You occasionally get asked, “how do you know it is true?” It being the Bible or Christianity in general or maybe even simplistically God. And there are all kinds of apologetic answers. You could start with Anselm’s Ontological argument as one of the oldest and Philosophically speaking still an active form. You could go with Aquinas’ Five Ways. Three of them versions of the Cosmological Argument. The final one an argument from design. All of them fancy ways of saying, “Have you looked out the window? You really think that came from nothing?” I think the Apostle Paul might agree with my tongue in cheek summary, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made (Romans 1:19-20).” Paul saying “look out the window.” The problem with all such arguments is that they are really arguments for a god. And arguments for a god are not the same thing as knowing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is real. How Luther would qualify it would be that they are all arguments for the hidden god, Paul’s invisible attributes. And while we can observe the attributes, we don’t’ know God.
The Bible taken as a whole is the story of the Revealed God. It is the story of God no longer hiding behind the masks of power and might riding upon the storm. Ultimately we have the full revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. As Jesus replies to Philip’s plea, “Lord, Show us the Father…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:8-9).” In Christ we see the steadfast love of God for his creation. We see the God who says he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And so Luther would say that when the hidden god troubles us, we turn to the revealed god in faith that “yes, we have seen the father. And he is not the god we so much dread, but our savior.”
But when you ask the “how do you know” question I think someone is asking for what makes it work for you. And the final answer has to be the Holy Spirit. “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. Bu the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” That Luther’s explanation to the third article of the creed. And final answers are true, but that question might be rephrased as something like “How has the Holy Spirit enlightened you?”
And Pentecostals might say something like “I spoke in tongues.” Likewise people might have seen a miracle. Now I might personally be somewhat skeptical of this one. We seem to have an infinite ability to say “that didn’t happen.” But Jesus does say, “even though you do not believe me, believe the works (John 10:38).” Maybe you had your own personal Eunice and Lois and you believe them (2 Timothy 1:5). “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed (John 20:29).” That is probably the most common way. But for my part, it is books like the book of Ruth, our old testament lesson for today (Ruth 1:1-19).
There is no way, absent the power of God, that this story survives history. You can place it alongside the lineage of Jesus is Matthew. Not that Luke’s genealogy is bad, but Luke’s goes back to Jesus as “the son of Adam and the Son of God.” And that is something typical for ancient Kings. They were all the son of God. Like Augustus, the Son of the Divine Julius. The story of Ruth is part of the genealogy of David. And it is the type of story that ancient Kings would have stamped out. Don’t focus on the romance of it. The revealed God parts. Focus on foreigner. Ruth was a Moabite. Focus on the poverty. Naomi leaves Israel because they are poor and returns poorer without a husband. Focus on how the family line is all but dead. Focus on how they are nothing and it is the mercy of Boaz that saves. And then realize that Ruth and Boaz are King David’s great grandparents (at least in Matthew’s genealogy.) No ancient human king is admitting any of that. And even if the King does, his line three generations later would clean it up. “We were always royal.” But this is the genealogy of Jesus. This is a King who is not about his invisible attributes of power and might, but about love and salvation. Which is the story of Ruth and Boaz. And the fact that it survives is an act of the revelation of the Father of Jesus, the Christ.