The man sitting next to me on the plane saw me studying my Bible and asked with irritation. “Don’t you know that the Bible is full of mistakes?”

We were on a Saturday afternoon flight from Pittsburg to Atlanta. I was coming home from a women’s conference, he from a science symposium. As we settled into the flight, my seat mate seemed to want to impress me with his Ph.D. in chemical biology. I knew he wouldn’t be impressed with my boring B.A. in English, so I settled down to work on my Sunday school lesson.

He snorted when he saw me open my Bible. “Why do you waste your time reading that stuff?” he asked.

“This? Because it’s God’s Word and I need to know what He wants me to do.”

“Huh! Everybody knows the Bible is full of mistakes,” he said airily.

“Really? Everybody?” I handed him my Bible. “Show me one mistake.”

He waved my Bible away. “Oh, there are too many mistakes for me to show you all of them. We haven’t the time.”

“I’m not asking you to show me all the mistakes in the Bible. Show me just one. Here’s my Bible. Show me a mistake.”

“I don’t know specifically where they are,” he confessed.

“Why not?” I asked earnestly. “Why would you take someone else’s opinion about something this serious? Why haven’t you studied it for yourself?”

He answered bitterly, “You sound just like my mother!”

“You sound just like my mother”? Is that a scholarly PhD-kind-of-answer to a question so serious it determines where a human being will spend eternity?

From the beginning of time atheists have tried to disprove the Word of God. Even in the Garden of Eden Satan asked Eve, “Did God really say . . .?” For 150 years Darwinian evolutionists have brutally assaulted the creation account in Genesis. But the creation account still stands, serenely, absolutely true, while conflicting theories swirl around in and out of fashion. But archaeologists affirm the biblical record. Biologists confirm it. Historians are astonished at its accuracy. Most especially, our own hearts acknowledge its terrible, accurate assessment of our human condition and our need for God.

The essence of the problem really is (as the man’s mother tried to tell him) that he simply was unwilling to submit to the God who created him. Jesus answered Satan who was tempting Him to sin:

So [God] humbled you, allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna . . .
that He might make you know that
Man shall not live by bread alone;
But man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 8:3 (nkjv)

The Word of God is accurate, dependable, without error of any kind. It offers us our only hope of reconciliation with God. We can safely entrust our eternal welfare to its validity.

I often wonder if that poor seat mate of mine, ignorant even with his fancy Ph.D. in chemical biology, ever changed his mind and listened to his wise mother? Oh, how I hope so!

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford