Why Should Anyone Believe Christianity Is True?

Christianity makes an extraordinary claim about the world we live in. There is one true God who created all things, made humanity in His image, and has revealed Himself to us. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully God and fully man, who entered human history, died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead. He doesn’t just live in history. He is the living God. Today and forever.

Christians also believe in the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are three distinct persons who share one divine essence, not three gods and not one person appearing in three different forms. This is the God revealed throughout Scripture, and understanding who He is changes everything about how we understand ourselves, sin, salvation, death, and eternity.

Those are enormous claims, and enormous claims deserve serious examination. Christianity does not ask us to believe that Jesus rose from the dead because Christianity makes us feel better about life. It points us toward Scripture, people, places, events, manuscripts, history, prophecy, eyewitness testimony, and ultimately the person of Jesus Christ. Christianity invites us to seek the truth because truth has nothing to fear from investigation.

That is what we are going to do at CHPTRXV.

Christianity Is Either True or It Is Not

We live in a culture that frequently treats religion as a matter of personal preference. Someone follows Christianity, someone else follows Islam, another practices Buddhism, and another believes there is no God at all. We are often encouraged to describe these simply as different spiritual paths without asking whether their central claims contradict one another.

But truth does not work that way. Jesus either rose from the dead or He did not. Jesus is either the Son of God or He is not. God either exists or He does not, and two religions cannot give contradictory descriptions of God and both be completely correct simply because their followers sincerely believe them.

Christianity makes objective claims about reality. The opening words of Scripture declare, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Bible begins with God because everything else begins with God. Before nations existed, before religions developed, before humanity walked the earth, God was already there.

That means Christianity is not merely a philosophy for living a better life. It is a claim about who created reality, why humanity exists, what has gone wrong with us, and what God has done to redeem us. If those claims are true, Christianity is not simply one useful worldview among many. It describes the reality in which every human being already lives.

Start With Jesus

The best place to investigate Christianity is not with Christians. Christians can disappoint you, churches can fail, pastors can sin, and people can badly represent the faith they claim to follow. Christianity ultimately stands upon Jesus Christ, so that is where the investigation should begin.

Jesus once asked His disciples one of the most important questions ever recorded: “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Nearly two thousand years later, every person investigating Christianity must eventually confront the same question.

Jesus did not present Himself merely as a moral teacher. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and He declared, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). When Thomas encountered the risen Christ, he addressed Him as “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), and the Apostle Paul later wrote that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

The Christian claim is therefore unmistakable. Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine, the eternal Son who took on human flesh without ceasing to be God. John summarizes this beautifully when he writes that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” and then tells us that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14).

Christianity Is Rooted in Real History

One of the remarkable things about Christianity is that its central message rests on events that actually happened in history. Jesus lived in a particular place and time, ministered among identifiable communities, interacted with historical figures, and faced execution under Roman authority during the governorship of Pontius Pilate. His followers did not respond to His death by creating an abstract philosophy or preserving only the teachings of a fallen leader. They proclaimed something far more extraordinary: Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.

The Apostle Paul summarizes the message he received and preached in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” This proclamation appears at the foundation of the Christian movement, not centuries later. The death and Resurrection of Christ are at the center of the Gospel from the beginning.

Jesus Himself had told His disciples what was going to happen. In Mark 9:31, He tells them that He would be killed and would rise after three days. The crucifixion was not the unexpected destruction of God’s plan. Christ willingly went to the cross knowing what His death would accomplish.

Foundations of Christianity

This is also why the historical foundations of Christianity matter so much. People are free to reject the Christian interpretation of the evidence, but Christianity itself invites historical investigation because its message is inseparably connected to history. We can investigate the world in which Jesus lived, the manuscripts that preserve the New Testament, the people named within its pages, the earliest Christian proclamation, and the historical circumstances surrounding the birth of the Church.

Jesus Christ Rose From the Dead

The Resurrection is not a metaphor for hope, a spiritual lesson about overcoming adversity, or a story created to preserve Jesus’ legacy. Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead. The tomb could not hold Him, death could not defeat Him, and His Resurrection changed human history.

The New Testament records that the risen Jesus appeared repeatedly to His followers. He spoke with them, ate with them, allowed them to touch Him, taught them, and appeared to groups of witnesses. Paul records appearances to Peter, the Twelve, more than five hundred people at once, James, the apostles, and finally himself in 1 Corinthians 15:5–8.

The disciples did not begin preaching that Jesus had left behind inspiring teachings. They proclaimed that He was alive. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 declares, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it” (Acts 2:32). The Resurrection became the center of apostolic preaching because the apostles believed they had encountered the risen Lord.

Paul understood exactly how important this was. He wrote that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). Christianity does not survive by reducing the Resurrection to symbolism. The Christian faith stands upon the reality that Jesus Christ died and rose again.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

To understand the cross, we first have to understand what Scripture says about us. Humanity’s deepest problem is not a lack of education, wealth, political power, technology, or self-esteem. Our deepest problem is sin and the separation from God that sin produces.

Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This includes every one of us. Christianity does not divide humanity into good people who deserve God and bad people who do not. We are all sinners in need of grace.

God did not leave humanity in that condition. Romans 5:8 tells us, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus willingly took upon Himself the judgment our sin deserved, offering Himself so that sinful people could be reconciled to a holy God.

This is why Christianity is not ultimately about becoming religious enough to earn salvation. Ephesians 2:8–9 teaches that we are saved by grace through faith and that salvation is “not by works, so that no one can boast.” The Gospel is not the story of humanity becoming good enough to reach God. It is the story of God coming to rescue humanity.

Who Is the God Christians Worship?

Christians worship one God. Scripture is unequivocal about this, declaring in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Christianity has never taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods.

At the same time, Scripture reveals the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God while distinguishing them personally from one another. At Jesus’ baptism, the Son is in the water, the Spirit descends upon Him, and the Father’s voice speaks from heaven (Matthew 3:16–17). Jesus later commands His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity expresses these biblical truths together. There is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They share one divine essence while remaining personally distinct from one another.

This matters because Christians are sometimes accused of worshiping three gods or of inventing the Trinity centuries after Jesus. Both claims misunderstand historic Christian doctrine and the biblical material from which it comes. We will examine the Trinity in depth in a dedicated article, including the passages commonly used to challenge it.

Can We Really Trust the Bible?

If we are going to use Scripture to understand God, an obvious question follows: can we trust the Bible itself? Critics frequently claim that centuries of copying, translating, editing, and alleged changes have made it impossible to know what the biblical authors originally wrote. You will encounter this argument constantly online, often presented as an established historical fact. Repeating a claim, however, does not make it historically accurate.

Modern biblical scholarship does not depend upon a centuries-long chain of English translations. Scholars examine surviving Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts alongside ancient translations, quotations from early Christian writers, and other textual witnesses. Because so many manuscripts survive, scholars can identify differences between copies, compare those differences across the manuscript tradition, and determine which readings have the strongest textual support.

Yes, textual variants exist. Christianity has no reason to hide them. Textual criticism allows scholars to locate these variants, examine how they differ across manuscripts, and evaluate the evidence for each reading. The important questions concern the nature and significance of those variants, how confidently scholars can determine earlier readings, and whether any central Christian doctrine depends upon a disputed passage.

Those questions deserve evidence rather than slogans. In our investigation into biblical reliability, we examine the manuscripts themselves, trace how scribes preserved and copied the biblical text, explain what textual variants actually look like, and show why Christians can have confidence in the Scriptures they read today.

What About Contradictions in the Bible?

Another common objection is that the Bible supposedly contains countless contradictions. Sometimes enormous lists circulate online containing dozens or even hundreds of examples. A large number can sound devastating until individual claims are actually examined.

The correct response is not to dismiss every objection automatically. Put the passages next to each other, read their surrounding context, identify exactly what each author is saying, consider the historical setting and literary genre, and determine whether the statements truly cannot both be correct. A contradiction has a specific logical meaning, and differences in detail, perspective, emphasis, or selection are not automatically contradictions.

Some objections are easy to answer. Others require careful examination of language, chronology, ancient culture, manuscript evidence, or the different purposes of biblical authors. Serious questions deserve serious answers, and Christians should never be afraid to examine difficult passages carefully.

If Scripture is truly God’s Word, investigation is not a threat to it. Our responsibility is not to protect the Bible from questions. Our responsibility is to handle those questions honestly and allow the evidence to speak.

What About Science?

Popular culture often portrays science and Christianity as enemies. However, science and Christian theology often address different questions about reality. Science investigates the physical universe and explains how natural processes work. Christianity asks deeper questions about why the universe exists and why it follows an intelligible order.

Psalm 19:1 declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Christians therefore have no theological reason to fear studying creation. Learning more about the universe does not make its Creator smaller.

There are profound questions at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the reason the universe operate according to intelligible laws? Why can mathematics describe physical reality? How did life originate, what produces consciousness, and why does humanity experience moral obligation?

CHPTRXV will examine those questions individually rather than hiding behind the phrase “God did it.” Christianity makes a much deeper claim. The universe is intelligible because it is creation, and behind creation stands an intelligent Creator.

What About All the Other Religions?

The existence of many religions does not demonstrate that Christianity is false. It demonstrates that human beings have proposed many different answers to the most important questions of existence. Those answers can be compared because religions make claims that frequently contradict one another.

Christianity teaches that Jesus is the divine Son of God who was crucified and rose from the dead. Islam honors Jesus as Messiah and prophet while rejecting central Christian claims about His divine Sonship and crucifixion. Jehovah’s Witness theology rejects the historic Christian understanding of Christ’s deity, while Latter-day Saint theology makes claims about God, revelation, and restoration that differ substantially from historic Christianity.

Other worldviews offer still different accounts of God, humanity, salvation, suffering, death, and what happens after we die. Respecting the people who hold those beliefs does not require pretending those differences do not exist. Genuine respect means taking another person’s beliefs seriously enough to examine them fairly.

CHPTRXV will do exactly that. We will examine Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Black Hebrew Israelite teachings, Buddhism, atheism, materialism, New Age spirituality, and other competing worldviews. We will use their own texts and authoritative sources whenever possible, compare their claims with Scripture, examine the historical evidence, and defend the truth of Christianity.

Why Christianity?

Christianity tells us something both difficult and beautiful about ourselves. We were created by God and possess extraordinary value because we bear His image, but we are also sinners who cannot save ourselves. We need something far greater than self-improvement.

Everyone needs a Savior.

That Savior is Jesus Christ. He did what we could never do for ourselves, taking our sin upon Himself, dying in our place, and rising victoriously from the grave. Salvation is found in Him because He is not merely someone who knows the way to God.

Jesus said:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Christianity is exclusive because Jesus Himself made an exclusive claim. Yet the invitation of the Gospel is extraordinarily broad. Christ calls people from every nation, race, language, social class, and background to come to Him.

What If I Have Doubts?

Doubt should not be confused with rejection. Some people have sincere questions because they want to know whether what they have been taught is actually true. Scripture itself records a father crying out to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

If you have questions, ask them. Investigate whether Jesus existed, whether the Gospels are reliable, and whether He was crucified. Examine the evidence for the empty tomb and the claim that people corrupted the Bible. Ask whether archaeology supports Scripture or whether Christianity borrowed its beliefs from pagan religions. Then consider whether any competing worldview explains the evidence better.

But apply the same standard to every worldview you examine. Do not demand extraordinary historical evidence from Christianity while accepting another religious or secular worldview without investigation. Examine Islam, atheism, Mormonism, materialism, Buddhism, or whatever alternative you are considering with the same willingness to challenge its assumptions.

Christianity can withstand the questions.

Put It to the Test

That principle will guide this entire CHPTRXV apologetics project. We are not asking you to believe Christianity because we told you to. You can read the Scriptures, manuscripts, historical sources, archaeological discoveries, philosophical arguments, competing religious texts, and evidence so you can understand why the Christian faith deserves your trust.

We will also tell you when an argument commonly used by Christians goes farther than the evidence allows. Defending Christianity does not require weak evidence, exaggerated claims, or misleading quotations. Truth does not need us to manipulate the facts in its defense.

But we will never pretend to be neutral about Jesus Christ.

We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We believe He is fully God and fully man. He died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead. We believe He is alive today, and we believe in one God eternally revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Those convictions are why we investigate these questions in the first place.

The God Who Searches for the Lost

CHPTRXV comes from Luke 15, sometimes called the Lost Chapter of the Bible. Jesus tells three stories there: a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, a woman searching for a lost coin, and a father welcoming home a lost son. Each story reveals something about the heart of God toward those who are lost.

That is the purpose behind this work. Apologetics can become an intellectual competition in which the goal is simply to win arguments, embarrass opponents, or accumulate clips of someone being defeated in a debate. That is not our mission.

Our mission is to defend the Christian faith because people matter. The Muslim, atheist, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Buddhist, skeptic, former Christian, questioning teenager, struggling believer, and person who has never opened a Bible are not enemies to defeat. We are all people created in the image of God.

Jesus came seeking the lost.

We want to point them toward Him.

Start Here

You do not need to answer every question about Christianity today. Start with Jesus. Read His words and examine what Scripture says about Him. Investigate the historical evidence surrounding His life, death, and Resurrection. Then consider the question Jesus asked His disciples nearly two thousand years ago:

“Who do you say I am?”

Matthew 16:15

Everything ultimately comes back to that question.

If Jesus were merely another teacher, Christianity would have fundamentally misunderstood Him. But Jesus is not merely another teacher. He is the Son of God who entered His creation, died for our sins, conquered death, and rose again.

He is alive.

If you have spent part of your life running from God, doubting Him, questioning Him, searching for Him, or wondering whether He exists at all, your story does not end with being lost.

It begins with being found.

Lost. Found. Sent.

Bringing the Lost back to the Light.