It’s become a euphemism for ignorance, a figure of speech that cuts right to the heart of a matter, a question that usually ends a discussion: “Do you also believe the earth is flat?” That’s a powerful statement because if there’s one thing we all know for certain and accept as true, it’s that the earth is not flat, it’s round. And anyone who disagrees is woefully out of touch with reality.

But it’s humbling to consider that for the majority of mankind’s time here on Planet Earth, most men and women believed Earth was flat. The concept of the world being a flattened out disc that was enclosed by a celestial dome overhead was universally accepted in just about every ancient society.

There was a rare exception, however, and it came from the Hebrew Scriptures. In the Book of Proverbs, Solomon described God drawing a circle on the face of the deep (earth). That wasn’t what everybody else thought about the world. In addition, this concept is repeated elsewhere in the Bible by the prophet Isaiah: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth…” (Isaiah 40:22a)

Linguistically, the Hebrew word that is being used for “circle” refers to a “roundness that is all around,” which speaks of a sphere, not a flat disk. So at a time when most of the world was saying the earth was flat, the Bible was saying very definitively that it was round.

Once again, we see an example of the Bible being ahead of its time. Why is that? It’s ahead of its time by virtue of the fact that it ultimately comes from the Timeless One, the eternal and everlasting God. When and where He declares something to be true, we would expect it to be ahead of its time – and timelessly true. And the Bible is.

Matthew Maury isn’t a name that’s readily recognized in most households these days. That’s regrettable because he continually impacts each of us. Born in 1806 in Virginia, Matthew Maury joined the United States Navy as a teenager, where he quickly acquired an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of the sea.

He became consumed with understanding how the seas and oceans operate and relate to each other. In time, his passion led him to become the world’s foremost expert on ocean and wind currents. Through years of dedication, he developed the chart system for navigating the seas that was globally adopted and used to this day by the world’s navies and shipping merchants. So the next time you use something that was manufactured overseas, or you travel overseas, you ultimately have Matthew Maury to thank.

What does Matthew Maury have to do with this devotional? According to Maury, the source of inspiration for his study of the seas was none other than the passage we have set before us in Psalm Chapter 8. It’s there that God’s Word declares there are “paths of the seas.” This simple declaration lit the fire of exploration and endeavor that would burn throughout Matthew Maury’s life. He didn’t question the Bible’s reliability but trusted it as the ultimate source of truth, even when it came to what it had to say about the seas.

True, the world owes a debt of gratitude to Matthew Maury. But it owes an even greater debt to the Bible, which first pointed to the oceanographic realities that Maury would eventually discover and share with the rest of the world. If Maury’s life stands as a testimony to anything, it’s the trustworthiness of God’s Word, which always puts us on the path of truth and never points us in the wrong direction.

There’s a lot going on in this passage of scripture that was written close to 3,500 years ago. And when we carefully unpack it, we witness yet another powerful example of the Bible being authoritatively stamped with God’s transcendent truth.

First, notice how it asks about the way to the dwelling of light. In the original Hebrew language, the word for “way” literally means path or course. It’s frequently used to describe a journey or a voyage that one travels. In this passage, the word “way” is speaking of light traveling on a path or course and not standing still or being stationary.

Historically, most scientific thinkers, like Aristotle, believed and taught that light simply “was,” that it did not travel or make it’s “way” anywhere. But over time, it’s been confirmed that light does in fact travel along paths and courses at extremely high speeds…186,000 miles per second, to be precise. So when the Bible speaks of light having a way, it’s completely consistent with what modern science has revealed about light’s nature.

Second, the verse above also refers to darkness and its place. Notice that it doesn’t speak of darkness as having a way, as light does. It’s actually describing darkness as standing still and being stationary, which is the exact opposite as light.

That small detail is very significant because scientifically speaking; we know that darkness doesn’t travel as light does. Darkness is already dwelling in every place where light is not traveling. So yet again, the Bible is right in line with scientific reality when it states that darkness has a place.

Light has a way while darkness has a place. No human being could have known these facts when they were penned 3,500 years ago. In fact, it’s only recent on the timeline of human history that we’re able to appreciate them. But their inclusion in the Bible, especially in one of the oldest books in the Bible (Job), affirms its integrity.

According to Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei should be recognized as the Father of Modern Science. This Italian astronomer and mathematician, who lived from 1564 to 1642, was responsible for some of the most important scientific discoveries in human history. For example, he was the primary person who convinced the world that Planet Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa.

Galileo was also responsible for establishing that the air in our atmosphere weighs something. Prior to his research, just about everyone believed air was essentially nothing. But through a set of experiments, Galileo was able to verify that air contains mass, which also means it has a definite weight. As a result, the field of pneumatics was pioneered, and useful inventions like air brakes have become a part of our daily lives – all because it was proven air has mass and weight, despite being invisible.

But as revolutionary as Galileo’s discovery was in his day, the principle of air having mass had already been put forth in the Bible. In the book that bears his name, Job tells us that God has established a weight for the wind. That was a completely foreign concept for several centuries. Yet once again, as mankind was able to expand his understanding of the world and the way it works, it became clear that the biblical record was scientifically right from the start.

How can we explain this? How did an ancient manuscript that was written about 3,000 years before Galileo lived contain a scientific truth he would later uncover? The only acceptable answer is that the Bible was written by God, who knows every detail of His Creation, including the elusive truth that the wind weighs something.

Although Galileo earned the respect of men like Albert Einstein, the respect for Galileo should pale in comparison to the reverence we ought to have for the Bible. It has proven itself to be scientifically reliable in every respect and deserving of our confidence.

The Book of Job is one of the most mysterious books in the Bible. It doesn’t have a defined date or author, although most experts believe it took place before the time of Abraham and was written by Moses. Another interesting feature is that it centers on a single individual and his suffering. To top it off, much of the book is a series of questions that essentially ask, “Why do good people like Job have to suffer?” And yet, that question is never directly answered.

Again, it’s an unusual book but one well worth our attention. Especially when it comes to some of the statements we find in it – statements that could only come from God. Case in point: Consider the Scripture at the top of this page. In referring to the way the earth was created, the Book of Job tells us God “hangs the earth on nothing.”

Today we know this to be true. We know that Planet Earth is suspended in outer space and isn’t supported by anything. Yet in ancient times, there were a lot of false notions about our planet. Many cultures believed the earth rested on the back of a turtle that swam through the cosmos! Others taught that the world was balanced on the back of an elephant. Centuries later, the Greeks and Romans believed the god Atlas was constantly carrying the earth on his shoulders.

But all along, the Bible had it right. Despite what every other culture taught, the Hebrew Scriptures clearly state that the earth isn’t supported by anything! It simply hangs in space on nothing, just the way God decreed and determined.

The fact that the Bible states the world rest on nothing actually says something. It says that this Book isn’t like every other book that has been written over the ages. Those books have come and gone as their ideas have been proven wrong. The Bible is the eternal Word of truth that comes to us straight from the heart and mind of the eternal God.

After Moses’ death, the Lord established Joshua as the new leader of Israel. One of his first challenges after bringing God’s people into the Promised Land was to take out the City of Jericho. This was no small task because Jericho was a city that was completely surrounded by massive walls that appeared to be impenetrable.

Israel’s conquest of the land that was promised to them would have been a lot easier in the short-term if they just bypassed Jericho completely. But God wouldn’t allow that, and He specifically told Joshua to lead the people against this formidable fortress of a city. Not only that, but the Lord gave Joshua and the people very specific instructions on how to attack the city. They were to silently march around Jericho one time for six days in a row, and then seven times on the seventh day. At that time, they were to blow a trumpet, and God promised the city walls would “fall down flat.”

When you read through Joshua Chapter 6, you see that everything went according to God’s plan. The people marched, the trumpet blew, and the walls fell down flat (Joshua 6:20). It’s an amazing story. It’s so amazing, in fact, that we might categorize it as fiction or fantasy. We might even doubt the Bible is literally telling us what happened here.

But in 1930, Professor Jonathan Garstang of Liverpool University, discovered the ancient ruins of Jericho. What he uncovered was startling evidence of the literal reliability of Joshua Chapter 6. Most walls surrounding ancient cities show a pattern of falling inward, on account of being pushed in by invading armies on the outside. But Jericho’s walls were different. They showed the distinct pattern of falling down flat on top of themselves, exactly as the Bible described.

Jericho’s walls are one more reminder that even the most spectacular events in the Bible are grounded in historical facts. Even when it comes to the smallest detail, like the way walls fall, God’s Word is true, which makes it worth trusting.

At the very end of his life and ministry, Moses gathered the Children of Israel and pronounced a blessing upon them. One by one, he turned his attention to each of the twelve tribes that comprised their nation. As he came to the tribe that had descended from Joseph, Moses said the land this tribe would occupy would be blessed with “…the precious fruits brought forth by the sun…“

Keep in mind that Moses was making this statement roughly 3,400 years ago. That’s long before the sun’s nature and relationship to our world was fully understood. Even as Moses uttered these words, they must have fallen on some confused ears, “Precious fruits of the sun? How can that even be possible? I don’t see the sun bearing any kind of fruits.” And yet, that’s the exact description that was written and recorded for us in the Bible.

Now, fast forward to 1804, when Swiss chemist Nicholas de Saussure discovered the basic equation for photosynthesis. In essence, when sunlight comes into contact with plants, it produces carbon dioxide and water. Then, the plant takes the carbon dioxide and water and converts them into oxygen and different types of organic matter…including fruit!

Moses’ blessing takes on an entirely different tone when we look at it through the lens of photosynthesis. We can see that the fruit produced by plants ultimately comes from the sun as its rays initiate this life-sustaining process. Nobody knew it at the time, but the blessing of Moses (which was ultimately inspired by God) is a scientifically accurate description of photosynthesis.

The Bible doesn’t set out to be a scientific textbook. But when it does make reference to the natural world, it’s always accurate – despite being written long before any human being had such scientific knowledge. This accuracy is just one more reason to receive, recognize, and respect it as God’s truthful testimony.

We’ve seen how the Book of Leviticus contains many of the ordinances the Lord gave to the Israelites as they exited Egypt and journeyed towards the Promised Land. A large percentage of those laws pertained to a sacrificial system God established for His people. There were several different types of sacrifices, and for each one there was an elaborate series of steps that had to be followed.

But as these requirements come to a close, God’s Word declares something scientifically significant. The blood of the animals that were sacrificed was routinely shed, and the Lord had specific instructions on what the Israelites were and weren’t to do with it. For instance, blood was not to be consumed, which was actually a common practice among many other ancient cultures. God didn’t want His people eating or drinking the blood that was produced from their sacrifices because according to Him, “The life of the flesh is in the blood.”

God is declaring that blood isn’t just another physical element. It’s unique in that it’s absolutely essential to life. Without blood, there can be no life, and the Israelites were to revere and respect blood every bit as much as the life that produced it.

Again, something scientifically significant is being stated here, but mankind couldn’t fully appreciate it until the seventeenth century. It was then that an English physician named William Harvey discovered the function of the circulatory system in the human body. As blood circulates throughout our body, it brings much-needed food, water, and oxygen to the trillions of cells that comprise our physical frame. Without this steady stream of nourishment continually flowing, we would begin to starve and suffocate on a cellular level, and life would be impossible.

Before any of this was ever known, roughly three thousand years prior, the Book of Leviticus emphasized the life-giving power of blood. What does that tell us? It tells us that the Author of the human body is also the Author of the Bible…and we’re wise to trust what the Bible tells us.

Leviticus is a very unique book in the Bible. It contains many of the rules for living which God gave the Israelites as they left Egypt and wandered towards the land God promised them via their forefather Abraham.

A lot of these regulations must have seemed strange at the time when they were given. For example, in the verse above, we see that God commanded those who had been infected with a serious disease (in this case leprosy) to live apart from the rest of the general population.

That doesn’t seem right at first. When people are suffering, we instinctively think they should be surrounded by a support group. Isolating them seems inconsiderate and insensitive. We could even conclude that if it weren’t for this specific command, those with diseases would never have been separated. As a matter of fact, when you look at every other ancient culture, you don’t find any instructions to separate those with serious diseases from everyone else. It’s a practice and concept that was unique to the Jewish laws in Leviticus.

Here’s what we know today: Many diseases are communicable and are transmitted through the air we breathe. In cases like this, quarantining a patient is the safest and most effective way of helping them, because they’re not able to infect the people trying to aid them. This wasn’t common knowledge back when the Book of Leviticus was written. But as we can see now, there was a lot of sense in separating those with diseases from the general community.

The Bible doesn’t pretend to be a medical manual, but it did introduce practices that made medical sense well before any human being had discovered them. And the fact that the scriptures anticipate these medical realities further reveals God’s divine imprint upon it.

The Book of Genesis devotes an entire chapter to the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had settled in the city of Sodom, which had grown increasingly wicked. It was so wicked, in fact, that the Lord sent two angels to visit Sodom in order to determine if it needed to be destroyed (Genesis 18:20-21).

What happened next is a sad example of how sinful the human heart can get. Fearing for their personal safety, Lot invited the two angels, who were disguised as men, into his home. But a mob gathered at Lot’s front door and demanded the men be given over to them. Lot tried to protect his guests, but the crowd rushed to break the door down. Just then, the angels revealed their true nature, and their attackers were miraculously blinded.

The angels shared their mission with Lot and rescued him and his family before Sodom, along with its sister city, Gomorrah, was destroyed. As Genesis 19:24-25 tells us, God thoroughly wiped these cities from the face of the earth, leaving absolutely no evidence of their existence.

God’s judgment was so thorough that the world was left without any trace of these two cities. All that was left of them was their mention in the Bible. As a result, many started to question the scripture’s reliability. After all, if Sodom and Gomorrah had been real, the critics said there ought to be some additional evidence of them somewhere, somehow.

That evidence came to light in 1964 when the City of Elba was excavated in Syria. Thousands of tablets were discovered in and around the city, and one of them refers directly to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet again, archeological evidence underscored the historical accuracy of the biblical record.

As troubling as the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is, it’s also a great source of confirmation…confirmation that the Word of God is absolutely accurate and totally trustworthy.