An Honest Answer to an Honest Question

A seeker who is visiting my church sent me an email asking "Out of all the religions in the world, why are you a Christian?" She went to ask me how I knew that what I was teaching was right. In essence, I was asked why I believe what I believe. Here was my reply...

I believe in God because there must be a first cause. Someone must have tipped over the “first domino.” I believe in God because the universe has a design. I would never see a watch lying on the ground and think that the band, hands, glass and all other mechanisms simply came together accidentally. I believe in God because humans long for their Creator. Just as hunger implies the existence of food and thirst implies the existence of water and sexual desire implies the existence of fulfillment, the longing in man’s heart for God implies the existence of a Creator. I believe in God because while it takes faith to believe in God, it takes blind faith to believe that matter is eternal and that the rules of chemistry and physics that scientifically govern us developed accidentally from nothing. I believe in God because I cannot believe that God could or would have created the world and all those living in it only to then abandon it all and ignore it, as agnostics believe. That also takes blind faith. Thus, I believe it is natural that having created the world and all in it, God would then work to reveal Himself to that world.

Having established that there must be a God, I believe in the Bible for several reasons. I believe in its message. What it tells me about myself and my world is accurate. Only the Bible adequately explains my purpose, the world’s fundamental problem and the solution. I believe the Bible because of miraculous love. That God would be willing to enter my dirt and become a worm like me so that I could personally know him is beyond the ability of the human imagination to invent. I believe the Bible because it is a miraculous book. I believe that archeology has proven its perfect track record of reliability. I believe the Bible because I do not believe that it is possible to get dozens of authors from only one location and one time period to completely agree with one another in their writings. Yet the Bible was penned by dozens of authors from a wide variety of places over the course of centuries, yet with perfect agreement. I believe the Bible because I have yet to see a convincing contradiction, though I have seen many, many attempts to create them where they do not exist. I believe the Bible because I believe that the evidence for Christ is compelling. I believe that the prophecies fulfilled by Christ are amazing. I believe that the location and circumstances of his birth were adequately predicted centuries prior, and with a specificity not mirrored by phonies like Nostradamus. I believe the Bible because of the uniqueness of the Bible. I believe the Bible because every other ancient religious writing gives me the impossible task of reaching God by rules and regulations, but the Bible tells me how God has reached down to me. “GOD so loved the world that HE gave.” I believe the Bible because I need a death conqueror and Jesus died and rose again. I believe the Bible because I have the testimony of those who actually walked and talked with Jesus and were willing to die for their conviction that a man who literally died on a cross literally rose again the third day. I believe the Bible because I do not believe that so many men would willingly die (and in horrendous fashion) for what they KNEW to be a manufactured story. I believe the Bible because only the resurrection of Christ can account for the spread of the early church’s growth. While Islam spread because of the sword, Christianity spread in spite of the sword. People initially converted to Islam for fear that they would die if they did not. People initially became followers of Christ knowing that they would die if they did. I believe the Bible because I can look at my world and see it becoming exactly what the Bible said it would become.

I am a Christ follower because having accepted that there is a God and that this God has revealed Himself and His story to me in the Bible, I have chosen to base my life, what I believe and how I live, on what the Bible says. I believe what I believe about the trinity because the Bible clearly teaches it. I believe what I believe about the family because the Bible clearly teaches it, etc. God has every right to tell me how I should live my life, as well as what is right, what is wrong, what is true and what is false.

This was rather quickly done, but what would you have added and how would you have answered her question?