Journal Entry: Session V: Reliability of the Scriptures
Wendy Glidden
Professor: Dr. Lee
Colorado Christian University: College of Adult and Graduate
Studies
May 31, 2015
And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and
the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His
bondservants the things which must soon take place. (Revelations 22:6, NASB)
To me, the testimony of what happened to Paul on the road to
Damascus combined with the truths that his letters reveal is the most compelling
evidence of the reliability of the message in the New Testament. Paul was
forever changed after that encounter. He met Christ, had an intervention, and
then spent the rest of his life sharing the good news and fighting against
false teachers to his own self detriment at times. A person would not take a
complete turn in life like that, putting their very life on the line, if Christ
were not the real deal. “Saul’s conversion makes him pray, see a vision, enjoy
acceptance as a brother in the community of Jesus’ disciples, receive the Holy
Spirit, proclaim Jesus to be God’s son and the Christ, and suffer the kind of
persecution he once perpetrated.” (Gundry, pg345)
Paul let’s his history be known and openly admits to being
present at the stoning of Stephen revealing God’s grace through his life. I
know myself it is only out of the love of the Lord that I have openly admitted
my faults in the past as proof of God’s love. This is exactly what Luke
explains Paul as having done in Acts 22:20: [20] ‘And when the blood of Your
witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving, and watching
out for the coats of those who were slaying him.’
I know for me when I read Paul’s letters I feel his heart
for God. Sometimes when I am reading things he is testifying to and teaching I
truly have the book come to life and it is like I can hear Paul himself! I have
the same experience when I read about King David as well as the things he is
credited with writing.
I know that those are mere feelings but I also know the Holy
Spirit speaks to me regarding the very same truths I read in the bible. In all
honesty the more I read my bible, the more I am convinced that it is the Word
of God. It is weird to discover words of wisdom, advice and truth in the bible
that I have personally had told to me by the Holy Spirit throughout my life.
How I wish I had sought the Word long before I did!
A letter from Paul to Timothy points to the Old Testament
Scriptures stating that they teach us wisdom that leads to salvation through
faith: [15] and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which
are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is
in Christ Jesus. [16] All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; [17] so
that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy
3:15-17, NASB)
When it comes to the words that Paul wrote, Peter tells us
clearly that they are reliable and useful: [15] and regard the patience of our
Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the
wisdom given him, wrote to you, [16] as also in all his letters, speaking in
them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the
untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to
their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Gundry tells us this about the importance of the way in
which Peter referred to Paul: “The description of Paul as “our beloved brother”
(2 Peter 3:15) is what an apostolic contemporary and equal would write.”
(Gundry, pg 532)
Peter would not have backed Paul’s words and called him
beloved if he too did not recognize that Paul was speaking truth. I see this
referral by Peter, the rock of the church, back to Paul as another reason his
letters are reliable.
I think when it comes to the testimony of John regarding
Jesus, John’s testimony is very reliable. For me, it is the story about
Nicodemus that he tells that truly gives reliability to what he shares.
Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews and for him to say what John wrote he said is
quite something in itself. If this were not a true account, it would surely have
been disputed at the very time of its writing! [1] Now there was a man of the
Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; [2] this man came to Jesus by
night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a
teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
(John 3:1-2, NASB) Our text book says, “The story of Jesus and Nicodemus, a
member of the Sanhedrin, illustrates Jesus’ omniscience of the interior state
of human beings. Nicodemus is an example of those who believe in the name of
Jesus solely because of the signs he performs but whom Jesus knows to be still
in need of a renewal so radical as to constitute a new birth, one that
originates in heaven above and happens through belief in Jesus as God’s unique
Son who descended from heaven and ascended back to heaven by way of being
lifted up on the cross.” (Gundry, pg 300)
Last and certainly not least, I think in the sharing of the
good news with the Beran Jews, when we are told that they went to the
Scriptures to verify that what Paul had spoken was truth, shows that those who
had studied the Word long before I ever picked it up, found Paul’s testimony to
be reliable and true!: [11] Now these were more noble-minded than those in
Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the
Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. [12] Therefore many of
them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. (Acts
17:11-12, NASB)
References
The MacArthur Study Bible, 2006, John MacArthur, Thomas
Nelson Publishing
A Survey of the New Testament, 2012, Robert H. Gundry, Zondervan
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