WHY I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK: Practical for increasing your opportunity surface for sharing your faith with those around you. Increasing your awareness of the fact-based Bible. Developing your sense of confidence in relying on the Bible when confronted with conflicting viewpoints.
This is THE book I wish I had when I first became a believer. Bro Chip’s 218 page book has everything to do with supplying the believer with relevant, factual, historical, spiritual and scientific reasons to support a strong foundation of Christian faith.
Why I believe in the Resurrection
Did Jesus Really Die?
Why I Believe in the Bible
Don’t take my word for it
Why I believe in life after death
Why I believe in Creation
Science or God: The False Dichotomy
Why I believe in the God of the Bible
How’s that working for you?
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Notes
Why I Believe — A Practical Resource for Strengthening Your Faith
I used this book for family devotions and my children all have copies. I use what I learned from it FREQUENTLY. I have the audiobook, it’s wonderfully helpful.
The Biblical worldview to any new believer is essential to Christian growth. That means having your feet firmly planted on solid ground — including your belief system, the scientific facts surrounding you and the perfect witness of the Bible.
From beginning — the Creation — to prophecy ultimately fulfilled in Revelation, we are to fill in the blanks. That means our lives should embody the Christian faith so as to provide a witness to others about why it is that we believe.
Hence, Chip’s book really sharpens the point of understanding one very simple and profound fact that many a believer might not grasp: the believer does NOT leave his thinking cap at the door when he takes on Christian faith. This is profoundly discussed in chapter 7.
Fact, Faith, and a Biblical Worldview for Everyday Life
From the efficacy of Biblical transmission through the ages to where we are in life, right this very moment, this book encompasses such an opportunity surface of discussion: Education, science, scripture, technology, history, life after death, religion.
Tell you, Ingram’s book should be required reading at every Christian school. From the viewpoint of a believer who has especially struggled when confronted with conflicting world viewpoints, I have been extraordinarily blessed by this book. Just the parts about the historicity of Jesus Christ, alone, imparted such goodness.
Case in point: it’s the world’s job to derail the young believer into settling for quasi-explanations and stymying silence when confronted with supposed “facts.” The assumptions being that we’ve evolved from pond sludge and basically we’re on our own in life. This weirdly implies that science has already exposed our origin with empirical evidence and that we’re just Bible thumpers without a foundational base to stand on.
Bro Chip takes you by the hand and sets that record straight, like pronto. In fact, it’s the underlying premise of his fantastic book.
This is practical knowledge applied. I would like to think I would have won over more discussions on evolution, religion, and so forth had I known about and studied this book earlier (it was first published in 2017) in life, but the fact is you can’t win over people with evidence alone — even if the odds are exponentially on the side of your belief system. That takes spiritual enlightenment.
But this isn’t a book about winning arguments, save for the internal ones you’re having with reasoning your way through conflicts brought on by worldly opinion. Rather, it is a FOUNDATIONAL book that acquaints you with the substance of WHY WE BELIEVE.
Internal questions can be both motivating and debilitating, and WHY I BELIEVE answers honest questions where needed.
How many times I wish I had this book at my side! It’s my one and only nomination for the “Stranded-on-a-deserted-island-with-only-one-book-beside-the-Bible” Award.
Related Books on Strong Christian Foundations:
Where to begin study: Major Bible Themes, by Lewis Chafer
The Resurrection: Core belief to Christianity – Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison
This review was part of my 9 Lifelong Bible Companions Series. See related recommendations.