I’ve got a friend who I’ve been explaining Christianity to, now he’s listening and wants to know why Christianity is correct, over all the other religions.
He said, “What I also don’t understand is – with the hundreds upon hundreds of religions out there, all based in their own mythology and convinced of their own righteousness – how can you be so certain that YOUR religion is the correct one?”
Can you help me bring it home to him? I know the Bible is backed by prophecy that’s come true, but I don’t know how to say it right!
The thing that sets the Bible apart from any other so-called holy writing is that it has been validated by prophecy. Only God knows the end from the beginning and He has told us about it in His word so that we could know He is who He claims to be.
In Isaiah 42:8-9 God said, “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”
Things in the past that God said would happen have happened with 100% accuracy, and He’s told us things about the future that will happen as well. This is how He validates Himself to us.
Of course our Bible contains the Jewish Scripture and much of this validating prophecy comes from there. One of the most remarkable things He told us is that He would become a man and die for our sins so that we could live in eternity with Him. Over 300 specific prophecies were fulfilled in His first coming, some of them over 1000 years old when they were fulfilled and all of them over 400 years old. Fulfilling only a handful of them by coincidence would have been statistically impossible, but He fulfilled all 300. In this way the Old Testament helps validate the New.
But the New Testament contains prophecies as well, most of them having to do with the times in which we live. The most dramatic of these are the rebirth of Israel and the subsequent reunification of Jerusalem, both foretold in both Old and New Testaments.