Why Don't People Believe the Bible?

by Steve Bastin

In my experience, most people who do not believe the Bible are people who have been convinced by someone else that they should not believe it.  They are not people who made a thorough investigation of the subject and came to the conclusion that the Bible was not the Word of God.

In thousands of Bible studies with people over the past 40 years I have answered many questions about the Bible.  Many of these people have been influenced by television shows that they have watched or unbelieving preachers who have belittled the Bible.

While many excellent documentaries have been produced, ones about the Bible have generally aimed at creating doubt, confusion and unbelief in the Word of God.  There is an “elite” group of intelligentsia that do not want people to believe in the Bible. They have been sowing their seeds of doubt whenever and wherever possible.

What is amazing is the amount of time and effort that has been spent proving that the Bible is not the Word of God?  Why not simply ignore the book if you do  not like it?  If someone “gets on your case” about doing or not doing something because of what the Bible says, then just tell them to “take a hike.”

But I digress.  Getting back to why people do not believe the Bible, there has been only one main reason with which I am familiar.  In my experience, they have come across something in the Bible that they do not want to do.  The command is clearly in the Bible, but obedience is difficult or perhaps even painful.  Rather than change their life, the Bible’s credibility as a book from God is attacked.

It is pretty hard to say, “No,” to God.  It is far easier to say no if one can first of all find some reason to attribute the problem to some source other than God.  “That’s just Paul,” for example.  Or, “the Bible has been translated so many times that it is not reliable anymore.”  (Whatever that is supposed to mean.)  A translation of the Bible is made by reading the original Hebrew or Greek and putting it in English.

The Bible, for the most part, is not hard to understand.  People do not believe the Bible because they do not want to believe it.  They would rather not be burdened with following God’s rules.  It is more fun or it is easier to get what one wants without the restrictions that God has placed upon people in the Bible.

The problem is that, while one may reject the Bible, the words of the Bible will be the standard by which your life will be judged in eternity.