48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Trusting Bible's Reasonable, April 7, 2006
This book addresses questions such as whether the Bible can be proved, whether Jesus has been misquoted and gospels lost and wrongly excluded, whether the Bible is all a matter of interpretation and man's thoughts, and so on. Lutzer gives internal and external evidences supporting the Bible, explaining how the Bible came to be, why the apocrphyal writings were rejected, how science and archaeology support the Bible, and how it's self-authenticating thru prophecy. I recommend this book for two types of Christians: (1) those who believe in the person and work of Christ but who are hesitant to believe in the inerrancy and reliability of the Bible, and (2) those who already trust both Christ and the Bible but want to be better equipped to respond to give an answer to inquiring minds. This book might also be of interest to nonbelievers for whom skepticism about the Bible is a preliminary obstacle to coming to Christ. Lutzer in this book, as in his others, has a way of avoiding clutter, keeping it simple, so if a more detailed treatment is desired, I'd recommend the textbook 'A General Introduction to the Bible' by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough and empirical, an amazing find., December 29, 1998
By A Customer
Lutzer appeals to many audiences, just about every religious background has a reference here. He begins with his purpose in writing this work, to answer fundamental questions that anyone might have, such as "Is there a God?" and "Doesn't science contradict the Bible?" He also explains important concepts in understanding the Bible, like dual authorship (God and man), and way to interpret prophesy. I recommend this book for anyone searching to find truth behind the Scriptures.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Introduction to Christian Apologetics-What We Believe and Why, January 3, 2011
I stumbled upon this title after listening to a message from Dr. Lutzer's series "Running To Win" on the radio one morning in the car on accident. I didn't get to hear the whole thing, but the piece of his message that reached out and grabbed me was this-the statistical probability of the universe, our earth being created by chance versus by intervention from a Creator. The statement blew me away after listening for most of my life to people that were obviously very intelligent tell me that there is no way that God exists. His speaking was far from instruction to simply believe-it was instruction on critical thinking on the subject of the Divine. After all, whether you are a believer or not, is the subject of the existence of a creator not worthy of the same level of fair, unbiased investigation as any other subject? Further, if you are a critical thinker, does it not make sense to not only look for absolute proof, but absolute disproof?
One of the biggest problems in organized religion today is all of the dogma injected into it by people out to serve their own interests. This isn't the case in all organized religion, but it does appear to be one of the biggest repellants to the "thinkers" out there, and was certainly a repellant to me. What I appreciated most about this quick, well-written read is that it asks some very good questions about the one thing that Christianity ought to stand alone on-the Bible. Is it a work of fiction or is it real? Is it possible that people have twisted it around to suit their purposes? How do we know whether we can trust it? Can a person take the Bible alone and weed through all the synthetic "stuff" out there to determine what their purpose on this earth is and what is genuine and what is a farce?
This book did a great job of answering these questions for me, and also built up many more questions in my mind about whether the Bible or Christianity was just a gimmick of some kind or whether it was worthy of further investigation. It teaches discernment-using YOUR brain to look into these matters for yourself in an honest and thorough way, which incidentally, is Biblically supported. I've come to the conclusion that Biblical Christianity is quite intelligent, in direct opposition to my original position on these matters. As a matter of fact, there is quite a lot of historical, archological, and scientific evidence out there supports the Bible, but if you are not willing to take an honest look, you will miss it and that's absolutely your choice to make. We have holes of course, but we also have holes in science and we don't throw out science because of those holes. This book calls this kind of thinking into question.
I've gone on to other investigations, using this book as a springboard. I'd highly recommend "Seven Reasons You Can Trust the Bible" to anyone who has questions about the Bible or Christianity and is interested in finding out more. Approach this with a science brain. Question what you are reading and check other places for those un-resolved follow up questions that you uncover as you go through it. But don't simply accept what PEOPLE tell you about this, dig into it for yourself and base your decisions on all available information.
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