There are lots of reasons someone may give for why they won't believe in Jesus. In the book, A LIFE THAT MATTERS, we cover several of the major "roadblocks," and how to address them in your personal conversations.
Of course there are numerous roadblocks, and reasons people give to not choose Jesus. This is designed to tackle a few of the other common reasons people give to not chose Jesus.
ROADBLOCK: The Bible can't be trusted
Many people don't believe in the authority of the Bible.
I was told about a recent conversation between a believing daughter, and her lost father, who is dying from a terminal illness. She wrote this to me in an email:
Well, I talked to my dad this morning, and he is very hard and unmoving. He says he "feels God more" because of "everyone's love and attention" but doesn't believe anything happens when you die - it's purely a physical death and that's it. He told me, "People don't have souls." His biggest issue? For years he has listened to and read tons of very heretical criticisms of the Bible. And because of that, he just won't choose Jesus.
(Later, I'll show more of how this conversation progressed...)
Often, as believers, we just want to quote the Bible as a reason to choose Jesus. But what do you do when they argue against the Bible itself as a reason not to believe?
SUGGEST: JUST CONSIDER THE BIBLE
Over the years I've found that it's not necessarily all that effective or necessary to provide twenty points to prove that the Bible is the Word of God. We'll touch on that in a minute, but I feel like we need to get people to listen to is what the Bible says about a relationship with God. You can ask them the question, "Has anybody ever shown you what the Bible has to say about a relationship with God and what it takes to have one?"
Now that's all you're asking them to do is to consider what the Bible says. They may say, "Well, I don't know. I don't believe the Bible. I don't trust the Bible." And what I have found is that if we can just get them to consider the Bible, God's word has the potential to reveal the Truth their heart ultimately longs for. God's Word is powerful - it is the sword of the Spirit.
THE BIBLE IS A BEST - SELLER
I've told people, "You know, obviously if we're looking for answers, the Bible has to be one place to look, because here it is the bestselling book year after year. We see bestsellers come and go, but for ever since they've been registering best - sellers, more Bibles are sold than any other book in the world in the history of the planet. And obviously there's got to be something there to check out."
THE BIBLE IS THE MOST PEOPLE - HELPING BOOK IN HISTORY
Not only the best selling, but also the most people - helping book in the history of the planet. There's no book that more people have gone to in times of difficulty, in times of confusion; a place they've gone for answers than to the Bible. There's an instinctive sense that in a hard time there's something to check out there.
We can establish the cultural authority of the Bible that because it's a bestseller, because it's the great people - helper, wouldn't it be good to at least know what it says on the important issues of life? The goal is to get people to consider the Bible. We don't necessarily have to get into a big argument about the authority of Scripture because it will not be their belief about the authority of the Scripture that determines their eternity. It will be their belief about the authority of Jesus Christ to forgive their sins.
Next visit, we will continue to explore more answering the significant roadblock, "The Bible can't be trusted..."
ROADBLOCK: The Bible can't be trusted - PART 2 of 3
"Based on what?"
One of the important issues within our world of spiritual buffet of ideas floating around is "what do we know is true?" When asked to believe something, my question always is "based on what?" That three - word question is very important. Well, that's nice you believe God lives on a fuzzy pink cloud, or you believe that cotton candy can give us spiritual revelation. The question is "based on what?"
Some may say, "Well, I believe that in this spiritual vibe," or "I believe in this particular bestselling author." So I ask, "based on what?" What are these ideas based on? Truth has to be absolute or it isn't truth. It can't keep moving around. Two and two can't be four, five and six. Our entire space program is based on the fact that there are laws that never change. There is a law of gravity. There are laws of thermodynamics. They will always be true. They're not sometimes true and sometimes not. Truth is absolute.
What does FAITH have to do with it?
The Bible claims to be over and over again that it is a book God wrote. Its authors claim that this is God speaking. 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, and many places in the Bible ascribe divine authorship to God. We can't prove that. Some people think that faith is a blind leap. There's something you might believe in and you just jump and say, "I don't have any reason to believe this except faith." Actually that's not what the Bible talks about as faith.
The Bible's faith is this. You go as far as the evidence will take you. Go in the direction the evidence is pointing. There's a lot of evidence. That's the beauty of what Jesus has given us, and the Bible has given us. It's based on historically verifiable events. It's hard to verify a philosophy; it's hard to verify a theology; it's hard to verify ideas, but you can verify ideas that are based on things that are either historical reality or not. So we look at the evidence and go as far as the evidence takes you, and the evidence won't get you all the way there. At the point where the evidence leaves off, you go the rest of the way by faith to the object to which the evidence seems to be pointing.
That's how it is with belief in the Bible. We weren't there when God worked in the hearts of human beings to inspire the writing of it, so can we prove it? No. But we sure can look at the evidence and see which way the evidence is pointing. And so, you look at some of the evidences.
THE BIBLE IS CONSISTENT: The Bible is amazingly consistent. It was written by 40 different authors over 1,600 years. You have all kinds of authors: shepherds, kings, fishermen, a tax collector, doctor, and more. But when you look at its ideas about God, and sin, and eternity, morality, it reads like one author...because there was. Most of these men didn't know each other.
What If you were to get together 40 different people from the same city today, from the same generation and ask them to write down their ideas about God, and sin, and eternity, morality. What kind of consistency do you think you'd get when you collected their ideas? It would be a stew of ideas. Here we have people from many different backgrounds, many different political systems, many different occupations over 1,600 years who end up saying the same things in their own way, through their own personalities. The evidences of a unity of authorship are abundant throughout the Bible.
THE BIBLE IS ACCURATE HISTORY: You look at the fact that history has continued to validate the Bible. People assume the stories in the Bible are only myths.
For example, a number of years ago the Hittites were thought to be only an invention of the Bible. And then the archeologists discovered the great Hittite Empire, which is studied about in World History. Well, again, they turned up the spade and the archeologists shovel validated the history of the Bible.
There have been great questions about whether Pontius Pilot ever existed - the Governor of whom Jesus was tried - until the archeologists found the remains of the Amphitheater at Caesarea Philippi and on the cornerstone is Pontius Pilot, the Governor who was there when it was built.
Over and over again, there are numerous, countless examples of where the archeologist has discovered that which validates the history of the Bible. The people who wrote the four Gospels, who recorded the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, people say, "Wait, wait, wait. Those don't count because they are in the Bible." Well, hold it a second. These men wrote history, and either that history is being validated or invalidated.
There has never been a discovery by an archeologist that did anything but verify historical statements written by the writers of the four Gospels. If everything they have written that can be validated has been validated up to this point, do we assume the rest is true or not true?
William Albright, one of the pioneering, great archeologists said,
"Nothing has been found [by archaeologists] to disturb a reasonable faith, and nothing has been discovered which can disprove a single theological doctrine. We no longer trouble ourselves with attempts to 'harmonize' religion and science, or to 'prove' the Bible. The Bible can stand for itself." - Dr. William F. Albright, eminent archeologist who confirmed the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls following their discovery.
ROADBLOCK: The Bible can't be trusted – PART 3 or 3
Here are a few final thoughts on how to answer the roadblock, "The Bible can't be trusted."
THE BIBLE IS ACCURATE SCIENCE: Much of the science we look at today that we take for granted has its origins in things that people discovered from the Bible. The Bible consistently makes accurate scientific statements.
William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood, which we take for granted today. Years ago, doctors used to drain blood from their patients to get them well. Doctors mistakenly thought if they got rid of their blood, they could get rid of a disease. In fact, that's how George Washington died. Then one day, Sir William Harvey read his Bible, and recognized a core scientific truth, found right in the Bible:
"the life of every creature is its blood." Leviticus 17:14
There are countless other examples of how the science written about in the Bible, backs up the laws of science today.
THE BIBLE IS EVIDENCE OF CHANGED LIVES:
You have to look at the lives that are changed by the Bible; by people who actually believe that what it says is true. Many of us today are living proof of the authenticity of the Bible. We acted on what it said, and there are changes that have taken place in our lives that cannot be humanly explained.
THE BIBLE IS DURABLE:
There's an old poem that talks about the hammers pounding on the anvil. One hammer after another, and it concludes by saying, "The hammers are all gone, but the anvil remained." Every generation, including our own, has had its supposedly brilliant minds who have said, "I'm too smart to believe the Bible." And they have hammered on it and hammered on it, and hammered on it. Today, the hammers are gone, but the anvil - the Bible - is still there. It still remains. Only the Bible has been subjected to such nullification and attack over so long, and the Bible still stands today.
After all is said and done, is it 100% proof that the Bible is the Word of God? No. The ultimate test is believing and then acting on it. But there are a lot of evidences. You go as far as the evidence points, and the evidence clearly says this book is what it claims to be - the only book God ever wrote. And I can stake my life on this book.
Sharing Jesus with people is not to be an argument over the validity of the Bible. It is to open their hearts to consider what the Bible says about a relationship with God...our broken relationship with Him and the difference only His Son, Jesus Christ, can make. So, as the world's bestselling book, the world's most people - helping book, would you check it out? Once they open up to consider the Word of God, it's hard to resist it because "it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes."
In the first email, I talked about the daughter trying to reach out to her dad, who didn't believe in the Bible? I'll conclude with her most recent email, that arrived the day I was writing this! She did a great job modeling so much of what we've discussed here in the past few visits:
Hey, Dad!
I just want to tell you I appreciate so much your willingness to engage us in conversations about spiritual things while we were there last week. I'm sure you know it's because we love you so much that we are interested in where you're at.
I'm wondering, based on my understanding of where you said you were at, if I could challenge you to try something? Would you consider praying something like this?
"God, I believe that you exist, but not sure that I believe the Bible is your Word directly, or that it has any more authority than many other works. I don't know exactly who Jesus is, but I would like to know for sure. God, if you are indeed real and personal and powerful, would you reveal yourself to me in a way that I cannot deny? I'm still not convinced of what it means to belong to you. Show me, God, who you really are and open my eyes to see You. I want to know who You are, who Jesus is, and what is really True."
If God is interested in you - or any of us - I think He would answer such a prayer...
Love, your daughter
DAD'S RESPONSE:
Dear daughter, -
Thank you for your concerns. Your proposed prayer sounds good. I'll try it.
Love, Dad
ROADBLOCK: "But I'm __________________!"
Showing our need for a RESCUER, not a RELIGION
Whenever people bring up their religion - "I'm Catholic, I'm Muslim, I'm Buddhist, I'm Jewish, I'm Baptist, I'm Presbyterian," we need to emphasize the point that if we needed a religion, Christianity is one of several nice choices. But we don't need a religion; we need a rescue.
When Flight 1549US Air went down with both engines failed into the Hudson River, those people standing on that wing didn't need somebody to come up to them with a book on how to swim. They would have died of hypothermia; they'd have never made it out of there. No, they didn't need a way to save themselves. There was none. They needed a rescuer.
Every religion in the world, including the way some people practice Christianity, provides a way to save yourself, a way to make God happy, a way to balance the scales for the sin we all know we've done. Unfortunately, good never erases bad. Good cannot pay a death penalty.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 NIV
The wages are what you earn; the gift is what you receive. Somebody else paid for eternal life. Heaven is clearly not an achievement, but a gift we receive - a gift we either take or reject, bought with the life of the Son of God.
So the issue never is the supremacy of the Christian religion; it's the uniqueness of Christ. There are many good religions; there's only one Rescuer. There's only one person who even claimed to die for our sins. That's why it's so important to continue to point to Jesus. If people have questions about the Bible, turn their attention to Jesus. If you have a Jewish friend who you're trying to explain what you believe, point them to Jesus. If someone is objecting because they think you're putting down their religion, point them to Jesus. He's not the religion; He's the Rescuer. That's why according to 1 Timothy 2:5, "There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who redeemed us from our sins."
ROADBLOCK: But I'm Jewish!
How do you talk about Jesus to a friend who is of a Jewish background? Over the years, I've had many Jewish friends who we treasured greatly. We had a lot of laughs, and a lot of sharing with them as we raised our kids together.
The hearts of Jewish people are very hard and resistant to Jesus. It has been that way for 2,000 years. The Bible says that will change in the future, and the hearts of many Jewish people will be open to Jesus. Maybe He wants to use you as part of that prophecy!
Here are a few simple thoughts to consider:
1. SHOW RESPECT
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you should be someone who lives and demonstrates to the Jewish people in your world incredible respect for who they are.
My wife and I had a wonderful friendship with a couple of highly respected professionals in our community of the Jewish faith. One time, I shared this:
"You know, I have a great debt of gratitude to your people. The book I've based my life on was written by Jewish authors, except for one. Of the 40 authors of the Bible, 39 were from God's chosen people. I have a debt of gratitude because the morality I live by is a Jewish morality given to the Jews. And the man who I've given my heart to and who has transformed my life is a Jewish prophet and his name is Jesus. We owe you so much."
We were told by them that they had never met Christians like us, who had such a respect for the Jewish people. I thought that ought to be instinctive. Your book is Jewish; the morality you live by is Jewish; the Savior you follow is Jewish. All of the original followers of Jesus were Jewish and one Gentile. And so, it is my joy to explain to our Jewish friends the reason I have given my heart to a Jewish Messiah because I believe Him to be what He claimed to be - the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah.
2. SHINE LIGHT ON O.T. PROPHECIES
I've always wanted to help my Jewish friends get to the point where they would consider Isaiah chapter 53, which tells us clearly a prediction of what this Messiah will look like and how He will suffer and die. It is very hard to read that and not see it as a pre - birth picture written 700 years before the birth of Christ. The Old Testament prophets told us that when He came He would be born in Bethlehem. When He came, He would be a descendant of David. When He came, He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. When He came, He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. When He came, He would be brutally killed. It's all there, and so much more. And the life of Jesus is the fulfillment of each prophecy in detail down to the point that His bones would not be broken on the cross, and they would gamble for His robe. This detailed description that God gave so we would recognize His Son when He came is so historically fulfilled by the life of Jesus. He seems to be everything the Messiah was prophesied to be.
3. SHARE HOW WE NEED A BLOOD SACRIFICE TO PAY FOR SIN:
We know that the Jewish people brought to the world the concept that it takes a blood sacrifice to pay for human sin. While the animals are no longer sacrificed, the Passover is celebrated every year. The Passover that established for the world a visual picture that it is the shedding of blood, of an innocent lamb, that makes it possible for God to pass over our sin and to cancel His judgment against us. The announcement was made when Jesus came by a Jewish prophet called John the Baptist, "This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." And so for Jesus to come and say, "I am the final sacrifice. I am the completion, not the contradiction. I am the completion of all the Jews have done all these years and said. He said in Matthew chapter 5, "I have not come to destroy the law and the prophets. I have come to fulfill the law."
We're not talking about a Jewish person who accepts Jesus as a sacrifice for their sins. We're not talking about them becoming less Jewish. I believe for many of my Jewish friends it has made them more Jewish than ever, and they believe that. This is not an issue of authenticity, or religion, or decency. It's an issue of a blood sacrifice needed to forgive our sins. This is not a denigration of the Jewish faith or any other faith. It is our recognition that we need a Savior.