When I was in high school, Instagram barely existed. I lived in San Antonio, went to a public school, and spent weekends at youth group. Now I live in Dallas, work at a church, and spend a lot of my time creating Instagram and YouTube videos helping people understand the Bible—something I never imagined I’d be doing.

So much has changed.

But one thing hasn’t: the tension we all feel when it comes to trusting the Bible.

If you’ve ever had a friend say the Bible’s outdated, or a professor question its credibility, or even your own heart whisper, “Can I really trust this?” You’re not alone. I’ve felt it too.

That tension started for me back in high school, sitting next to a bold atheist in my AP Environmental Science class. I knew I was supposed to talk to him about Jesus . . . but I didn’t. Not once. Because deep down, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the answers. I let fear win. And I missed the opportunity.

Two years later, I got news that he had been hit by a car and passed away. I don’t know where he was in his faith journey at that point. But I know that for a whole school year, I sat next to someone who didn’t know Jesus, and I said nothing. That moment still sits heavy on my heart—not in shame, but in deep awareness. Awareness that time is short, that opportunities matter, and that I want to be someone who trusts God enough to speak.

Now, years later, I want to help you feel more confident than I did in that classroom. Whether you’re in college, working full-time, newly married, or still figuring out your next step—I want you to know that the Bible is trustworthy. And so is the God behind it.

Let’s break it down into three truths:

1. You Can Trust the Bible

Maybe you’ve heard people say things like:

· “The Bible’s been changed over time.”

· “It’s full of contradictions.”

· “It’s irrelevant to real life.”

I get it. But here’s why those things aren’t true:

The Bible is historically reliable. First, we need to understand that the Bible is not a single book. It’s a collection of 66

books written over 1,500 years by around 40 different authors across three continents and in three languages. Despite all of that diversity, it tells one unified story about God’s redemption of humanity. That level of consistency, over centuries, is remarkable—and historically unparalleled. There’s no other book like it!

But it’s not just internal consistency that makes the Bible historically reliable. It’s the external evidence, too.

The Bible regularly references real people, real cities, and real historical events that have been confirmed by archaeology. For example, for a long-time critics said King David was a myth—until the Tel Dan Stele was discovered, referencing the “House of David.” The same has happened with ancient cities like Jericho and Nineveh—dismissed as legends, until archaeologists uncovered them.

Then there’s manuscript evidence. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts we had were from about 900 AD. But when the Scrolls were found in the 1940s, dating back to 250–150 BC, scholars were able to compare the texts. What they found was that over the course of 1,000 years of copying, the biblical texts remained astonishingly accurate. That’s not normal. That’s preservation. That’s God’s providence. The scriptures hadn’t been changed.

Finally, Jesus Himself affirmed the reliability of the Old Testament. In Luke 24:44, He refers to the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms—the threefold division of the Hebrew Bible—as authoritative Scripture. If the Son of God trusted it, so can we.

The Bible has been well preserved. Well, it wasn’t just preserved—it was obsessively protected. In the ancient world, before printing presses or even widely available writing materials, God’s people passed His Word down through oral tradition. And unlike the casual game of Telephone we played as kids, this tradition was upheld in tight-knit communities, where accuracy mattered. If someone got the story wrong, others corrected it immediately. It was everyone’s responsibility to protect the truth.

Eventually, these words were written on papyrus (made from plants) and later parchment (made from animal skins). But both materials were fragile. So scribes—trained experts—copied the texts by hand with extreme precision. If they made a mistake, they would destroy the entire scroll and start again.

And here’s what’s remarkable: when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, containing Old Testament manuscripts more than a thousand years older than our previously earliest copies, scholars compared the versions—and found that virtually nothing had changed.

Think about that. Over a millennium of manual copying, across generations, in war and peace, under persecution and in prosperity… and God’s Word remained intact. That’s preservation. That’s supernatural.

We have more manuscript evidence for the Bible than any other ancient text. One of the most common objections people raise about the Bible is, “Hasn’t it been changed over time?” That’s a fair question. But when we compare the Bible to other ancient texts, the evidence overwhelmingly shows how uniquely reliable it is.

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

· Homer’s Iliad (everyone’s favorite book in High School, lol) has around 1,800 surviving manuscripts. That’s actually really good by ancient standards. Most historians consider it trustworthy based on that.

· Plato’s writings? We have about 210 manuscripts.

· Aristotle? Fewer than 50.

· The New Testament alone? Over 5,800 Greek manuscripts—some dating to within 100 years of the original writings. And, for all you brainiacs out there, when you include early Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other translations, the total jumps to over 24,000 manuscript copies.

That’s not a typo. We have more than 24,000 ancient manuscript copies of the New Testament. By comparison, most ancient texts survive on the basis of just a handful of copies written centuries after the original.

And what about the Old Testament? While we don’t have quite as many manuscripts due to how long ago it was written and how fragile early materials were, we do have:

· The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating as far back as 250 BC, containing portions of every Old Testament book except Esther.

· The Masoretic Text, carefully preserved by Jewish scribes and dated around 900 AD, shows incredible consistency when compared to much older documents.

When scholars compared the Dead Sea Scrolls’ version of Isaiah with the Masoretic Text written over a thousand years later, they found that the differences were minimal—spelling, word order, and a few stylistic updates. The meaning was intact.

What does that mean? It means that for over 1,000 years, copy after copy, the message stayed the same. The scribes who preserved the Bible didn’t play fast and loose with the words—they treated it as sacred. And modern scholars affirm: the Bible we read today is not a corrupted version of an ancient book. It’s faithful to the original.

The Bible never depended on something outside itself to be true. We often hear that saying, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And

it’s sweet. But some people point out that this is circular reasoning. They’ll say, “You believe the Bible because the Bible says it’s true? That’s not proof.”

But here’s the thing: For something to be a source of ultimate authority, it can’t depend on anything else to validate its authority . . . or it wouldn’t be ultimate. If the Bible is the ultimate authority, it can’t appeal to something higher. It has to be self-attesting. That’s what makes it ultimate. The Bible is reliable because it comes from a reliable God who spoke it, preserved it, and confirmed it throughout history. God’s Word doesn’t need validation from a higher source—because there is no higher source.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” – 2 Timothy 3:16

2. You Can Trust the God of the Bible

Sometimes the issue isn’t with the book itself—it’s with the Author. Maybe you’ve wondered:

· Is God just about rules?

· Is He harsh or distant?

Here’s what Scripture says:

He cares more about your heart than your rule-following. 1 John 5:3 says His commands aren’t burdensome. He gives us instructions because He loves us. And John 10:10 reminds us that He came to give us life to the full.

He is a just and fair judge. Psalm 9:8 tells us He judges with justice and fairness. He doesn’t get it wrong. He doesn’t miss the full story. He sees you. He knows.

He is close and accessible. God isn’t distant. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says the Holy Spirit lives in believers. Psalm 34:18 says He is near to the brokenhearted. But just like we forget where we put our phone until we hear it ping, sometimes we forget He’s close—until we listen again.

He hasn’t moved. We just forget where to look.

And maybe you’ve never looked His way at all.

Here’s the truth: God created you in love, for relationship with Him. But all of us have sinned—every single one of us. It’s been said that, “Sin is anything we think, say or do, that doesn’t please, or honor God and it separates us from Him.” We’ve chosen our way instead of His, and that choice separates us from a holy God. No amount of good behavior or religious effort can fix that gap (Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:5).

But Jesus did.

God stepped into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life we couldn’t, died the death our sin deserved, and rose again to offer us eternal life. That’s not just a story. It’s a rescue.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

That means you don’t have to clean yourself up first. You just have to come in faith. To believe. To surrender.

John 1:12 says, “To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

The gospel isn’t just information. It’s an invitation.

3. You Can Trust That God Wants to Use You

Maybe your doubt sounds like this:

Can God really use me? Even if I feel unqualified? Even if I’ve messed up?

YES.

Philippians 2:13 says God is already working in you—giving you both the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. You don’t have to be brilliant or bold. You just have to be willing.

I remember in middle school sharing the gospel with a girl, we’ll call her Lucy, for the sake of this blog. She didn’t respond. We grew apart. For years, I wondered: Did that matter? Was God really using me?

Then one day—years later—she called. Out of the blue. She said, “I’ve been thinking about reading the Bible, and I didn’t know who to call… so I thought of you.”

God was working all along.

You don’t have to fear hard questions about the Bible. You can walk into them with confidence, knowing:

· The Bible is reliable.

· The God of the Bible is trustworthy.

· And that same God wants to use you.

You don’t need to have all the answers. You just need the courage to cling to what’s true.

And what’s true is this:

Jesus loves you. This you can know—because the Bible, the reliable, self-attesting, never-changing Word of God, tells you so.