IS THE BIBLE DEPENDABLE, PT 1 MIRACLES

2 PETER 1:19 AND WE HAVE AS MORE SURE THE PROPHETIC WORD, TO WHICH YOU DO WELL TO PAY ATTENTION AS TO A LAMP SHINING IN A DARK PLACE, UNTIL THE DAY DAWNS AND THE MORNING STAR ARISES IN YOUR HEARTS. (LSB)

In our previous article we discussed the concept of miracles as proof of the validity of the word of God. The God we serve, the God of the Christian Bible, the only God there is has given to us words of life. He has offered redemption from sin and from the eternal consequence of sin. But He is not a puppet master, nor is He a monster. Many today would say that God chooses who will be saved and who will be lost. This is false. God in His great grace has offered to His rebellious creation the opportunity of salvation from sin.

C.S. Lewis one time said, “merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish; He can only woo.” (the Screwtape letters, Ch 8)

That is to say God does not force Himself. He has purposefully not given indisputable proof. But there are certain evidences which can woo and strengthen.

God has revealed his divine, authoritative and eternal law thru the written word. Written language is a precise way to communicate something from one generation to another. It affords people far away in both time and space to know what was revealed and to do that will to reap the benefits of obedience; or to choose to ignore that will and reap the benefits of ignoring the will. We believe this to be the Old and New Testament. Namely for us in this dispensation the New Testament. But how do we authenticate this written word?

In the years long gone the king would press his ring or something that bore his seal on the scroll or parchment and send it to his captains and governors in distant lands. Today we have not a seal affixed in wax, but we have a surer word:

2 Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (KJV)

That word is certified by miracles. We have briefly discussed in the first article. But there is much more to offer.

Let me refer you to the words and works of Sir Fredrick Kenyon, an Oxford scholar and Ancient language professor who later became the president of the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem.

 "Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”

For instance, here is what he has to say about Sophocles:

"We believe that we have in all essentials an accurate text of the seven extant plays [plays for which we still have copies] of Sophocles; yet the earliest substantial manuscript upon which it is based was written more than 1,400 years after the poet's death."

By comparison, the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament date to less than 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus and almost every verse of the New Testament had been quoted in a writing by someone somewhere by the third century.

Frederick concluded from his research that,

"The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation, throughout the centuries."