I am a sixteen year old from Vancouver, Canada. I was born to a mother who meets with the local churches. I feel very privileged to be a young person meeting in the local church.
In the local church, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God. This is one of the topics we covered during this year's Summer School of Truth. I have always believed (by faith) that the Bible is the Word of God, but learning a few crucial facts has given me strong, outward proof to share with doubtful friends. We went through a total of eleven proofs during the S.S.O.T. I would like to share two proofs that really impressed me.
The Bible is the Word of God by scientific proof. Up until about 500 years ago, man believed that the earth was flat. Magellan proved this wrong in 1521 when he discovered the Philippines. The Bible stated 2000 years before Magellan's voyage that the earth was round! Isaiah 40:22 says, "It is He (God) who sits above the circle of the earth." In Hebrew, the word circle in this verse denotes a sphere. Who else but the Creator would have known and written that the earth is a sphere?
The second proof I enjoyed was the proof by its prophecies. What exactly is a prophecy? "A prophecy should meet the following five criteria: 1) it should be announced before things happen; 2) it should be beyond human foresight; 3) it should explain in detail; 4) the duration of time between prophecy and fulfillment should be long enough so that the fulfillment cannot be of human manufacture; and 5) the fulfillment should be clearly manifested." (The Bible: The Word of God) The Bible contains more than one thousand individual prophecies! Many of these are concerning Christ. Prophecies such as His appearance (Isaiah 52:14, 53:2), His burial (Isaiah 53:9), and His resurrection (Psalm 2:6-7) were spoken 700-4,000 years before Christ came. When Christ came, He proved these prophecies were 100% accurate! All of the prophecies concerning Christ have been fulfilled except for that of His second coming. Besides Christ, the Bible contains prophecies concerning Israel, Tyre, Sidon, and Babylon. "The fulfillment of the prophecies in the Bible proves the existence of God and the Bible to be God's Word." (The Bible-The Word of God).
Praise the Lord! The Bible is the Word of God! Knowing these proofs has increased my faith and my appreciation for the Bible! I thank the Lord for giving us the gift of His Word. I pray that I would treasure it more each day. I have realized that I shouldn't take the Bible for granted and that I need to read it daily so that I would be constituted with the Word of God!
-S.C.