History
As you read the Bible it is sometimes easy to forget you are reading not just stories, but history. We need to remember a simple truth: those stories are history, and history is full of stories. Now, this isn’t one of those devotions that will go off on a tangent about how truth is perspective based, or written by the victors. Personally I agree. Anything man writes is subject to perspective, nature, nurture and bias.
BUT, the Bible wasn’t simply written by man. It had the hand of God upon it. The world’s greatest Holy Ghost Writer. It’s history. And history can be collaborated.
History bears witness to the Bible.
We bear witness to history.
The Bible talks a lot about witnesses. We can start at the legal definition. That would be in Deuteronomy 19:15 ESV
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.”
A single witness is not sufficient.
History is reflected in the Scripture, and the Scripture is bore witness by generation after generation that have passed down what is truly important.
That’s is why John wrote…not once, but twice….
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (John 5:13)
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13)
These verses sum up why the apostles wrote. Not just to bear witness but to deliver life.
Scripture was never “just a book” .
It was the testimony of lives lived in witness to the love of God.
You find all of this recorded in the book of Acts. Were Luke (who was called to give a written witness (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1&version=ESV) Remember, Acts is the second part of the Gospel of Luke. Luke uses the word witness constantly…you find it in 1:8 and 22, 2:32 and 40, 3:15, 4:33, 13:31, 14:3 and 17, 20:26, 22:5 and 20 and 15; 26:16 and 22
Like John, Luke wrote to bear witness.
That witness was handed down, from generation to generation. Do you realize you are the latest generation to hold these words? Do you live as the current inheritors of this history? You now speak witness to the Acts of God. You are a part of history! You are placed by God to be one of His many witnesses .
The Scripture
The Church
You
See you Sunday,
-Pastor Dan