Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, An angel has spoken to Him (John 12:28,29).All the people had the same facts (hearing the voice of God the Father). Yet some would not believe what they clearly heard. They attributed it to thunder. Why? Because of their assumptions. They did not believe Jesus was the promised Messiah, therefore, they assumed God the Father would not approve of His ministry. When the Father spoke His approval of Jesus certain people chose not to believe it. The voice was not rejected because of the evidence; it was rejected because of their previous assumptions. This illustrates how people can have the same facts before them and come up with different interpretations of those facts based upon their assumptions.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).Biblical faith is confirmed by the evidence we find in the world around us.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-unless you believe in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).The tomb was empty and many eyewitnesses testified that Jesus had risen. That was the consistent theme of the New Testament writers as they proclaimed the Christian message and intelligently defended their faith.
He declared that faith and evidence were so closely related that "if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know . . . This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses (Acts 2:22,32).In his letter to believers, Peter emphasized the value of attesting evidence:
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Peter 1:16).He tells his readers that the evidence should cause them to believe in Jesus.
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name (John 20:30,31).John pointed to the visible signs performed by Jesus to substantiate that belief.
Paul . . . went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ (Acts 17:2,3).The same chapter records Pauls dealings in Athens:
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there (Acts 17:16,17).Scripture testifies that Christianity unites faith and evidence.
God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with mens hands, as though He needed anything since He gives life to all, breath, and all things (Acts 17:24,25).The God of the Bible, the God proclaimed by and revealed fully in Jesus Christ, has a far better explanation of the origin of the universe than does modern unbelieving science. God "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). This is the God who produced the universe and who sustains it today. He explains the whys and hows of our existence in the person of Jesus Christ.
Long ago, Jesus pointed out the main reason for the conflict between the Bible and unbelieving science. He told the religious leaders of His day that they were ignorant of two basic things. He said, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God" (Matthew 22:29).A proper understanding of what the Scriptures actually say, and of the power of the God of the Bible, would go a long way to solve the apparent conflicts between science and the Bible.
The Blue Letter Bible ministry and the BLB Institute hold to the historical, conservative Christian faith, which includes a firm belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Since the text and audio content provided by BLB represent a range of evangelical traditions, all of the ideas and principles conveyed in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry.
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