BY NICOLE STEVENSON
One of the truths that most changed my life after leaving Adventism is that the Scriptures are inerrant and worthy of absolute trust. The undeniable veracity of Scripture is now rooted in my soul and has given me strength, comfort, and hope unlike anything else ever has. It’s carried me through overwhelming grief and has given me an anchoring foundation in the midst of disorienting circumstances.
While I believed Scripture was trustworthy as an Adventist and would even have told you it was inerrant, those words didn’t reach my heart, mind, or soul. The truth is I was often confused by Scripture. While I assented to its trustworthiness, I didn’t understand how other Christians manifested life-altering trust in the Bible. I think I assumed they couldn’t possibly be reading it because if they were, they’d be more confused than they were joyful. I believed that trusting the words of Scripture so completely must have required “blind faith”.
When God used Scripture to open my eyes to the errors of Adventism and to the good news of the true gospel, I had a lot of questions! While it was Scripture that opened my eyes, I didn’t yet grasp its nature. I just knew something had happened in me and that God was responsible!
As I was leaving Adventism I wasn’t sure who or what to trust, and “blind faith” simply wasn’t an option for me moving forward.
As I was leaving Adventism I wasn’t sure who or what to trust, and “blind faith” simply wasn’t an option for me moving forward. I was done with the habit of internally settling life’s great questions by asking a well-placed leader what we believe about x, y, or z. I needed to discover truth on the basis of compelling and reliable evidence that I actually understood before I ever submitted to it. Thankfully I wasn’t alone in this process.
In my journey to trust Scripture, it was my husband’s faith that carried me through the days of uncertainty. Before leaving Adventism he had encountered Christian teachers in the fields of science and engineering who “spoke his language” and who laid out a case for the veracity of Scripture through a series of several talks. In this series they offered evidence upon evidence using the laws of nature, engineering, and statistical probability (to name the few I remember) showing not only that the Bible is trustworthy and inerrant but that Jesus of Nazareth is irrefutably the Christ— the Son of God. This series left my husband changed, and his trust in the words of Scripture grew into what would become my family’s exit out of Seventh-day Adventism and the beginning of my own learning to trust the Word.
God Knows Your Need
Recently the Former Adventist Podcast has received emails asking about the trustworthiness of Scripture. It’s not an uncommon concern after waking up from a form of brainwashing so thorough it managed to make Scripture a trigger of guilt and fear. For a time after leaving Adventism, many of us walk timidly toward truth, hyper-vigilant and looking for the slightest reason to run the other way. We don’t know where to begin or whom to trust, and sometimes we even worry that our questions are offensive to God.
If any of this sounds familiar, first, know you’re not alone. Next, rest assured that God knows better than we do how deeply and darkly Adventism distorts His Word and wounds all it touches. He knows better than we do how doctrines of demons have ensnared humans for many millennia, and He understands how uniquely each one accomplishes its task.
God also knows how to restore His people with truth by His power in His Word. He is not offended or intimidated by our questions. I believe He rejoices when we turn to Him for answers—it’s all over the pages of Proverbs to seek after such things.
Scripture is full of verifiable details meant to reveal God to man.
Scripture is full of verifiable details meant to reveal God to man. Its self-identifying purpose presupposes that we would examine and inquire of all it claims. God has given us an abundance of evidence for trusting His word contained within His word— more than we can plumb in a short blog. The very reason our God gave us the Bible was so that we would know Him, and so God created it sufficiently self-authenticating in its pages. We can examine how it interacts with human history.
We don’t have to walk in blind faith. The Christian faith is held together by unerring truth. The hurdle for the believer is not a lack of evidence but rather a plethora of misinformation about the Bible circulated by unbelievers and theologically liberal critics who suppress truth and elevate humanism and philosophy. That hurdle being real, our God’s “hands” are not tied by people’s lack of faith. He is faithful, and He will show you truth if you ask Him to.
Safe to Ask Questions
What was a wonderful surprise to me as a Christian was that being saved is only the beginning of our learning about God and how to trust Him in new ways. We can come to saving faith without a seminary degree or character perfection! As an Adventist I thought the more one understood the charts and prophesies, the more likely one was to be among the 144,000 remnant saved. I believed salvation came after we had enough knowledge.
Scripture, however, reveals to the church that salvation is a gift of God’s grace that we receive when we believe in the truth (Eph. 1:13,14). From there, God intends for us to continually grow in our knowledge of Him and of truth. Jesus prayed in the Upper Room that God would sanctify us in the truth, and He said that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17)! In the Epistles, the apostles pray that believers would always grow in their knowledge of God.
These prayers of Jesus and the apostles were prayed for God’s people. Importantly, they weren’t prayed so that they could become God’s people. Salvation is not something to which we attain; it’s something God gives from start to finish.
While our questions may startle us, we need not worry. After spending years brainwashed with the distortion of God’s Word, we’ll continue to have questions even after coming to saving faith. Once we’re saved, though, our questions don’t put our salvation at risk. Rather, the Lord of our Salvation opens our eyes to see truth and drives us deeper into the pages of Scripture where we learn by the Spirit of God. As we pray for teachable hearts and submit to what we learn, we will begin to experience healing and to learn to trust in ways unimaginable.
We Trust the Bible Because We Trust the One Who Gave It
If salvation is our starting point, then when dealing with the issue of the trustworthiness of Scripture, we must ask ourselves why we would ever doubt anything taught to us by the One we believe to be God. As I began to be taught by Christian pastors and teachers, one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the veracity of Scripture was learning how the Lord Himself viewed and taught it.
If I could believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God incarnate who came to redeem me from my sin and death, then why would I doubt Him when He tells me I can trust every jot, tittle, and tense of His Scriptures? Studying how Jesus viewed Scripture changed everything about how I viewed it, and that has changed everything else in life.
Not only did Jesus clearly teach that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God, He also chose the Apostles who would write Scripture after His ascension, and He inspired them to pen the words that would complete His book of self-revelation. God gave them the words that would build and grow His church and that would sanctify His bride.
If We Trust Jesus, We Must Trust His Methods
The author of Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.” Notice how the text takes you seamlessly between the “word of God” and “nothing is hidden from His sight”. In some way I’m not equipped to explain or understand, God uses these ancient words to work personally in the hearts of His people.
Have you ever spent time really thinking about the fact that Scripture is living, active, piercing, and discerning?
Have you ever spent time really thinking about the fact that Scripture is living, active, piercing, and discerning? I once heard someone say that Scripture is “twice inspired”. It’s inspired by God who gave it, and it’s inspired in that the Holy Spirit illuminates it for mutual exposure of the heart of God and the heart of the reader. When we read the words of God, it immediately goes to work in us in ways we cannot always discern. The Word is His means of sanctifying and washing His people with truth. The ancient words of God which have guided believers for millennia are both timeless and effectual! Just ponder that for a moment!
God says in Isaiah 55 that just as the rain and snow go out and accomplish their work on the earth, causing it to “bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10-11). God’s word is effectual, and it cannot fail because the One who gave it cannot fail!
God created the universe with His Word, and the Creator speaks and works with personal and perfect precision in the hearts and spirits of His people by His Word. He cannot and will not fail in anything He sets out to do, and if He says His Word is effectual and reliable for our salvation and sanctification, then who am I to question Him? If our omnipotent, omniscient God can create and redeem the universe, then He can surely give us a trustworthy means of discovering Him! He is capable of protecting His truth. Though not without trying, the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against the Word of God.
You Can Know its Trustworthy
I can’t make you trust Scripture; I wish I could. What I can do is tell you that it’s possible to know for certain that it’s trustworthy. It’s possible to trust it so completely that it becomes more to you than you can yet imagine. While it’s not wrong to ask whether or not you can trust the Bible, it would be wrong to ask it and then walk away in hopeless indifference. Don’t let the question hang in the air. Pursue it! God has not left you without evidence or reason for the hope He calls you to and He wants you to discover it!
The verses in Hebrews that we looked at often make me think of David’s words in Psalm 139:1-4, “O YAHWEH, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts (or intentions) from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O YAHWEH, you know it altogether.”
God knows you intimately, He knows your questions, and He will reveal truth to you if you are willing and ask and trust Him. †
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