How Do I Know If The Bible Is True

Most people don’t reject the Bible because they’ve exhaustively tested it. More often, they reject it (or avoid it) because of prior assumptions, pain, disappointment, unanswered questions, or a settled conclusion that “I already know what it says.” If you sincerely want to know whether the Bible is true, the starting point is not a library—it’s your posture.

This teaching gives you a practical path forward: the heart posture that helps you evaluate fairly, the role of faith, why Scripture still “cuts” thousands of years later, and a simple reading plan that moves the Bible from “an old book” to a living voice. Then we’ll end where the Bible ends: with Jesus Christ—because the Bible’s truthfulness is ultimately bound to who He is.

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Step 1: Start With the Right Attitude—Teachable, Not Hardened

Like any other subject, your attitude determines your starting line. If you have already decided what the Bible can’t be, you’re not really investigating—you’re only confirming your conclusion.

A teachable posture says:

• “I don’t know everything.”
• “I’m willing to consider that I might be wrong.”
• “If God exists, He is able to speak clearly.”
• “I will evaluate what the Bible claims before I dismiss it.”

That doesn’t mean you park your brain at the door. It means you stop grading the test before you take it.

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Step 2: Understand the Place of Faith (And Where Faith Comes From)

 

People often think faith means believing without evidence. Biblically, faith is a settled trust based on what God has revealed—confidence in what you cannot physically see, grounded in what God has said.

• “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, LSB).

And here is a critical point: Scripture teaches that faith is not something we manufacture by willpower.

• “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;” (Ephesians 2:8-9, LSB)

So how does faith grow? The Bible answers plainly:

• “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17, LSB)

In other words, you do not wait until you feel “full of faith” to open the Bible. You open the Bible so you can hear the word that produces faith.

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Step 3: Test the Bible the Way the Bible Tells You to Test It

 

The Bible is not merely information; it claims to be revelation—God speaking. That is why it describes itself as “living and active”:

• “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12, LSB).

That statement is not asking you to pretend. It is inviting you to experience the Bible’s penetrating clarity as it exposes motives, comforts the afflicted, confronts the proud, and points sinners to Christ.

Here is a simple, honest test you can run for 30 days:

1. Read it daily.
2. Ask God (if He is real) to make the truth clear.
3. Observe what it does in your conscience and thinking.
4. Evaluate whether it speaks with the weight of truth—especially about you.

Many people want the Bible to prove itself to them while they keep it at arm’s length. But Scripture’s claims are best assessed the way you assess a light: by turning it on.

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Step 4: Use a Simple Reading Plan That Produces Clarity

 

Spend 10 minutes a day, and here is where to start:

Read Proverbs (wisdom for real life)

Proverbs is intensely practical. It teaches you how God defines wisdom, foolishness, discipline, speech, work, money, temptation, integrity, and relationships. It also gives you the foundational starting point:

• “The fear of Yahweh (that is, God) is the beginning of knowledge; Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7, LSB).

Read John (who Jesus is and why He came)

The Gospel of John is written so you can understand the identity of Jesus Christ and what it means to believe. John emphasizes receiving Christ personally:

• “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” (John 1:12, LSB).

If you do this consistently, you will not merely gain information. You will begin to see how Scripture explains reality—God, sin, human nature, salvation, and the only lasting hope.

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“But Is the Bible Historically Reliable?”

 

Test 1. The Fulfillment of Messianic Prophecies

Written about 700 years before Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and lived on earth (the traditional view is that Isaiah wrote the entire book), Isaiah 52:13–53:12 stands as the most outstanding example, containing specific words or phrases describing His rejection, death, burial, and unjust trial. In another view, if Isaiah 52:13–53:12 was composed after Cyrus’ victory over Croesus, the passage would date closer to 550–540 BC (Ira M. Price, “Review of Der Gottesknecht Des Deuterojesaja by Gerhard Füllkrug,” The American Journal of Theology (1900), 4:4:898–899.

The Old Testament contains many distinct predictions that are literally fulfilled in the New Testament in the life and work of Jesus Christ.

For example, several portions of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 appear throughout the New Testament:

• Isaiah 52:15 in Romans 15:21
• Isaiah 53:1 in John 12:38 and Romans 10:16
• Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17
• Isaiah 53:7–8 in Acts 8:32–33
• Isaiah 53:9 in 1 Peter 2:22
• Isaiah 53:12 in Luke 22:37

Test 2. The New Testament has unusually strong manuscript support

The New Testament is preserved in thousands of Greek manuscripts, and major research institutions track and study this manuscript tradition.

According to Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 82–83, approximately 5,600 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament survive today.

Test 3. The Dead Sea Scrolls push Old Testament manuscript evidence far earlier

The Dead Sea Scrolls include biblical texts dating back centuries before Christ. The Great Isaiah Scroll is often cited as an early and complete copy of Isaiah, dated around 125 BCE, and was discovered among the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. 

Test 4. Non-Christian ancient sources acknowledge key early Christian claims

The Roman historian Tacitus, writing around A.D. 100, explicitly stated that “Christus … was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius,” and documented that Nero blamed Christians for Rome’s burning. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing near the first century’s end, attested to Jesus’s existence, his connection to James, and his being called the Christ. – Lynn Gardner, Christianity Stands True: A Common Sense Look at the Evidence (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1994), 42–44).

 

How to Get Into Heaven (The Bible’s Answer)

The Bible’s central message is not “try harder.” It is that sinners are rescued by grace through faith in Christ, not by the works of man.

You cannot earn Heaven.

Ephesians 2:8–9 states salvation is God’s gift, “not by works” as mentioned earlier:

• “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;” (Ephesians 2:8-9, LSB)

If Heaven could be earned, Christ’s cross would be unnecessary.

God must draw you.

Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44, LSB).

If you find yourself genuinely considering Christ, that is not incidental. It may be God drawing you. Treat it seriously and accept His invitation to accept Christ because there are no second chances to accept Christ after dying a physical death.

The unforgivable sin: rejecting the only Savior

John 3:36 (LSB) draws a bright line between belief and rejection:

• “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Rejecting Christ is refusing the only pardon God provides, and refusal condemns you to Hell for eternity:

• “but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12, LSB)
• “and will throw them into the fiery furnace; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:42)
• “but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27, LSB).
• “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8, LSB).

The moment you believe and repent, you are truly saved.

Jesus promises real security to His people:

• “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:27–29, LSB).

Why would Jesus die in your place?

The heart of the gospel is substitution—Christ was treated as we deserve, so that believers are treated with the righteousness we did not earn.

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Your Next Steps After Believing

1. Call on Christ honestly. Confess your sin, repent (turn away from), and trust Him—not your efforts—to save you.
2. Join a Bible-based church where the pastor presents the word of God in expository fashion, verse-by-verse.
3. Be baptized. Baptism does not save you, but it is your public identification with Christ—an outward confession of an inward reality and a public proclamation that your “old self” has died and you now have a new life in Christ.

 

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