Most people who trust the Bible did not reason their way to it. Someone handed it to them, and they agreed. That raises a fair question: how does a belief about Scripture that you received from others become a conviction that is actually yours? The answer argued here is that a belief becomes yours when you can say what it rests on, admit where it is weak, and test it honestly. You can keep what you were given and still do all three. The path of Dr. Susan Lim, a historian who trusted Jesus for years before she could say she believed the Scriptures were God’s word, shows how. Read alone with a notebook, or work through it as a group over two sessions, and leave the most time for the exercises near the end.
Two words that need defining
An inherited belief is one you hold mainly because people you trust hold it: a parent, a pastor, a church. Lisa Fields describes how many people take on the Bible when they come to faith. They agree to it the way you agree to a phone’s terms and conditions. In her words, the stance is “I believe it, but we don’t really know what’s in it.” Later, as life gets hard or a strange passage turns up, people find themselves asking, as she puts it, “do I actually believe this book?”
An owned conviction is one where you know the grounds of your belief. You can say why you hold it, which parts you are sure of, and which parts are still questions, and you have let it face real pressure.
Neither definition mentions where the belief came from. That omission is deliberate, and it leads to the first test.
The assumption worth testing
Many people quietly assume that owning a belief means first rejecting everything you were taught and rebuilding it alone. On this view, inherited faith is second-hand and therefore suspect, and the only real conviction is a self-made one.
Scripture offers a counterexample. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14: “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.” The next verse adds that Timothy had known the Scriptures from childhood. Paul points to two grounds together: what Timothy has been “assured of,” and the character of the people who taught him. Trust in reliable teachers counts as a real reason in this passage.
So the assumption fails. A belief can be inherited and owned at the same time, and a self-made belief can still be thin. What matters is whether you now know what your belief rests on.
Lim’s story fits this. From the moment she came to faith, she says, she knew the Scriptures were sacred. Her question was narrower: “I just thought, were there parts that were mistakenly introduced though?” Later she frames it as a question of scope: “but is it truly these 66 books.” That doubt is far more precise than asking whether any of it is real, and precision about your doubt is part of owning your belief.
Observation prompts
- Write one sentence that states what you believe about the Bible. Use your own words, not a creed’s.
- Now write the doubt, if you have one, just as precisely. Is it about whether God speaks through Scripture at all? About certain stories? About which books belong?
Read Luke before you weigh evidence
Read Luke 1:1-4 slowly. Luke writes to a man named Theophilus, who has already been taught about Jesus. Luke explains his method: he has followed events from the beginning and drawn on those who were eyewitnesses. Then he states his purpose in verse 4: “That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.”
The sentence assumes Theophilus already “hast been instructed,” and Luke writes so that this instruction can rest on careful work. That looks like the movement this guide is about, from received teaching to certainty. A caution belongs here, though. Luke states his own purpose as a writer. He says nothing about what was happening inside Theophilus, whether he doubted, or what finally persuaded him. Any parallel to your own story is an application, and it should be tested before it is trusted.
Then read Acts 17:11, also from Luke. The Bereans “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Eager reception and daily checking sit side by side in the same verse.
For a group, read both passages aloud and ask two questions before any wider discussion. What does each passage assume about the relationship between being taught and knowing? And how far can Luke’s purpose for Theophilus fairly be stretched to describe a modern reader’s journey?
What evidence can do, and what it cannot
Lim has a master’s degree and a doctorate in history, and she taught for about twenty years. She cites historical support for the Bible, such as Luke’s accuracy about places and writers outside the Bible who mention Jesus. Then she sets a limit on all of it: “just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna believe the Bible.”
A distinction helps here. A reason can be necessary without being sufficient. A necessary condition is one you cannot do without; a sufficient condition settles the matter by itself. On Lim’s account, historical evidence clears obstacles and shows the book is careful with facts, while the decision to trust it remains yours to make.
Experience has the same limit. Lim’s faith began with a powerful encounter, yet years later she still did not believe the Bible was God’s word. She also raises Judas, who traveled with Jesus and likely took part in the miracles when Jesus sent the disciples out, and who still walked away.
Lisa Fields brings in an observation from an earlier podcast guest about people leaving the faith. Often, she reports, “their faith was built on kind of a singular pillar.” For some it was arguments, for others experience, and when that one support was shaken the whole thing shook. Describing Lim’s path in the first person, Lisa Fields says, “I didn’t stay in the experiential place. I went and fortified another space.” Lim summarizes her own path more briefly: “I experienced him, I studied him.”
If no single kind of reason is sufficient, an owned conviction will usually rest on several that support one another: the witness of trustworthy people, personal encounter with God, honest study, and the changed lives of believers. Lisa Fields notes that many young people accept the history and still ask, “but what is happening now?” That question asks for a different kind of reason, one that history alone was never built to supply.
The strongest objection
An honest objector might say this: if a conviction is really yours, you must be willing to let it go. Otherwise it is only a habit with good manners. So what would change your mind?
The objection has force. A belief that nothing could ever touch is hard to tell apart from a reflex. But it also hides an assumption, because it treats every difficulty as a threat to the whole belief. A difficulty is something you cannot yet explain. A defeater is something that, if true, would show your belief is false.
Lim gives an example of a difficulty. Decades into reading the Bible, she says the treatment of women in some stories still troubles her. She names Esther in particular, along with the violence of Israel’s early wars. She offers historical context while refusing to hurry past the discomfort. Those passages trouble her and have still left her trust standing. Someone who has never sorted difficulties from defeaters will feel every hard passage as an attack on the whole.
The objection presses hardest on Lim’s turning point, which came through prayer rather than argument. While she was reading, she sensed the Spirit say, “let’s take a moment here ’cause you don’t really believe this.” Her counsel to others is to ask God directly, “is this your word?” Someone who does not already trust God will find that step unpersuasive, and Lim does not offer it as an argument. A sharper question remains: could anything count as a defeater for a reason like this one? A reason that rests on sensing God’s voice may be the hardest of all to test, and that deserves honest attention rather than a quick answer. What Lim’s story does show is that the prayer led outward into checkable work. People soon pointed her to books on how the canon was formed, a subject she had never found interesting, and in her words it all “became, oh, wait, there’s a little bit of light here that might illuminate this dark part of me.” Her experience sent her to study, where her claims could meet evidence.
She also kept her doubts hidden for years, and she is honest about why: “maybe it was my pride, maybe it was my own insecurities, but I just felt like I couldn’t.” A conviction can only be tested once someone says it out loud.
Practice: map your trust
Set aside thirty minutes alone, or give a group twenty minutes of quiet work before discussion.
- At the top of a page, write the belief sentence from the earlier prompt.
- Below it, list every reason you actually hold it, including the ones that feel unimpressive. “My grandmother trusted it” is allowed. So is a sense that God spoke to you through it.
- Label each reason by its kind: testimony from people I trust, my own experience, historical evidence, changed lives I have seen, or something else.
- Look at the labels. Do you rely on one kind of reason or several? Which kind would leave you most exposed if it were shaken?
- Sort your doubts into two columns: difficulties you cannot yet explain, and possible defeaters that would show the belief false if they were true. Be strict. Most people find the second column much shorter than they expected.
- Choose one item from either column and name one concrete step for the coming week: a chapter to read in full context, a question to bring to God in plain words, or a person to ask.
For facilitators: do not ask anyone to read their list aloud. Invite people to share the shape of their map, such as how many kinds of reasons they found, rather than its contents. Some people will discover their trust is thinner than they thought. That is useful information, and it can wait until after the session rather than being fixed in the room.
Questions for discussion
- Paul tells Timothy to continue in what he learned, partly because of who taught him. When is trusting your teachers a good reason, and when does it stop being enough?
- Lim’s doubt was about scope, about which parts and which books. How would you state your own doubt with the same precision? Does stating it precisely change how heavy it feels?
- Which kind of reason is your trust in Scripture most built on? What would a second, different kind of support look like for you?
- Take one troubling passage you know. Is it a difficulty or a possible defeater for you? What would have to be true for it to move from one column to the other?
- If a reason rests on sensing that God spoke to you, what, if anything, could count against it? Does the answer make that reason weaker, or simply different in kind?
- Lim says historical evidence does not by itself make anyone believe. If that is right, what is evidence for, and what would we lose if we had none?
- Can you name something that would change your mind about the Bible? If you cannot, what does that tell you about your belief?
A question to keep
The gap between a belief you inherited and a conviction you own turns out to have little to do with where the belief came from and everything to do with whether you know what it rests on. Lim closed that gap slowly. She admitted what she did not believe, asked God plainly, and kept studying for decades while some hard passages stayed hard.
Keep your map. In a few months, look at it again and ask one thing: has any reason on this page grown stronger because I tested it rather than protected it?