The secret sauce

And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that

“they may indeed see but not perceive,
    and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.”” Mark 4:9-12

It's impossible to believe the Bible if you don't have faith.  It's that simple.  To those who don't have faith, those who trust the Bible look foolish.  Being a religion major at a university impatiently trying to break away from its conservative religious history meant studying under professors who taught the flood could not have happened, the Red Sea did not swallow the Egyptian army (Religion 11), the biblical creation story is just an amalgamation of other cultures' creation stories (Religion 310), the Bible is anti-women (Religion 360), Paul didn't really teach belief in Jesus was required for salvation (Seminar class)...

I'm sure they (the Religion department) knew the vast majority of their student body came from conservative Bible-belt areas and so it seemed their number one goal was to break us out of the Biblical box we grew up in.  In all honesty, I had grown up taking it for granted that animals came two-by-two into the ark, and hearing it was historically preposterous to even consider that as reality caused me a lot of spiritual turmoil.  If that's not true, then what else in the Bible may not be true?  All of a sudden, everything in this book I trusted was open to debate--even the ultimate question of who Jesus was and whether he even existed.

I can tell you that in every conflict of faith I've had the resolution always seemed to come through a conversation.  Not a planned conversation, mind you, but just some casual conversation with someone who was more sure of the Bible than I was at the time.  I still remember a conversation I had while I was conflicted over how I could trust a Bible that was canonized by committee.  What about all those other books that were left out?  How do I know the committee wasn't biased or out to push their cause?  Somewhere in the midst of that conversation the guy said, "The same faith that allows me to believe Jesus is the son of God, allows me to believe the Bible contains the exact books God wanted it to have."  That was all it took.  I don't remember the guy's name but I remember the peace that came over me when he said that sentence.

You see, the answer to "can I trust the Bible?" doesn't rest on the satisfactory resolution of each historical question and qualm.  It rests on whether you have done as Peter instructed in 1 Peter 3:15, that is, "in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy", which is why some people get it and some people don't.  When Christ is not the holy, all-powerful, sovereign God in your heart, your mind will never be open to trusting the Bible.  Your mind will suppress any truth your heart wants bad enough not to believe (Romans 1:18).  That's why to the faithless scholar with the PhD fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament must have been written after the events occurred because divine revelation isn't an option.  To the faithless, Jesus could not have been resurrected because people don't come back to life after they die and divine intervention isn't an option.

Does that mean I have to just trust what's in the Bible without seeing any evidence, or even after seeing contradictory evidence?  Not at all!  As John Piper writes,

"faith is not a blind leap. Faith doesn't come to Bible and say, "Well I don't know what you say, Bible, but I'm going to believe you." That is not an honor to the Bible or to God...it takes some measure of faith to believe and embrace the inerrancy of Scripture. But it's not blind. In fact, it's rooted most profoundly in seeing, according to 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 especially:

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

In 1 Peter 3, Peter continues his writing by encouraging us to "always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect".  Because of this I don't believe we should cast aside researching and investigating the Bible using extra-Biblical sources, but also as Piper says, "faith does have to suspend condemnation when it bumps into a problem that it cannot immediately solve".  Faith allows and requires us to rest in the assurance that one day all our question marks will turn into exclamation points.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:9-12, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

Over time I may find a reasonable explanation for each strange story in the Bible that satisfies everyone.  Archaeology may validate every historical detail.  But it probably won't, and I tend to believe that's by design.  Because God has orchestrated His beautiful plan such that faith is the secret sauce.  Faith requires mystery and faith isn't something someone can conjure up by her own effort alone.

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:14-17