How Christians ought to understand faith and history

I was speaking with a friend on the way back from church and we started talking about the history of the Bible and how it relates to our faith as Christians. She commented that she didn't feel like studying other parts of history from the Bible because there were some commentators that said that it was a possibility that the story of Jonah wasn't historical. She said that if it wasn't historical then it would be troubling to find other things that would make historical inquiry more difficult. Thankfully, from the leading of the Holy Spirit, I was able to make some comments that not only helped her but also gave encouragement to me as well.

There are two extreme assumptions that Christians will sometimes and oftentimes make when approaching the Bible as history. First, one extreme is to say that just because the Bible says it I believe it and that settles it for me. While it is true that God did inspire the words of Scripture, it is never warranted to make an assumption like that and then behave as if we are relieved from investigating and studying the Bible we hold in our hands. In fact, this assumption doesn't hold any weight in how we live life. Do we assume that something is trustworthy and reliable and refuse to put it to the test? Should one automatically believe that someone is worthy to be trusted with money if they never loan money to see where it goes? So Christians ought not to use the truth that God inspired the Bible as an excuse to not study or engage with it in matters of history.

Second, many Christians approach the Bible with the assumption that they must prove or show that everything in the Bible is historically true or else they can't believe it's the divine word of God.

Now why do some Christians do this? One, they believe that in order for an event to be historical as mentioned in the Bible, it must be corroborated by other direct means of history. Like for example, take the account of the Hebrews crossing the Red Sea. Now there isn't any corroboration from outside sources that mention this occurrence. Now does that mean it's not historical? No of course not because tests of historicity can only be applied in a positive sense. Not in a way that would disprove something as being historical. Now there appears to be a problem here. If we could show that every account of history in the Bible was supported by archaeology and outside sources then it would almost seem that we wouldn't need faith to have trust that its reliable. Now someone might say, " Did you not say that for something to be trustworthy it must be tested?" Of course I did. But there's a distinction needed to be made. Not every particularity needs to be shown to be accurate in order to legitimately believe that the entirety or the whole is trustworthy. Are we to tell someone that unless they can prove themselves in all areas they are unworthy of our trust? I thought that trust was needed in the face of some difficulty or mystery.

I believe that in order to resolve this misunderstanding we need to change the way we think about how our faith in God relates to the Bible, history, and how God works in our lives. First, we need to realize that faith in God is primarily necessary in the most important facets of who He is and His nature. Let me explain what this means. We can have good solid reasons to have faith in God because of the crucial things He has shown to be true about Himself and what He has done. Those things are up to shown to either reveal God's credibility or to show that He fails. This amazingly done in the case with Jesus being raised from the dead. You might think that if Jesus was really God as he said, then he would need to prove it there's only one thing God can do that man has never done: Resurrect from the dead. If God can do that, then he has proven enough about Himself and who He is. Even if we have doubts about other issues that are frankly minute compared to his resurrection, we can have confidence that those issues will be better understood and resolved in the future in light of the most important thing He has proven for himself.

We also need to realize that the Bible's trustworthiness as a historical compilations of records is not demonstrated on the grounds of every account being proven to be historically true. In fact take the Gospels for example. These writers were obviously not straightforward writers of history. They had a point to make and prove and to get us to learn a lesson from the account. Now they did use history as a mechanism to show their point about peripheral things and about things that mattered the most to them. They wanted to to tell us what happened, from a certain point of view, in a way that was essentially historically true. We should not demand the Gospel writers to get every point right before declaring them to be accurate writers. Are we to expect everyone we know to never be wrong about a single point before believing them to be trustworthy? Now, someone might say that the Bible is more than just a historical recollections. IT'S THE INSPIRED WORD OF GOD! While this is true and I'm a firm believer in inspiration and inerrancy, I think it creates or puts an unrealistic burden on God to try to show that all is true and supported by other sources because it supposedly or possibly misses the reason or purpose behind why God inspired it to begin with.

Lastly from a logical and experiential perspective, I think that God calls us to walk by faith and trust Him in areas of difficulty and uncertainty in light of what we are certain about. In fact, if there was no mystery or difficulty about God or someone you love, then what need would there be for trust?! One doesn't need faith to know whether someone is standing in front of him or not (assuming he isn't blind). One does need faith to trust him whether he's going to betray that person's trust or hold sacredly to it. So in light of all of this, I think we need to understand that God doesn't operate under the assumption that in order for us to believe in Him, He has to prove every point about Himself to us to meet our radical expectations. Such requirements are highly presumptuous and extremely inconsistent in how we wish to be treated.

In wrapping this up, I think we are to understand what in terms of history, the Bible has proven itself many times and in the most compelling way (Jesus' resurrection from the dead). In light of that, our salvation in Christ does not depend or hinge on a single place in scripture waiting to be proven. Trust and faith only needed to be founded on the essential issues that surround Christianity and not every particular that might linger in the background unresolved. Christians need to distinguish between a discrepancy and a difficulty. Both are quite different. Discrepancy is either a mistake or a difference that is in danger of revealing the inadequacy of the text. A difficulty is an issue that involves something that appears to be a contradiction or something that is yet to be shown accurate. Once both distinctions are made, one can have great confidence in the Bible. I hope this note was encouraging to you and will influence your thinking as a Christian when approaching the Bible in matters of history and faith!