By Pastor David Kalamen

      I think that all of us are aware that we are living in a culture that is constantly morphing, and almost always, moving away from historically held beliefs and values that we as Christians hold dear. There are mounting pressures being placed upon Christians, and the Church, to adjust their belief systems to ever-changing ideas of reality. Educational systems, political parties, legislation, and changing cultural norms: they all play a role in trying to whitewash Christianity from our history, our culture, our families, our churches and our future.

      As Christians, we are exhorted, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking” (Rom 12:2, Msg). The warning is clear: unthinking adoption of secularized beliefs and values, unvetted by the Word of God, will eventually lead to the Church “being taken captive” by an ungodly and unlawful counterculture. Ultimately, we fail to light up and salt up society and lose the force of our faith (Col 2:8).

      We are called upon in scripture to confront and dislodge every idea that does not align itself with a Biblical worldview. The challenge the Canadian Church is facing today is that few who attend have a Biblical worldview, meaning “a framework of ideas and beliefs, derived from the Bible, through which we interpret the world and interact with it” (Craig Thompson, A Biblical Worldview or a Worldly View of the Bible – CraigThompson.org).

      Worldview matters and everyone has one. For example: If you don’t believe in a Creator, it will lead to a belief system that says we are independent, alone, self-made, unaccountable, that life is random, that we are here by chance, that moral decisions are subjective, and based upon my opinion of what is right or wrong.

If you do believe that there is a Creator, it leads to a belief system that says we are created for relationship, that we are not alone, that we are here by choice, that we are known, that our life has meaning and significance, and, ultimately, we are accountable to Someone greater than ourselves for how we live it.

      The key to developing a Biblical worldview is our trust and confidence in the authenticity, and therefore, the authority of the Bible. Unfortunately, there is a high level of Biblical illiteracy in the Church, and with that lack of knowledge, a generation is perishing as they have few answers to give to the world for the faith that lies within them. They have an experience without critical intelligence. An experience can go a long way and is critical to faith, but like Daniel, we need a spiritual brilliance that closes the mouths of the wise in the ways of the world.

      A worldly view of the Bible claims that the Bible is a book written by men, that the Bible is open to wide interpretation, that its relevance should change with cultural shifts, and that people should be able to customize and personalize their faith by selectively drawing their own conclusions.

      Almost every nation has gone through a season of questioning their Constitution. There are constitutionalists, and originalists, who believe the Constitution, the thinking of the Founders, was important. Others believe that the Constitution has had its time and needs to be rewritten or even abolished. That same spirit is in the Church. The only difference is that Christians do not believe man wrote our Constitution, the Bible. The battle then in trying to replace it or change it becomes a spiritual one, with God and not with man.

      The Bible makes a claim on divine inspiration: “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word, we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us” (2 Timothy 3:15-17, Msg). Inspiration means, “God breathed, divine, unerring in truth from God.” Men, under the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit, wrote what we have today in the Bible (2 Pet 1:20-21).

      There are some who claim that the Bible contains the Word of God rather than is the Word of God. They say this so that they can justify their right to customize scripture to their own liking, and ultimately, to create their own private version of Christianity. For these people the Bible must be authenticated to have authority, so let’s authenticate. Josh McDowell, in his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, says that the overarching unity behind the Bible’s creation is evidence of its divine origin: “The Bible is unique in its continuity: it was written over a 1600-year span, over 60 generations, by 40 different authors, covering every walk of life, in different places, in different times, during different moods, on three continents, and three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, including hundreds of controversial subjects and it is all a unified body of data. Just challenge 10 authors all from one walk of life, one family, one generation, one place, one time, with one mood and language, addressing one controversial subject, and see if you don’t have difficulty coming into agreement.”

      There is more manuscript evidence for the Bible than there is for any ancient classical literature combined. Yet, no book’s authenticity has ever been attacked like the Bible: “Its demise has been promoted, the funeral procession formed, inscriptions cut into tombstones, and the committal read, but somehow the corpse never stays put.”

      The Bible has survived persecution. In A.D. 303, Emperor Diocletian issued an edict to destroy Christians, their churches and their Bibles. Churches were raised to the ground, citizens were deprived of their civil liberties, and manuscripts were destroyed, but within 25 years, Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to prepare 50 copies of the Bible at the expense of the Roman government.

      Voltaire, a French agnostic who died in 1778, stated that within 100 years Christianity and the Bible would be swept from existence. Voltaire passed into history, but within 50 years of his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles. If every one of the 6000 remaining ancient Biblical manuscripts were destroyed, it could still be put back together from the shelves of our public libraries.

      The Bible has long been the world’s best-selling book. More than 100 million copies are printed each year. That’s a lot of eyes on one Book. With all of that said though, “why would a person base their entire life on the teachings of a Book if they did not know for certain that Book was inspired by an all-knowing Creator God?” The answer is that one should not do so unless what is within can be authenticated. Well, how do we know that what we have today is an accurate rendering? One of the greatest pieces of evidence to the Bible’s authenticity came in the 1940s when a Bedouin shepherd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls preserved in jars in caves which contained fragments from every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther. These Scrolls took linguistic scholars back 300 years before Christ and over a millennium earlier than their earliest copies of the Old Testament. Coincidentally, when those fragments were translated, it confirmed that Bible portions had been accurately preserved and transmitted.

      One of the strongest arguments for inspiration and authenticity is the many illustrations of fulfilled prophecy. For example, there are over 300 specific prophecies regarding the coming of Jesus Christ, direct references regarding His place of birth, lineage, message, ministry, and even death, all written at least 400 years prior to His coming. For eight of those prophecies to be fulfilled the statistical possibility becomes 1 to the power of 10 to the power of 17. This means that one could cover the state of Texas one foot deep in silver dollars and have but one chance to pick the right silver dollar out of their midst.

      Our faith in the Bible’s authenticity is not blind faith. The more science questions, and the more archeologists dig, the more of scripture is authenticated. Reason would tell us that God would have wanted to leave humanity with a written legacy that would convince us of divine authenticity.

      Hebrews 1:1-2 says: “Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son” (Msg). Christ came and throughout His ministry, He verbally testified to the authenticity of scripture. If it was good enough for Him, it is good enough for me. 

      Christians trust the reliability of the Bible because they consider it divinely inspired, they find overwhelming historical evidence supporting its claims, they see the internal written consistency expressed by its authors, they see Christ’s affirmation of the Old Testament writings, and they have personal testimony to the powerful and positive impact living by the truth has made on their lives. The Bible has undergone rigorous scientific textual analysis, more than any other ancient book, and has been authenticated in every way.

      This leads all of us to having to make one choice. Are we going to obey His Word or are we going to customize it to our own opinions? Are we going to yield to God’s Word or to the world’s pressure to constantly shift and conform? Are we going to permit the Word of God to establish our worldview or are we going to allow the world to undermine our view of His Word?

      That must be answered for your spiritual well-being, and for the Church of Canada’s well-being. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Thinking defines us. What we allow to influence our thinking defines our lives and the future. It has collateral impact on all around us. If the Bible is our standard for decision-making, I believe, all will be well. If not, all of society around us will not stand and every foundation will be undermined.