How do I convince my brother that the Bible is complete?
Question:
I was discussing baptism with my brother. He knows he needs to be baptized, but he doesn't have confidence in the Bible. He says he watches these shows that tell how corrupt men took books out of the Bible that really might be important. One example was that Mary Magdalene was supposedly one of the greatest Apostles, but they removed that book. He also says that only a few will be saved, and he just can't seem to agree with that. He just wants to see what all is "out there" or has been removed before he can fully commit to the Bible. He is really down on the King James Version of the Bible and believes it was put together by corrupt men. How do I respond?
Answer:
Your brother isn't, at the moment, ready to be baptized because he doesn't have faith. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6). In particular, he doesn't believe that God has the ability to preserve His own teachings. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away" (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33).
"Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because "All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the LORD endures forever." Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you" (I Peter 2:22-25).
If he is truly interested, it is straight forward to prove which books have the evidence necessary to be counted as part of the Bible. However, he is currently taking the word of people who really do not know their Bibles or their history. He needs to prove to himself that the books we have in the Bible are the complete set delivered by the Holy Spirit.
I can give you a set of outlines that should get such a study started:
- Can We Trust the Text of the Bible?
- How We Know We Have All the Bible, with No Books Added and No Books Lost
- Canon of the Old Testament (Part 1)
- Canon of the Old Testament (Part 2)
- Canon of the New Testament
- The Apocrypha
- The Extra Catholic Books
- The Book of Enoch
- The Gospel of Judas
- The Gospel of Judas?
In regards to the King James Version, he is making accusations again without evidence. Claims of inaccuracy don't constitute proof. This is not to say that the King James Version is a perfect translation, it isn't. It has its problems, but they are minor ones compared to the charges your brother is making from his ignorance.
Given the nature of the arguments, I suspect his "source" is the fictional movie or the fictional book "The DaVinci Code." This makes his arguments particularly funny since he is using a known work of fiction as evidence against a known historical book. See:
