Fundamentals

God and the Bible

19th July 2005, sjh

This Article: (4 Pages)

1) Why learn about this?

There is good evidence to show that there is a God in our universe who is supremely powerful over the Earth. The consequences of this are far-reaching, and make it compelling to at least learn about this God and see how it could affect our lives.

The Holy Bible is connected to God as being the source of information about God, and also as his message to humanity. As such, it forms an important piece in this process of understanding who God is, and what he means to us.

The Kingdom

At a personal level, the Bible contains a big message for everyone. That is the message of the “Kingdom of God”. It is about something that is going to happen on the Earth in the future, and parts of the Bible describe for us what events will occur at that time. It is like a history told in advance.

This kingdom will redefine the face of the world and is going to offer a world without evil, and an endless life for people who take the time to find out about God. A well known quotation emphasises the world peace of that time:

Micah 4:3: they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. KJV

A sculpture depicting “Let Us Beat Our Swords into Ploughshares” appears outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York symbolising the efforts of that organisation, but the goal of a peaceful and prosperous world has constantly eluded the governments. The Bible shows that it will happen, but only through the intervention of God.

Not only does the message of the Bible include the peace of the world, but also something individual. It describes a resurrection from the dead, where those people who have been faithful to God and died will be raised to life again in this kingdom time. So it is not something that is far-off and irrelevant now, but rather something that has a direct meaning to everyone.

Christ

Two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus lived in Israel and spoke of this kingdom of God. He was called “the Christ”, which has a meaning of “saviour”. He came to offer a way for people to be saved from death and overcome the problems in life. Some of his message was,

Matthew 11:28: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." WEB

The basis of Jesus' message was that he was the son of the one true God, and that by believing in him and following in the commands of God, that great benefits could be obtained. One of these was forgiveness from God, which opens the way into entering the Kingdom of God when it is fully established.

The Bible is clear on saying that this way though Jesus was unique, and the only way to have a part in the reward and eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Jesus said,

John 14:6: ... "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. WEB

This makes Jesus a very important person, and certainly worth learning more about who he was, what he did, and what the promises were that God gave through him. The pages of the Bible reveal that to us.

Added Value To Life

Although the central message of Jesus was about the coming Kingdom and a better world, there is also something relevant to life here and now. For one thing, it gives an answer to the age-old question of “what is the meaning of life?”. By understanding who God is, and if you can relate to him, much of the uncertainty about life can be resolved. It means we know who we are, why we are here, and what we should be doing.

The result of this is the opportunity for a happy and peaceful life that doesn't require wealth or status.

2) What is the Bible About?

The Bible is a compilation of writings that have come from many different periods in history. They are united together in the claim that their writing was directed by God. This God is a being that has power over the Earth and the lives of people. He is claimed to be a real living God with great power over the world, and essentially the true ruler of the world. Just one example is in the famous “10 commandments” passage:

Exodus 20:1: God spoke all these words, saying, 2 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourselves an idol... WEB

So here the writer is claiming to be speaking the words of an authoritative God. The Bible makes no apologies for being dictatorial, and instead claims the exclusive right to be that way. Thus the compilation of books in the Bible is considered to be the words of God to people.

An Overview

The content of the Bible itself was written down over the period 1250BC through to about 100AD. Through that period of time, many different people wrote sections of text that were later put into the compilation. Despite the span of time and the various writers, the message that is contained in the various sections is coherent, and this in itself is an indicator that there is more to this book than just the ideas of humans.

Through its pages, the Bible details a number of areas:

An account of a history.
Knowledge about God.
Knowledge of a Future Glory.
A way of “salvation”.
Description of a set of morals.
The Meaning of life.

Although often only thought of as a religious work, the Bible also contains an account of history. The history mainly covers the nation of Israel and the Middle-East through the time period of 1000BC through to 400BC, and extends beyond that in places. It is unquestionably a very old book and reveals events that reach a long time back into history

On account of it's age, the Bible tells us of history, but it can also tell us of things that are still in the future. It does this through its predictions, which are a form of “prophecy”. These are sections that describe things that would happen on the Earth at some future time. One theme of those prophecies is that there is to be a future Kingdom on this earth where the problems and sufferings that we have now will stop, and people will live in peace.

Not only does the Bible prophesy that this Kingdom will appear, but also that there is a way to become a part of it. It introduces the two concepts of “salvation” and “resurrection”. The salvation is the means to be saved from the condemnation that results from our present failures before God. The Bible also speaks of a resurrection, where people will be raised from the dead to be able to participate in this future Kingdom.

The Bible also contains numerous laws and moral codes. These are presented the laws and standards of behaviour dictated by God for the people of the earth. Many people feel that these are good moral standards for people to live by, but if this book is truly the words of an all-powerful God, they are also the only true morals that we can live by.

The Old Testament

There are two main sections of the Bible. There is first the “Old Testament”, which is the older section, and was written through the period 1250BC to about 400BC. This formed the book of scriptures for the Jewish people. It is primarily about the ancient nation of Israel, and includes sections of law and history that have been important to the Jewish people for a long time. It was written in the Hebrew language, and has been meticulously preserved by the Jewish people over the centuries.

The New Testament

The New Testament is quite different to the Old Testament. It was written over a comparatively short time, approximately spanning the years 50 to 100AD. It details the life of Jesus Christ, his teachings, and the early Christian movement. It starts with a number of books that are largely written as a historical narrative, and then includes a series of letters written to various Christian groups and individuals. These describe the teachings of God, and many practical guidelines of how life should be lived.

3) Starting With Christianity

For someone with little background in religion, learning about God or the Bible can be a rather daunting task. The Bible is a large book and people can spend a lifetime studying it, and still keep learning new things from it. So when first approaching you have to be patient and not have too great expectations on yourself.

One first step is to start by reading a section of the Bible, but conscious of the fact that you may not understand all of what it is about initially. Because things are so much interconnected, full understanding of one part can only come after first understanding other sections. So the first objective is to find the big picture and then later resolve the details in your mind.

Church

When people think of God often they will see that as something that happens at a church, but church is just one aspect of Christian life. A church is simply a group of followers of God who have associated together to help each other relate to God. You don't need a church to take part in God's promises, reward and forgiveness, but interacting with a group can make the road easier.

4) Is God Real?

If the Bible is true, then it offers a great opportunity, but one must ask whether it really came from a God with the power to carry it out. For thousands of years different civilisations have believed in a God or gods that had powers beyond what humans could achieve. There is good reason for this, because there are a lot of strange and wonderful things about the world that we as humans can barely begin to grasp, yet bear the hallmark of order and intelligence.

Evidence in Nature

In the Bible, it states that God has revealed himself to people by the things that have been made, and that the signature of his power can be seen there,

Romans 1:19: because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. 20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; WEB

When we look to the world we live in, the elegance in the design of nature argues for a creator behind it. There are many complex interactions between different living things that humans still only understand a small part of.

In recent years, the Theory of Evolution has been offered as an alternative explanation for the creation of the world in the absence of a god. Although it creates a potentially plausible mechanism, if it were the only designer, the world would represent the results of many amazing coincidences

As an example, Cephalopod molluscs like the octopus have an eye that is geometrically similar to that found on vertebrates, like humans. However, the actual receptor construction is the reverse and there is no plausible mechanism for one to develop from the other via Evolution. So this would mean that the eye not only developed once by chance, but also a second time independently, but yet arrived at strikingly similar design components in terms of the cornea and lens.

It is perhaps plausable that the eye developed by chance once, but to have it independently develop many times, and each with common elements of design is just asking too much of the evolutionary theory. There is something more than just that behind our world.