The charge that the Bible is nothing more than a fairy tale is a fairy tale itself. The question is as old as Satan’s question in the Garden of Eden, “Has God Said?” (Genesis 3:1-5) Because the Bible is God’s light in a very spiritually dark world it is only obvious that its arch-enemy Satan would do all he can to discredit it. Here is a book that in two-hundred years knocked the Roman Empire off of its hinges, and has impacted Western civilization more than any other singular book, and is still doing so today in societies such as China and the Far East. However, the question still lingers, “Is the Bible a Book of Myths and Legends?”
Anyone who is ignorant of the scriptures is ignorant of the world’s greatest literature, sculpture, music, paintings as well as God’s redemptive plan of salvation. They are ignorant of the world’s greatest heroes who have left all, and gave all to spread it’s teachings throughout the world. Many, in fact, have made the ultimate sacrifice so that others may simply hold in their hands a copy of its pages. Not surprisingly there has never been a book that has been banned, burned, mocked, ridiculed and defamed as this book. Many have been put to death for simply possessing one. But still the idea that the Bible is a fairy tale persists.
The “prince of this world” has been blinding people to the truth since the beginning of time. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “…the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
There is no exception to the rule, everywhere you look; be it in places of higher learning where open-mindedness supposedly reigns, it is maligned, badmouthed, denigrated. It is slighted and slurred on television and radio, in books and magazines, in colleges, and sadly even in our liberal churches; the very places where you would expect the truth of God to be vigorously be defended.
When children are taught that our ancestors crawled out of the ocean eons ago, have we not relegated creation and Adam and Eve to fairy tale status? It’s the same thing when scientists and academicians tell us we are wasting our time searching for the “mythological” Noah’s Ark.
When liberal brainiacs in the church, in order to gain honor with the academic world, allow for a reinterpretation of the book of Genesis to accommodate modern evolutionary thought, the message sent to the world is that the Bible is a book of fairy tales and mythology. When the supernatural events of the Bible are taught as allegory it is understandable why Mr. Joe Layman walks out of church confused and says, “Why go to church at all? Why read the Bible at all? All this jabber of talking donkeys and a fish swallowing Jonah and spitting him out on the shore or a woman turning into a pillar of salt, of Jesus walking on water, or raising Lazarus from the dead is all jabberwocky. Little wonder their pews are empty, their coffers are bare, and their missionary programs are defunct, because like the mythological legends of the Titans of Zeus and Hercules or Odin and Thor who are just a few I can mention; people do not believe in them, they have no life in them.
The Bible is a historically accurate book. He who is still looking for the historical Jesus is as confused as a tourist following a bad map. That game is over, the issue is settled. The Bible is a “God-breathed” book (2 Timothy 3:16) and that means that it was essentially written by the Holy Spirit. . Its human authors wrote from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). That’s why this divinely woven text of nearly three-quarters of a million words is perfect in harmony from start to finish and contains no contradictions, even though its sixty-six books have forty different authors from different walks of life, written in three different languages and taking nearly sixteen centuries to complete. How possibly could we have this amazing biblical congruity if it wasn’t for God guiding their hands? We could not, it’s that simple. A righteous God would never inspire error. A just God would not call error-filled Scripture “holy and true.” A merciful God would not state that His Word is perfect if it is not, and an omniscient God could write it so that it is as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Time and again, the historicity of the Bible has been confirmed by biology, geology, and astronomy. And although the Bible may not always agree with naturalistic hypotheses, it is not in conflict with any true, established scientific facts. In archaeology, the last one hundred years have brought to light a treasure trove of biblical truths that liberal scholars laughed at, but are too embarrasses to reiterate today. For centuries these contrarians questioned with cynic delight such things as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the basalt stone containing the “House of David” inscription, a 7th century BC amulet scroll bearing the name of God, and a stone bearing the name and title of Pontius Pilate, the Judean governor who ordered the execution of Jesus Christ. But the Taser gun of truth has revealed with stunning accuracy that the Bible is without doubt the best documented book from the ancient world, with more than 24,000 whole or partial biblical manuscripts in existence. No other document of antiquity has nearly as much evidence to confirm its reliability.
The prolific author and apologist, C.S. Lewis, in commenting about the Gospel of John, chastises those critics who think the Gospel is unhistorical: “If he [the biblical critic] tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel…. Read the dialogues [in John]: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling with his finger in the dust; the unforgettable ‘and it was night’ (xiii, 30). I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this.”
But the greatest proof that the Bible is not a fairy tale is the countless number of lives that have been transformed by the truths contained in its pages. Used by the Spirit of God, the holy truths of the Bible have turned millions of sinners into saints. Drug addicts have been cured by it, homosexuals set free by it, derelicts and deadbeats transformed by it, hardened criminals reformed by it, sinners rebuked by it, and hate turned to love by it. No amount of reading the mythology of the Egyptians and Persians and Greeks and astrology or of “Cinderella” or “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs “or Santa Claus can effect such change on the soul of man. The Bible does possess a dynamic and transforming power that is only possible because it is truly God’s Word.
In light of the foregoing, the greater question, then, is how could someone not believe in these convincing, God-breathed, error-free, life-transforming truths? Unfortunately, the answer is actually an easy one. God has said that if we do not open your hearts to Him, He will not open our eyes to the truth. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would teach us (John 14:26) and guide us into truth (John 16:13). And the truth of God is found in the Word of God. Thus, to those who believe, these sacred words are life itself, but to those without the Spirit the Bible is nothing but foolishness (1 Corinthians 2:14).
But God’s promise still holds, “You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart” (29:13).
He’s Only a Prayer Away!
Pastor Bob