describing, hey, when you live like this, guess what’s not gonna go very well for you, right? So a lot of the Old Testament is descriptive, not prescriptive, exactly where a lot of what we have in Paul’s letters, which makes sense. He’s a church father writing to churches, telling them, Hey, this is what life like by the spirit looks like, right? So he’s writing differently. So it does look different, you know, I mean, but

Courtney Doctor
he’s even grounding all of those in the rest of the story that’s come before. He’s explaining what Jesus came and did in light of the fulfillment of all the things in the Old Testament. Yes, not just, it’s not like you can pick up the story. I tell people all the time. The story did not begin in a manger, and the story did not begin at the cross? No, yeah.

Melissa Kruger
So if someone is coming into this story and they’re like, I hear what you’re saying, I’m not sure i i am not sure I believe. What if someone is having doubts about the Bible, get maybe they believe? Well, if it’s true, I don’t like that God, because there’s a look, there are hard stories in the Bible, sure, like we can talk about, you know, it’s this great story and things, but in that story, you get really uncomfortable when I read certain parts and I get in them, and then, you know, you get to Leviticus, and there is a lot of blood being shed, and I’m like, what’s happening? And we, start knowing, hey, that’s that scapegoat, but they’re talking about Leviticus. It’s going to play a role. You know, we start seeing it. What do you say to someone who’s just like, I don’t I don’t like this book, I don’t like what’s I don’t like, how it’s telling me live, it doesn’t seem relevant. How do we talk with people who are doubting whether this ancient book has any place in their lives, I

Vanessa Hawkins
think a lot of the disenfranchisement can be I don’t really understand what I’m reading, and so reading along with someone is is a great way to do that, so that they can actually see how it is active In your life, and then just inviting people to give. You know, I usually invite people to give, particularly if you’re a skeptic about Scripture. Give the gospel a read. Give pick a gospel, give it a read. And I usually give people John, but give the gospel a read, and then let’s, let’s, let’s meet and chat. Mm. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about where those sticking points are for you. Yeah, and so that those are some practical things that I do that’s

Courtney Doctor
really good at. And I would say that to remind anybody listening that struggling with doubt, that your doubt does not mean you’re an unbeliever. No, your doubt actually, I know I’m walking with somebody right now, who, who desperately hates the doubt and and wants to believe, and I’m like unbelievers, don’t want to Well, don’t want to believe. Don’t want this to be easy. And so, so look at how Jesus responded to Thomas. He had doubts, and Jesus didn’t say, Get away from me. He said, Come closer. Come closer. Let me. Let me walk with you through this. And so don’t let your doubts be something that either your doubts in the Word of God make you doubt the fact whether or not you’re an actual believer or not. And so So draw near wrestle through the doubts. I think what you said, Vanessa, in the word and with God, we have examples of people saying, I believe, help my unbelief. And I think that’s the posture that we go through life with. I believe, help me. Help me believe more. Help me understand more. And draw near to the Word of God. Let it. We know experientially and by faith, we know that the word of God is living and active and it will do the work itself. And so God and His Word are so much bigger than our doubts and our questions and our fears. And so come to the word and and let it do what only it can do. That’s

Melissa Kruger
right. Yeah, that’s right. I do think there’s a tendency when we doubt to start reading everything that feeds our doubt. Yeah, yeah. Because we want to make sure. And let’s be honest, we all want to make sure we’re not brainwashed. I don’t know. I think, I think we’ve all woken up one day and said, I’m kind of spending my whole life on this. Is it worth? Is this? Is this right? Because that is exactly what God’s word asked you to do. Right? Yes, right. I mean, Jesus said, you know, the wise man heard these words, and he built his home on this and you know, when the winds and rain came, the house stood firm. Okay? So, yeah, whoever hears my words and does these things puts them into practice. He’s like that wise man. He is actually asking us. He’s not asking just to intellectually assent. He is asking us to build our whole life on it. So I always want to say it’s really good to question before you start building. I mean, that’s not a that’s not a bad thing. Costs, right? Yeah, but, and so my thing is always read it, which is what you are both saying, read it and read it thoughtfully, and ask good questions, and read it with someone so you can ask those questions. And here’s what I believe you’ll see. I believe you’re gonna see it’s beautiful. That’s the first thing. I think you’re gonna look at it and you’re gonna start seeing this, this harmony that we talked about. So beauty, harmony and power. It’s beautiful in that it does seem to explain the way the world works, huh? This is why sin is here. It answers that question. I sin? It answers that question. I desperately know I don’t I want to live differently. I know there’s a better story out there. It points you to a story. Yeah, so there’s something beautiful in what it’s pointing to, and yet it’s uniform. Somehow that, to me, is the miracle of Scripture. You know, it’s talking about things way back here in Exodus that really go with what Jesus is saying, you know, 1000s of years later and then. But the main thing I always say is it’s powerful. It’s the most dangerous book you can read, and that’s exactly why Satan done while you read it. It is completely dangerous, because it will change your life, you know. And it has the power to convict, you know, to divide. It has power that my words don’t have, that this our words on this podcast don’t have. And so it really is reading is believing, right? And so I always encourage people don’t sit in your doubts and just let them fester. Actually read the book, yes, and that, you know, read it, take everything you got at it,

Vanessa Hawkins
yeah, and bring them to the Lord. One of the, one of the things with my children, in particular, when they’ve had crisis of faith, when they’ve said, I’m not sure I believe this, because and I can remember my own crisis of faith, everything that I have is what I have received from, you know, someone else’s beliefs. Do I really believe this? If I grew up in another family, would this be my belief system? And so when my children came to me with those questions, what I would say to them was good. Now you’re about to make your faith your own. Now. No, because here’s the thing, the Lord is able to stand up to your questions the veracity. I’m so certain of the veracity of Scripture that you can road test it. It’s good. It’s good. And so when you test it now, you’re putting yourself in a position to see that the Lord is exactly who he says. And so it’s a good question. That’s good that

Courtney Doctor
he wants to be known. Yeah, his self revelation, meaning we do not discover God. Yeah, he reveals himself. He wants to be known. And he has said here, yeah, give you, give you my words, yeah, that you can know me.

Melissa Kruger
So that’s the prayer, open the eyes of my heart. I mean, open the eyes of my heart. Yeah, that I may see you if this is true. I mean, if it’s true, then you’re actually praying to a real God, yes, if it’s true, will you open my heart so I can see the wondrous things in your law, right? Yeah, we can start with that prayer. If someone is doubting. You know, we say start with scripture. Actually read it. Read it with a friend, talk to your pastor about it. Are there any books you point people to that really can kind of help? There are different types of doubt. Yeah. So some are doubts about, hey, my life hasn’t gone the way I thought it would, and so now I just trust what’s here. Yeah. Are there any books that you point people to? But some are doubts about the Scriptures themselves. Some are doubts about is Christianity good for the world? You know, are there any books that y’all like to recommend to people?

Vanessa Hawkins
One that I’ve recommended lately has been reading the Bible for all it’s worth that’s been a Doug steward

Courtney Doctor
and Gordon Fee, yeah, yeah. Well, I think what ended up helping me the most, not necessarily doubt, is not something that I have struggled a lot with. And I will say, the other grandparent of one of my grandchildren one time prayed for him, and he said, please give this child faith early and make it easy. And I love that. I’ve been praying that ever since, because what a gift that would be to have easy faith. And in some ways, the Lord has given that to me, but But at one thing he’s done to increase my trust in His Word is really show me the consistency of the story and the way it does play out. And so any of those books I love, I always want to say Bruno Mars, but it’s Chris Bruno 16 words. And you know, 16 words or 16 verses, those are slightly different, whatever, exactly, exactly. Nancy Guthrie has done great work in biblical theology. I’ve written a book called from the glory. Elizabeth Woodson has written a Bible study from beginning to forever. There are different places that we can we can understand the story. But that has been something that has been really helpful for me.

Melissa Kruger
Those are good. So if you want to understand what is the story of the Bible, those are great resources. And it sounds like what was the one you said reading the Bible for all it’s worth, and what’s that one getting at? Primarily, if someone it gets

Vanessa Hawkins
into the genres and gets into how to read Excellent, excellent.

Melissa Kruger
And if you’re looking for books that might help you understand the formation of the canon and all that, I actually recommend a lay level. My husband’s book, Surviving religion, 101, it sounds like it’s for college students, but it’s, that’s what he wrote it for. But it’s really it’s just a lay level explanation of a lot of the questions we’ve been talking about here and on his website. Yes, that’s right, right? Yes, cannon fodder. Maybe it’s academic, but, you know, yeah, yeah. But he, he’s pretty good. He’s pretty good at bringing it down to my level, yeah, but

Courtney Doctor
that’s his, that is, that is my Kruger specialty, yes, yes, the cannon, yes, that’s right. So it’s, it’s a good

Melissa Kruger
right? I know I married someone who could answer all my questions, because I had a lot of them

Vanessa Hawkins
convenient for you. Yeah, exactly,

Melissa Kruger
but, but I think it is really helpful to know here’s, here’s one thing. He always says, it’s, it’s actually okay that there are questions and doubts out there, and he always just wants to reassure people, especially younger people. There are people who have done the research, and there really are answers. No one’s hiding it, right? Like, like, there really are answers out there, and people want to help, you know, whereas other traditions, I think they are hiding, I mean, things that aren’t Christianity, they don’t want to talk about where their books came from, right? Whereas Christians really do, because they’re they’re pretty secure in the historical accuracy of these texts. The texts that we have are the ones that you know were written in the first century and things like that. But all of these things play a part.

Vanessa Hawkins
They do. And I’m going to say, and I know that this could be difficult, particularly if you have doubts, but just even a heart posture when you’re approaching the text, if you could try to approach it suspending the disbelief for just a bit, if you could try to cooperatively read with the reader, with the with the with the writer. Yeah. And then here’s the thing, even if you don’t believe God is real, if you can say God, if you are Yeah, would you show me, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just think that that’s a great place to start. Yeah. He loves to answer that, yeah. It’s a great place to

Melissa Kruger
start. I think that we can all say the word has been such an impact in all of our lives, not just in knowing God, but walking with them every day. It’s not, it’s not something, it’s not just this intellectual this is going to teach me who God is. This is actually relationally, you know, the way we get to meet with God, because the word is living and active. So it’s not like other books. You know, if you read a historical book about Abe Lincoln, it’s not living and active, but the word actually says it’s living and active. We’re actually getting to meet with God. In this book, he’s coming to meet with us. He’s still speaking through his Word to us each day. And so that’s the invitation of God’s Word. And so we hope that you’ll take that invitation. It’s been such a great conversation. Thanks, thanks for going into these deep places with us, and thanks for joining us for the deep dish. Oh, I haven’t asked yet our deep dish question for the day. So Vanessa, what do I have for you? We just spent this episode talking about the reliability of the Bible, which has lots of good advice, but we have also received good advice from others. Yeah? So let me ask you this, is there any piece of non spiritual advice that you’ve received from someone else that you go back to on a regular basis? You’re like, that was helpful? Yeah? Yeah.

Vanessa Hawkins
I’m reading Howard Thurman right now, and he’s he’s rocking my world. But one of the things that he says, that I think is really good wisdom. He says, Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask, what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have

Melissa Kruger
come alive Say that again. You gotta say that again. He says,

Vanessa Hawkins
Ask what the world needs. Ask, what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And as you’re talking about Scripture is alive and active. That Scripture is alive and active, and it lives in me, and it has made me alive. And so for those of you who are having those doubts, know that it is alive and active, but it is alive in me, and I have committed my life to this word, that’s right, and I, I intend to let it burn its way out of me. You know, all the days of my life

Melissa Kruger
Amen. And maybe that’s all of our testimony. We’re like those 12 Disciples, and we say this is worth our lives, and we’ll run forward in that and keep having, keep having deep dish conversations over deep dish pizza,

Vanessa Hawkins
and we hope the only way to

Melissa Kruger
have exactly so. Thanks for joining us. We hope you’ll have deep conversations in your own life. Come and talk to us. Interact with us. If you want to find some of these books, we’ll have books, we’ll have them listed in show notes. We’d love to hear more from you all, wherever you’re listening, come join us, and we hope you’ll join us next time for the deep dish.