How Can We Help Those Who Struggle to Believe the Scriptures?

January 25, 2008 | by John Piper | Topic: Evidence for the Faith

The following is an edited transcription of the audio.

How can we help those who struggle to believe the Scriptures?

The biggest obstacle to embracing something old as being true is the notion that new makes true. So many people today have the notion that, as time goes by, speakers are closer to the truth. That's an irrational assumption.

We today probably don't understand some things as well as people 300 years ago understood them. But we might think we do, because we live in a technological, scientific age and, generally, science does proceed like that. Scientifically we know more today than we knew yesterday. But in moral things and religious things—theoretical things—we don't experience it that way.

There are seasons where a culture becomes very blind to certain deep wonderful truths, and there are others where a culture becomes more alert to them. Therefore reading people from 100, 500, or 3000 years ago is tremendously illuminating because at any given point they may be seeing something about God much more clearly than we see it today.

So I can empathize with the person who says, "I wouldn't want to read something 3000 years old," because I know that they probably have a progressive mindset that sees everything is getting wiser, smarter and better understood. But if you help them distinguish between the scientific reality and the moral/religious reality, I think they would wake up the fact that there were wise people 3000 years ago who saw things in God and in the nature of the human soul that are far more profound and illuminating than our view of them today (which is perhaps weaker precisely because we are so scientifically minded and don't have a heart for those kinds of insights).

©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Used by Permission.

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, please do not quote this document in it’s entirety, but in part, and link to this page. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org


Related Resources

  • Facts: Seen and Unseen (Taste & See Articles)
  • Jesus Is Precious Because His Biblical Portrait Is True, Part 1 (Sermons)
  • Jesus Is Precious Because His Biblical Portrait Is True, Part 2 (Sermons)
  • Pity Not Them Who Rise With Christ (Sermons)
  • Suppose You Are a Liberal Critic of the Bible (Taste & See Articles)