I am a trucker as most of you know. I was once pulled over by one of Alabama’s finest. He decided to do me the great favor of engaging in a roadside inspection on the shoulder of Interstate I-65 in Prattville. He was asking me questions from my open passenger door because it was opposite of the side of mini-vans and corvettes of death. He asked if I would mind him just climbing on into the seat to make it go faster. I, always wanting to score brownie points with state troopers, replied, "Well, sure! Hop on in, officer." I was repaid with this act of kindness with him rummaging through a wal-mart bag filled with paper trash that was dangling between my seats. Turns out inviting an officer into your vehicle is sort of like inviting a vampire into your house, it gives them some newer level of access to suck the blood from you. (metaphorically speaking, of course)
He found three time stamped receipts and proceeded to match them against the entries I had put into my logbooks. After getting over the weirdness of seeing him rummage through my trash spontaneously, I danced a jig as I realized his ruse had not paid off. All the time stamps matched up perfectly with my logbook entries where and when I had claimed to be. I said, "BAM! How bout dem apples, Mister Officerrrrr!" (Not really---only in my imagination.) I went on my merry way.
The reason I share this with you other than the obvious educational and entertainment value is to make a quick analogy.
The Bible is CHOCK FULL of time stamps. It discusses events that supposedly took place when a certain empire was ruling and certain military campaign took place. It gives the names of specific rulers in extremely high positions of power and gives details about happenings that 99.9% of people living would never have had access to until recent historical and archeological discoveries. It gives cultural information as often unnoticed back drops that can verify the likelihood of when it was first written. The linguistics (specific use of language that is unique to only certain geographic locations for a very specific time period) can point us to ways to check the veracity of the writings. There are amazingly detailed and specific prophecies that, if given when the scriptures portray them to have been made, give profound reasons to view the Bible as divine in nature. The Bible is only truly going to penetrate your heart as you are supernaturally converted by the Holy Spirit, and God uses it to speak to you as your most intimate Father/child relationship. However, Jesus invites us in John 14:11, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves."(I added the italics.)
The point is God invites us to recognize the miraculous nature of everything about what He does and how He does it. He is not offended if this is what initially kick starts, so to speak, a pursuit of Him. I believe He is challenging people to have the courage to take it upon themselves to investigate and see if the Word really is from Him by way of historical, philosophical, prophetic, scientific, etc. There is NO other Holy Book (the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the teachings of the Buddha or Confucious) in any other religion that will blow your mind like the Bible IF, IF, IF you will give Him the opportunity. Start digging in and see what you find….and feel free to include me in on the process if you begin to have questions or just want to talk about it.
1 comment:
Just to provide some examples of "time stamps" that I speak of in this post, I would like to point out that Joseph and Moses had contact with the leaders of the nation that was THE most powerful of their time, Egypt. When I say contact, I mean the story involves both having access to and interaction with the Pharoah in personal ways.
Next, consider that there are interactions between the kings of Israel and Judah and their neighbors for hundreds of years. These external powers either have a record of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah or not.
Daniel is perhaps the most amazing example of an account of a single man who had a high level role within the two most powerful empires that just happened to exist during his lifetime. The Babylonian AND the Persian. Again, either the details discussed within Daniel point toward a genuine awareness of these empires and their inner workings or they don't.
Nehemiah is the cup bearer(which doesn't sound important but it meant he was on the administrative staff) of the Persians many years after Daniel.
Ironically, we have to go back to Daniel in the form of prophecy to see the precise knowledge of what took place in the interim between old and new testaments. This gives insights about Alexander the Great and the Seleucid empire and Ptolemaic dynasties BEFORE they happened.
Finally, take a closer look at Luke 2:1 and Luke 3:1-2 among many, many other specifics given in Luke and Acts among others within other New Testament books, and you will see the trend continues. All kinds of opportunities to check and verify.
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