October 12
Jeremiah 15-16
Psalm 113:4-9
Proverbs 24:28-29
2 Timothy 3
God-Breathed
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV
This verse clears up any doubt about the authorship of the Bible. Every book, every chapter, every verse, and every word came out of the mouth of God. God inspired forty writers over a period of 1500 years to write down His words. Historians and archaeologists have repeatedly confirmed its authenticity. The Bible is filled with historical detail. Not everything in the Bible has been confirmed archaeologically, but not one archeological find has conflicted with biblical accounts. Some people have the idea that the Bible has been translated so many times that it has been corrupted over the years. If translations of the Bible were made from other translations that might be true, but most of todays’ translations were made by looking at the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts based on ancient manuscripts. In 1947, archaeologists found the “Dead Sea Scrolls” in Israel. They contained the New Testament scriptures that dated back 1,000 years older than anything that had been uncovered before. Comparing these manuscripts with what we already had, there was 99.5% agreement between the texts with the .5% being spelling variances and sentence structure that did not alter the meaning of the sentence. Because printing presses were not available in ancient times, scribes hand wrote manuscripts on papyrus. There are over 5,000 handwritten copies of the New Testament. The monks who copied them were meticulous in checking and rechecking to make sure the copies were exact. The New Testament is regarded by scholars as being the most reliable ancient document available.
There is also confusion about how the books of the Bible were determined and which ones were included. The first five books of the Bible were called the Pentateuch and were the first to be accepted probably during the fifth century before Christ. The prophets’ writings were not brought together until around 200 BC. By this time the Jewish people were widely scattered, and they needed to know which books were the authoritative Word of God because a lot of other books were floating around. Before the birth of Christ, Jewish leaders established the Old Testament canon. The writers of the New Testament were well known to the early church. Matthew, John, and Peter were disciples. Mark and Luke were friends of the disciples. James and Jude were Jesus’ brothers. And Paul met Jesus on the rode to Damascus and then became a follower of Jesus and a companion to the disciples. They all had personal access to Jesus and His life. The accounts they gave were confirmed by thousands of eyewitnesses. If their words had not been accurate, it would have been immediately apparent. When other books began to show up that were written by other people, it was obvious that they were fake. The Gospel of Thomas was written in 140 AD long after the apostle Thomas had died and was rejected immediately. The Gospel of Judas was written after Judas was dead and was also rejected. In 367 AD, Athanasius, a respected church historian formally listed the twenty-seven New Testament books, along with the thirty-nine Old Testament books as the only ones that were universally accepted by the church as the books that were inspired by God and authoritative to faith. Jerome and Augustine then confirmed this list soon after. This same list of books is the canon of scripture we have today. These are the books that God Himself chose to give us. The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. More copies of the Bible are sold every year than any other book in all human history. The Bible has lasted for centuries because it is God’s Words given to us to teach, rebuke, correct and train us in righteousness. No other book has the power to change lives and hearts like the Bible. It is not an ordinary book. It is God’s message to His people. We can base our lives on what it says because we know it is from God Himself.
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