Many of us grew up being taught that the Bible was true ‘before’ we ever read anything in it, and that order of things presents a problem as to why the church sometimes has difficulty reaching those who are outside of the faith. If the church is gonna regain the first-century status of its attractiveness, then maybe they oughta change the way they talk about the Bible (and present it) to those outside of the faith.
Most educated people have an educated opinion about what the Bible is and isn’t, and they don’t walk into a church or a biblical discussion with clean slates; they walk in with full slates. So maybe the church oughta shift its approach to that of its first-century precedent.
When scientific claims or archeological discoveries (or lack of em’) threaten to undermine the credibility of the Old Testament…instead of feeling compelled to either get bowed up and defend it, or just ignore it, maybe those in the church oughta realize that Christianity doesn’t hang by a thread based on science or the archeology or the history of the Old Testament.
Anybody who walked away from following Jesus because they don’t have faith in the scientific or the historical or the archeological credibility of the Old Testament, then they walked away from Jesus for reasons that don’t have anything to do with the foundation of Christianity.
The earliest Christians didn’t rest their faith in Jesus on a historically or archaeologically or scientifically accurate Old Testament, and people nowadays shouldn’t either. When atheists and anti-theists and skeptics…or anybody else outside of the faith…point out the violence, and the scientifically and archeologically and historically unverifiable claims of the Old Testament…instead of trying to defend those things…those within the body of believers oughta realize that their Christian faith isn’t based on ‘any’ of that…because it isn’t, or it shouldn’t be…and maybe point that out.
