indaigle asked you:
I have a really good friend who believes in Jesus, but when it comes to the Bible, he doesn’t listen because to him, it was written by humans and since humans aren’t God, it can’t be fully correct. I have no idea how to respond to this, and the conversation ends. How can I answer him?

Jed Brewer replied:

Hey Indy,

This is a great question.  And part of the reason it’s a great question is it gets right to the heart of what ministry is, and isn’t.

For a lot of folks, they would see your friend’s concern as a chance to bust out their advanced knowledge of Bible history.  They would talk about the consistency of the message across thousands of years of authorship.  They would bring up the Dead Sea Scrolls.  They would describe the process of medieval monastic transcription and how vigilant it was.

And all of that would completely miss the point. 

No, ministry asks this: what’s the question behind the question?  In other words, why are we stuck on this particular issue?

The odds are nearly certain that your friend’s concern has nothing to do with the reliability of Greek translation or the canonization process.  No, the great likelihood is that your friend has been hurt.

A good hint to that end is the fact that your friend’s concern is not internally consistent.  Everything he knows about Jesus was written down by a human being.  So, if we’re disregarding things because people wrote them, then we’d kind of have to disregard Jesus, too.

What all that means is that you don’t want to worry about trying to answer to the logic of what he’s saying, or the surface-level-concern of what he’s saying.  In other words, this ain’t about the Bible.  Someone who says they believe in Jesus but not the Bible because the Bible was written by people is broadcasting concerns about trust, betrayal, and hypocrisy.

I would strongly guess, Indy, that your friend has felt rejected, betrayed, and let down by religious people.  He’s known people that talked a big game about God, but didn’t live it out.  And isn’t the Bible a place where people are, again, talking a big game about God?

A related possibility is that your friend has suffered in regards to a specific issue that the Bible touches on.  Maybe he grew up in an abusive home where his mom wouldn’t leave because “divorce is a sin.”  Maybe he has a cousin who is gay, and he’s had enough of “Christians” hating somebody he loves and quoting the Bible to justify it.  Maybe the Bible was just used to make him guilty, and he’s had enough.

Regardless of the specifics, the answer is the same: don’t worry about trying to defend the Bible to your friend.  Instead, show love to your friend, earn his trust, and communicate that you are a safe place to share hard things.  And then invite him to do just that.  Like this.

“Hey bro, I’m just saying, sometimes I get the sense that people in Church have been total jerks to you.  For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry, and, if you ever want to talk about that, and just get it off your chest, I’d love to just listen.”

Your friend is lucky to have you, Indy.  I’m praying for you – let me know how it goes.