Question Spot

1) Through the Bible itself

It's important to know what the Bible says about itself, eg: - "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3v16) - "prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1v21)

2) Through history (or archaeology)

Generally speaking, when we are able to check up on things about Bible times (from archaeology, or from other written documents) they support what the Bible says.

3) Through experience

The way the Bible describes our world makes sense. It rings true. We live in a good world made by God; it's gone wrong; but God cares, and has sent his Son to put things right. It makes sense of who we are too - it explains the mixture of good and evil we find within ourselves.

4) Through Jesus himself

Jesus trusted the Bible. He thought is was totally reliable. And he is God the Son, so he knows what he's talking about. Over and over again Jesus quotes from the Scriptures, he appeals to the Scriptures in arguments - and when he's tempted by Satan it's the Scriptures he points to, to show that Satan is wrong.

Here's a couple of snippets from what Jesus says about the Bible (he uses different ways of describing the Bible: "the Scripture(s)", "the Law", etc ):

• "the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10v35);
• "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." (Matt 5v18-19)

Now, of course, when Jesus says this only the Old Testament Scriptures have been written. But Jesus also makes particular, strong promises to the Apostles, who wrote and validated the New Testament. The "you" in these verses are the Apostles - that's who Jesus is speaking to:

• "the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14v26)
• "When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come." (John 16v13)

The Bible is God's word, and God is trustworthy - so his word is trustworthy.

a) Yes

The world we live in is not the world as God originally intended it to be. There were no natural disasters in Genesis 1. But the human race choose to rebel against God - and that had consequences. We now live in a world under curse. We are out of kilter with God, and our world is out of kilter with us. Ultimately everything wrong in our world traces back to sin.

b) No

But - you can't jump from the general to the particular. Our world is generally under curse because of sin. That doesn't mean that every bad thing that happens is a direct judgement on some particular sin. Jesus makes that point in Luke 13. A tower had fallen on some people. Others came to Jesus and asked if the victims had been especially bad sinners. Jesus said "No" - but then warned everybody to repent, or they would perish too! The world is generally under curse and judgement. But you can't always link a particular sin with a particular judgement.

c) Yes again.

But then again, sometimes you can. We live in a world with real consequences. And all to often we ignore them - we use the world in foolish or risky or uninformed ways. If we build houses on a flood plain they may well get flooded. If we build houses under a volcano they may well get melted. If we build houses on a fault line they may well get shaken to bits. One way sin works in us, is to encourage us to grab the short term gains - and forget about whether there are any long term pains. This was Adam and Eve's temptation in the garden. It the temptation loan companies use to lure us into debt. It's a factor in nearly every personal sin. It's a factor at for whole communities too. Climate change is an example of the community side of sin. It's not down to any one individual. No one sin has caused climate change. But it is the result of millions and billions of little choices, all building on each other. Little touches of greed, carelessness, laziness, exploitation of the world. And ignorance. As a race, we've turned away from God, and so cut ourselves off from his wisdom about how to take care of our world. So things go wrong.

Climate change and earthquakes - are they caused by sin? Yes - and no - and yes again.