Working From the Right Book

A certain Marvin Williams wrote in the “Our Daily Journey with God” (Volume 16) of his wife who told him recently about one of her students who was having problems understanding a seemingly simple math assignment.

He said his wife wondered if the assignment was too difficult, but she also noted that the other students weren’t experiencing the same challenge completing it. As she walked over to help the student, she immediately recognized the problem: The student was working from the wrong book.

What does this kind of situation say of us who claim to be believers of Jesus Christ?

We believe we work from the right Book because of the Author of the Bible and because of the unity of the Bible.

The author of the Bible is God. Do you still have doubts? Read St. Paul then in 2 Timothy 3:16. “The Scriptures were inspired by God.”

This means that God was actively involved in the writing of Scripture. The Scriptures are God’s infallible words to us.

Need further proof?

There are 66 books (plus the Deuterocanonicals: Tobit, Judith, Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch; Letter of Jeremiah, Song of Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Maccabees 1 and 2 to Roman Catholics), written by 40 different authors (kings, peasants, a physician, scholars, poets, farmers, and fishermen) over a period of 1,500 years. They wrote independently, and most of them knew very little or nothing at all of the others’ writings.

Yet, Luke says that their writings and prophecies (300 of them) pointed to one Person – Jesus Christ (Luke 24:27).

Statistician Peter Stoner has calculated that the probability of five major prophecies coming to pass by chance would be 1 in 2 quintillion. If written fully, that’s 1 in 2,000,000,000,000,000,000!

Yet Jesus says that He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies (Matthew 5:18).

Another good point to ponder on is the preservation of the Bible. Williams mentioned that we have more accurate and older copies of the manuscripts of the Scriptures (the oldest being about 4,000 years) than any other ancient historical or literary source.

Bottom line is that God has given us the right Book. It’s an authoritative answer to the otherwise unanswerable questions of life.

Psalm 33:4 assures that we can trust what the Bible says.

“The words of the Lord are true, and all His works are dependable.” ?