“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said inall the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27 NIV)
Only God could have put the Bible together. It is 66 books written over 1,600 years by 40 different authors —
and it has one theme.
It is one of the reasons we know that the Bible is God’s Word: It has a single unified theme. From Genesis
to Revelation, the Bible is all about God redeeming man. Jesus is its star.
The fact that the Bible has only one theme is nothing short of a miracle. It’d be one thing if one person
wrote the Bible. The Koran was written by one person, Mohammed. The Analects of Confucius were
written by Confucius. The writings of Buddha were written by Buddha. You’d expect them to be uniform.
The Bible, on the other hand, was written by 40 different people, in every age and stage of life and on three
continents. And they all wrote the same story — Jesus’ story. Prophets and poets, princes and kings, sailors
and soldiers all had the same story. Some were written in homes, others in prisons, and others on ships.
You couldn’t have put together a more diverse group of authors.
Yet the story is the same.
Imagine I gave 50 people a piece of paper and I told those 50 people to tear their pieces of paper into
different shapes — but I never tell them how I’m going to use them. What’s the likelihood I’d be able to take
those pieces of paper and make a map of the United States out of them? Those odds would be astronomically
low. If I did that, most people would think it was a trick.
That’s the miracle of how the Bible was put together.
That’s the miracle of how the Bible was put together.
We tend to think that the New Testament is about Jesus and the Old Testament is about Israel. But that’s not true.
The Bible says in Luke 24:27, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was
said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (NIV). The New Testament wasn’t even written then.
The pictures, metaphors, analogies, and illusions — from beginning to end — are about God’s plan to redeem
people and build a family for eternity. It all began with him. You can see him in every book.
That’s a miracle.
Talk About It
- Does considering the miracle that is the cohesiveness of the Bible change your attitude toward it as you read in your quiet time today?
- When you speak of or quote the Bible, do you reflect the wonder and reverence that comes from understanding what a miracle the Bible truly is?
© 2012 by Rick Warren.
No comments:
Post a Comment