Why Wormwood?

 

My friends and I were reading in the book of Amos today and came across the word, ‘wormwood.’  Of course, my mind immediately went to the book of Revelation 8:10-11, where we read:

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.  And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

So, I thought I would explore this a little.  God could use anything.  Why wormwood?

Wormwood, as used in the book of Revelation, is a plant.  I used to have a wormwood plant in my yard.  Its proper taxonomic name is Artemisia absinthium.  Please forgive me while I nerd out a little bit on that name.

Artemisia is, of course, from the Greek goddess Artemis.  She has too many aspects for us to cover here, but there are a couple that are relevant.  She was the goddess of the hunt and carried a bow and arrows.  Because of her close association with the wilderness and animals, she was seen as ‘Mother Nature.’ 

She was associated with lakes and springs, as in freshwater, and was called Limnaia, or Lady of the Lake by some.  I thought this aspect was particularly interesting considering her namesake star makes one third of fresh water undrinkable in the Revelation 8 passage.

Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo.  They were each given the power by Zeus to kill whomever they wished, Artemis women and girls, and Apollo boys and men.  For this reason, Artemis was known as the goddess of sudden death. 

As for the absinthium part, nothing fancy here.  It is just the Latin word for wormwood.

I always assumed that when the star falls and turns the water bitter that it would be named by people like newscasters or government leaders who are influenced by the name John gives it.  I never gave a thought to where John may have gotten the name.  I mean, why wouldn’t he name it wormwood.  After all, wormwood is bitter, and the star makes the water bitter and undrinkable.

I don’t know why I stopped there.  I’m the one who is always saying that everything in the Bible has its root in the Torah, or the first five books.   For whatever reason I didn't do it before, I did it today and drew an interesting conclusion.  So, let’s go.

The first reference we have in the bible is, as you probably guessed, is in the Torah, Deuteronomy specifically.  It says in the King James Version:

Lest there should be among you man, or woman or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our god, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood. Deuteronomy 29:18

Let’s look at this verse in a more modern Translation.  I like the New Living translation which says:

I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you—no man, woman, clan, or tribe—will turn away from the LORD our God to worship these gods of other nations and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit.

The Hebrew word la’ặnâ is translated wormwood seven times in the Old Testament and once as hemlock.  As you can see, it always means bitter or poison.

With these verses in Deuteronomy as our foundation and knowing that the prophets are giving expanded commentary on what God said in the Torah, let’s connect some dots.

The first connection is between Proverbs and Revelation.  The fifth chapter of Proverbs tells us about an adulterous woman.  Here is a portion of that passage:

For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil.  But in the end, she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword.  Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.  For she cares nothing about the path to life. 

Proverbs 5:3-4 (This is the NLT.  KJV says “...bitter as wormwood.)

The Lord showed me a while back that this was an insight into the Whore of Babylon found in Revelation chapter 17.  She is dangerous and the inhabitants of the earth are made drunk with the wine of her fornication.  If you multiply chapter 5 of Proverbs by a factor of ‘global,’ you get the Whore of Babylon and the fools who are in a dalliance with her.  Proverbs 5 also links her to wormwood.

Jeremiah uses wormwood four times.  Two times in his namesake book; and both times in the same way:

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I will feed them even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. Jeremiah 9:15

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets, “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.  Jeremiah 23:15

These verses connect backwards and forwards.  Look back at the use of the word in Deuteronomy.  God declares that one of the curses for turning to the gods would bring forth the bitter fruit of wormwood and gall.  Consider that many times in the prophets, Israel’s idolatry is compared to adultery.  Marriage is a covenant and God made a comparable covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai.  Now remember Proverbs 5.

He then uses wormwood twice in Lamentations:

He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. Lamentations 3:15

Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood, and the gall.  Jeremiah 3:19

All these Jeremiah and Lamentation passages make me think of Jesus on the cross.  Remember, He became the curse hanging on a tree for us so that we can be redeemed from the curse (Galatians 3:15).  Deuteronomy gives us the scripture that Paul refers to in this Galatians passage:

If someone has committed a crime worthy of death and is executed and hung on a tree, the body must not remain hanging from the tree overnight.  You must bury the body that same day, for anyone who is hung (the Septuagint and KJV include ‘on a tree’) is cursed in the sight of God…  Deuteronomy 21:22-23

What did Deuteronomy tell us would be part of the curse of breaking God’s covenant?  Wormwood and gall.

What did the Roman soldiers offer Jesus as He was dying on the Cross? Wine mixed with bitter gall (Matthew 27:24). 

Jesus took on the role of covenant breaker in our place, in Adam’s place, in the place of all of mankind.  Our part is to believe in what He did.

Now to the scripture that started this whole thing, Amos 5:7:

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth. 

This little verse is in the middle of Amos ties everything together for me, and when I say middle, it’s pretty close to dead center.  

Amos is written to the Northern Kingdom or Israel.  The whole book is a pronouncement of judgment because Israel was worshiping other gods at Bethel.  Not only that, they were taking advantage of the weak and abusing the poor, which was also against God’s covenant. 

If you read Amos 5:7 carefully, you can see the answer to the question we asked at the beginning.  Why wormwood?  God said in the beginning that certain actions would bring on the bitterness of wormwood.  They were guilty of those actions.

Is it any wonder that a star named wormwood falls to earth and poisons one third of all the fresh water?  Remember how Proverbs five was multiplied by a global factor?  Well, so is Deuteronomy 29:18.  All the curses associated with Israel in the Torah will be multiplied worldwide.  Jesus was given bitter water to drink, so will the world in the end.

 

The Eight Women Who Literally Saved the Cosmos

I have to admit, the title isn’t entirely mine.  I was listening to a teaching by Tim Mackie of ‘The Bible Project’, and he said something like, “Well, there were seven women that saved the cosmos.”

His co-host had to stop him and ask him to explain.  Mackie then briefly listed the seven women and their contributions to the very salvation of the universe.  He then moved on to the subject matter that he was teaching at the time.

I was stunned.  How had I never thought about this at all, much less in this way?  I am forever extolling the benefits that God has bestowed on women: first evangelist (woman at the well), first witness of the resurrection (Mary Magdalene), Deborah (judge of Israel), the list goes on.

My friends and I were recently discussing the possibility that the shepherds, the first witnesses of Jesus’ birth, might have been women.  After all, Zipporah and her sisters were watering their flocks when they met Moses.  Rachel was also a shepherdess. Shepherding was a common task assigned to women.

It is not hard to imagine the task of tending sheep would be given to those considered less important than others, as women most certainly were at the time.  Men were necessary for weightier matters, like planning wars and such.  Please forgive my snark.  On we go.

“What about David?” you may ask.  “Isn’t he the most famous shepherd of all?”

Surely, David may be the first shepherd you think of when asked to recall one, but why was he a shepherd at all?  Well, on reason is that he was the youngest and therefore less qualified for the running of things than his older brothers.

There is also a possibility (I repeat, possibility) that he may have been Jesse’s illegitimate son.  I won’t go into it.  I’ve gone into detail about this in other posts, but a simple google search will attest to this.  And, if he was a bastard, of course there would be no standing in the family, and he would have been given the most demeaning of tasks, shepherding.

Stop and think about it.  Why does the Bible spend so much time on the fact that David was a shepherd at all?  Because, the fact that someone as lowly, solitary, and even smelly as a shepherd was raised up by God to be a giant slaying, Philistine conquering king was almost unbelievable by all concerned.

So, no.  It is not out of the realm of possibility that the first witnesses to the birth of the King of the Universe, shepherdesses, would have been in the company of all the other firsts God gave women.

It is amazing to me though that right after this conversation, Tim Mackie blew my mind with his little sideline about the seven women, women who saved the cosmos.

The first two women on the list were Shiphrah and Puah.  We just don’t get how important it was in those days to include the names of women in anything, much less the story of Moses.  Yes, these were the midwives who, at the risk of their lives, refused to kill Hebrew babies when ordered to do so by Pharaoh, a man who considered himself to be a god.  They lied to Pharaoh and told him that the Hebrew women were heartier than Egyptian women and their babies were already born by the time they arrived.

I looked up the meanings of their names.  Shiphrah means fair or adorned, as in: Job 26:13a which says: 

By His Spirit the heavens are made fair.

  Puah means 'splendid.'  It is from an unused root that means ‘to glitter, brilliance.’  We see the value God placed on these two women, not only by their names, but by the fact that their names are included at all.

The next woman on the list was Jochebed, mother of Moses.  She is the subject of another conversation my friends and I had recently.  We were reading the ‘Hall of Faith’ in Hebrews where Moses’ parents are given an honored spot.  But the Book of Exodus gives us his mother’s name and tells us that it was she who saw something special in Moses.  By the way, her name means ‘Jehovah is glory.’

Remember, when Pharaoh failed to stop the multiplication of the Hebrews by the midwives, he just ordered all the baby boys born to be thrown into the Nile.  Jochebed saw something special in her baby and hid him from the Egyptians. Of course, Jochebed couldn’t have hidden Moses without the help and consent of her husband, but the Bible makes it clear that it was her bravery that started the process of the salvation of her people from the slavery of Egypt.

The next woman, or at least girl, on the list is Moses’ sister, Miriam.  I must say, I have considered the bravery of this young lady on more than one occasion.  When Moses was around three months old and could no longer be hidden, Jochebed made a basket, covered it in pitch, and put Moses in the tiny ark.  She believed God and sent her baby adrift on the river.  The Bible says that Miriam stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Here is where her bravery comes in.  The Nile is known, even to this day, for crocodiles.  Consider also that they had been dining on Israelite babies for a while, gruesome I know, but true.  I believe those crocks were conditioned and anywhere Miriam stood that was close enough to see that basket, she was in danger of being eaten herself.

Not only that, but when Pharaoh’s daughter drew Moses from the water, she stepped right up like she owned the place and offered to bring the princess a wetnurse from among the Hebrews.  That wetnurse would be Moses’ own mother, Jochebed. 

Of course, we have to include Pharaoh’s daughter as a hero in our story.  She knew her father’s decree.  She recognized the baby as a Hebrew, yet she drew him out of the water and raised him as her own son, giving him the finest Egypt had to offer.

The seventh woman is also a part of the Moses story, but I’ll bet you wouldn’t be able to guess her identity maybe even after rereading the passage in Exodus.  That would be the maidservant of Pharaoh’s daughter.  She had to wade into the crocodile infested reeds to fetch baby Moses.  God included her in the story so she is important. 

So, that is seven women who, without any foreknowledge of the impact of their actions, saved the cosmos.  Without Moses, there would be no Exodus.  Without the Exodus, there would be no Sinai.  Without Sinai, there would be no Covenant.  Without the Sinai Covenant, there would be no Old Testament because all of it proceeds from the first five Covenant books, one of which is Exodus.  Without the Sinai Covenant and the Old Testament, we wouldn’t have the promise of a savior and our hope for eternity.

This brings us to woman number eight, Mother Mary.  She was a young woman, likely a teenager, when she said, “Yes,” to God.  She faced shame and even the death penalty for being pregnant out of wedlock.  She would have been seen as an adulteress because she was betrothed to Joseph and betrothal was a binding contract, the same as being married without the consummation.  Thank God she said, “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”

One of these days I’m sure I will write about the impact Christianity has had on the freedom of women.  I’ll include the brave acts and prophetic utterances of women in the Bible.  I’ll even write about women teachers and apostles.  But for today, I just want to remember that women weren’t just elevated positionally in the Bible, but the bravery and sacrifice of eight of them literally saved the Cosmos.

A Note Up Front (and don't mind the dates)

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.

I would like to write a quick note as to why I am doing a blog in the first place.  I am a mother of four and a grandmother of seven.  I am blessed to live in the beautiful state of Alaska.  The picture above is one I took in my neighborhood.
But, this isn't the reason I'm writing.

I want to come clean up front. I was a super-devoted, Jesus loving, Holy Ghost believing Christian for many years.  I was actively involved in ministry in my church.  I played the piano for services.  I led the choir. I taught Sunday school.  Then I fell, hard. I blamed the church for years but the truth is, I'm the one who took my eyes off the prize.

Recently, God began dealing with me and I found myself on my face before Him asking for forgiveness.  I said, "How could I have done this knowing what I know!"  All those years I was called to serve God and I threw them away.  I am old now. What can I do?  God brought a scripture to my mind.  "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten," Joel 2:25.

The second chapter of Joel begins with a sounding of the alarm that the Day of the Lord is coming and is nigh at hand.
(Hmm, I believe this applies to me and my time.)

It goes on in the chapter to ask us to return to God with all our hearts, with weeping and fasting, and with mourning.  God asks us to rend our hearts and turn to God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.
(Yep, this is for me.)

It is in this context that God promises to restore the years the locust have eaten.  I am so grateful!  I'm going to believe God's promise.  This little blog is one of the ways I'm believing God to use my life for His purpose.  Father, use the words and ideas you have given me to restore even a little of the time I have wasted.

You may notice something about the dates of the posts.  The only way I know to pin a post to the top of the blog, is to put a future year on it.  So, you will see  a couple of  posts like that, posts that I want to make sure are the first thing you see when you visit, like my testimony and The Gospel.

For all who find yourselves here, may God touch your heart and mind in some way and....

The Gospel

There is a lot of information at our fingertips at all times these days.  Some of that information is good and very useful.  But some of that information is false and is very harmful, even deadly.  How do we know which is which?  Is there any way to distinguish the truth from a lie?

We have the Word of God to guide us.  The Bible is the standard by which all information can be established as truth or lie.  It is not only the guide to truth, it contains the most crucial information you can ever know.

What is that truth? 

Jesus.

And what information will we find there?  

We will find out why we need Jesus and how to come to know Him.

So, let’s take a moment to study the Gospel of Jesus. Gospel means good news and can be spelled out as, 

God’s Only Son Purchased Eternal Life.

I will be quoting a lot of scriptures.  All of them are linked to Bible Hub. That way you can study on your own.  There are a lot of resources there also, like: different translations, commentaries, concordance, lexicon, to name a few.  By the way, I encourage you to study on your own. Don’t take my word for what God has to say and don’t assume that what He has shown me is all there is to see.

Let us start with what the Bible says about our condition. This is the state of all mankind, the whole human race. The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no not one.” (Rom 3:10, quoted from Psalms 14:3) “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

 This means that, no matter how ‘good’ you are, no matter what good things you do, you are a sinner and cannot approach God. “Those of the flesh cannot please God,” (Romans 8:8).

 Yes, this means you. “There is not a righteous man on earth that continually does good and who never sins,” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).  “If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us,” (1 John 1:8).

God is holy and just and sin cannot enter into His presence.

 I’m not even going to list verses to support this here. Believe me, there are too many for my purpose here today. But, you know this to be true. The law of God is written on our hearts. (Romans 2:15) You know without being told. God gave everyone a conscience so we all know, within ourselves, that God’s nature requires justice.

 What would justice be?  The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death,” (Romans 6:23) and Jesus said that workers of iniquity will be cast into the lake of fire, (Matthew 13:42, Matthew 25:41).Now, this doesn’t mean you drop dead when you steal a cookie. This means, because of sin, we all have a death sentence (Psalm 51:5).  

So now we have established that sin is more than just something we do; it is what we are. We are all sinners.  We have established that we are all on our way to face a just and holy God who has declared that sin carries a death sentence and that the death He refers to is eternal fire.  What are we to do?

Thankfully, God provided a way to restore us to fellowship with Him. God showed His love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

“For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life,”

(John 3:16).  

If you ever went to Sunday school as a child or summer Bible school, you have probably heard or even memorized this verse. It is one of the most important verses in the Bible.

It is such a great truth. God, Creator of the universe, holy, just and eternal, sent His son, Jesus, who willingly came and gave His life to pay the penalty for our sins. Why? Because He loves us and doesn’t want any to perish, (2 Peter 3:8-9).

Don’t wait. Today is the day of salvation, (2 Corinthians 6:2).  Don’t wait for a feeling or a season. Salvation is a decision. You decide to believe God’s word is true. That truth is that you are a sinner and the penalty for that sin is death. You must believe that Jesus paid the penalty for your sin and God accepted His sacrifice which is proven by Jesus’ resurrection on the third day.

Once you make the decision to believe, all you have to do is accept God’s free gift of salvation, turn from sin and follow Christ. It’s just that simple. There is nothing you can do to earn it. It is God’s gift to you.

If you have come to believe this truth, you can say a simple prayer. You can use any wording you want but, if you’d like, here is a simple one you can say:

Heavenly Father, I know I am a sinner and I am sorry I have sinned against you. I believe you sent your son, Jesus, to die in my place and pay the penalty for my sins. I believe He rose on the third day. Lord Jesus, come into my heart and live in me. I will trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior, In Jesus’ name, Amen

If you have put your faith in Jesus today, welcome to the family!  

Please read my post, "Advise to New Believers."  let me know if you have made a decision for Christ so I can pray for you.  Or if you have any questions at all, please feel free to email me at areasoningtogether@gmail.com .  If I don't know the answer I will do my best to find out for you. 

Why We Should Believe the Bible ( Thank you Voddie Baucham!)

This is a transcript of a sermon by Voddie Baucham. 

I was going to write something, but he hits the nail on the head and makes the point so eloquently.  If you would rather listen to his sermon,  you can find it here.
_________



I came to Christ my freshman year in college.   That was actually the first time that I had ever heard the gospel; because my mother who raise me as a single teenage mother in Los Angeles, California, was a practicing Buddhist.  And so, Buddhism was the only faith that I knew growing up.  It wasn't until I got to college that I was actually introduced to Christianity.  Because of that,  I have a different perspective than most on the Christian faith. 

I want to share with you tonight what it is that brought me to that place where I was able to see, and to hear, and to understand, and place my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  How it is that He opened my eyes and brought me from darkness into his marvelous light. 

And, it just happened to be very intellectual. That's the way I'm wired.  That's the way I was put together, and I'm grateful that God put a man into my life who,  when he started his presentation, (you know,  he had one of these presentations that he had been taught,  I believe it was EE, Evangelism Explosion back then) he started this presentation and came to realize that he was trying to help me connect the dots as it relates to the gospel, but I didn't really have enough dots for him to help me connect.  

So, he backed up from his planned presentation, and he said, "This is the Bible." And, that's where we started.  

He came back every day for about three and a half weeks, everyday, answering questions. Questions that I had that he could answer, he would answer on the spot. If he couldn't answer them on the spot,  he would go get information and come back later. But, after about the first week, he had taught me how to go and find answers myself  to these questions.  Because,  Folks,  it is not a crime to investigate Christianity. And we've got to stop treating people who want to investigate Christianity like,  somehow they are less than.  

God never called us to a blind faith. If that was the case,  He would not have gone through the trouble of providing, and preserving, and protecting for us, His self-revelation in the Bible. 

And so, I just want to answer that question for you.  Open your Bibles with me to the book of 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1.  I just want to tell you why I choose to believe the Bible. Certainly not because I was raised that way, and I wasn't . By the way,  would you please promise me that if somebody asks you why you choose to believe the Bible you will never, ever in your life,  give that as your answer.

"Why do you believe the Bible?"  "Well,  that's how I was raised."

Don't do that. Please, please,  just please, don't do that. I mean, if you feel like that, just kind of hold it under your breath. Don't announce it to other people, Amen.  Can we at least go that far? 

Well,  there's another one because, we live in this age where experience is king; because we've sort of been kind of inundated with post-modernism. We believe experience is king so,  the most powerful thing that we can say to people, about why it is that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and why we believe what the Bible says about Jesus is because, "We've tried it and it works for us."  So, with boldness, we stick out our chests.  They say,  "You tell me about this Jesus,  and you get that information from your Bible, but why is it that you believe the Bible?  And,  we stick our chests out and we say, "Because I tried it and it works for me."

Hold on.  Is that your final answer? Because if it is, you've got a small problem.  Actually,  it's a large problem; because if that's your answer, what you just did is, you just opened a logical hole big enough to drive a Mack truck through. If you choose to believe the Bible because you tried it and it works for you, then what do you say to the individual who went to a 12-step program. 

They told him,  I believe on his third step, that he had to have a higher power.  He Couldn't think of anything so he looks outside his window; there's a squirrel who visits faithfully every day.  He decides that the squirrel outside of his window will be his higher power.  He hasn't had a drink in the last five years.  He tried it and it worked for him. 

Or,  how about the Mormon that lives better than most of the members of our churches.  (If you can't say,  "Amen," you ought to say,  "Ouch,").  They tried the Book of Mormon and it worked for them.  Is that our answer? 

Now,  I'm not saying that that's unimportant. It is very important, but the Bible is not true because it works for us.  It works for us because it's true.  So,  we don't start with our experience here.  There is something far beyond that. Experience can lie to you and can deceive you.

And so,  I just want to pose another answer to you.  It's an answer that I derived from this passage of scripture and,  I'll show you how it is that I derived it from this passage of scripture; but, I just want to give it to you first as we get started.  Alright? 

"Because it's a reliable collection of historical documents, written down by eyewitnesses, during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.  They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed to be divine rather than human in origin."

Let's look at the text, 2 Peter chapter 1, beginning at verse 16:
     "For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.  For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

So, we have the prophetic word made more sure. to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. 
2 Peter 1:16-21

Seems like he's answering a question, doesn't it?  Like someone has some kind of objection to what it is they were proclaiming and he is responding as to the nature of the authority of their proclamation; that he is defending the accuracy,  the authority,  and the historicity of the teaching of the apostles that we know now as The New Testament, which has it'd root and foundation in The Old Testament scriptures. He is defending the belief in the Bible. 

So, what's his argument?  I'm glad you asked. 

First of all,  that it's a reliable collection of historical documents. Look at what he says,  
     "For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."  When we told you about Jesus, we did not share with you myths or fairy tales or legends.  This was not the Gilgamesh Epic that we were sharing with you.   We were sharing factual information with you.

Not only that,  it's a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.  Look what he says next:
     "But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty."  
We saw it; we were there! 

By the way,  turn with me to the  right if you will, the book of 1 John. That's close enough.  Look what we see in 1 John, those first few verses, I'm not sure, I think there's a point of emphasis here. Maybe you can help me figure it out.

Verse 1:
     "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life."

I don't know, maybe he's getting at something, maybe not.  Maybe verse 2 will help us:
    " And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us."

It's building. Maybe verse three:
    "What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also..." 
WE WERE EYEWITNESSES!

And, there's something about eyewitness accounts.  You know, I brought my son with me and I can remember my son, you know, trying to train my son when he was smaller, and to try to teach him to do what he's told; and also, trying to teach him to tell the truth.  Boy, getting little kids to tell the truth...WOOOO!  Most people who believe that we're 'basically good'... they don't have kids.

I remember one day with my son.  "Son," (I'm trying to teach him not to touch the outlets, you know)  "don't touch those things." you tell him no, you spank that little hand, and all that kind of stuff.  I said just, "No."

And then, okay, and he gets that.  He doesn't like that when you spank his hand.  He's sitting over there one day.  I've told him, "No."  I've spanked his hand.  We've gone through this twice now.

Sin rose up in the boy.

He looked at me..looked at the plug..looked at me..looked at the plug......"Son, did you touch that plug?"

"No, Sir."

"Okay, so we're going to try that again, and you got a choice.  Daddy can get you for touching the plug, or he can get you for touching the plug and lying about it.  But, before you speak, let me inform you.  I saw what you did.  Son, did you touch the plug?" (true story).

(Son whimpering) "I love you!"

He couldn't lie anymore because there was a witness!  It's what Peter says.  It's a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses, and, catch it...during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.

I love 1 Corinthians 15 (vs.3).  Paul is making his argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  After He was resurrected, He appeared to Peter, and then He appeared to the disciples, and then He appeared to 500 brethren at once, and I love this line, "Most of whom remain until now, although some have fallen asleep."  That means the majority of the 500 plus eyewitnesses of the resurrection were around when 1 Corinthians was written.

Oh, I know.  You've been to school.  You've been 'edjumecated'.  And, you've heard all the stories:  
     "Well, actually the Bible has been translated so many times and what they've done during those translations is actually, sort of, ehh...You know they've done a lot of redaction in order to make the things line up.  And so, what we have, actually, is not what really happened.  But, we have what was written by the later community."

I love that, 'The Later Community', these nameless faceless people.

     "There's these overzealous monks that have gone around and they've changed things so they look like they line up.  But, it wasn't really written that early.  It was written much later."

Really?!  They messed around and let me go to school, too. Guess what I know.  I know that if some overzealous monks were going to change the Bible, they would have had problems, three problems in particular.

First, they would have had a manuscript problem, because when we just talk about the New Testament, they would have had to locate some 6,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts and change all of them the exact same way, not allowed their ink-work to show and then get them back where they stole them from before anybody saw them. 

Those 6000 manuscripts, that's no bid deal, right?  How about Julius Ceasar's, 'Gallic Wars'?  We've got ten manuscripts.  How about Aristotle's, 'Poetics'?  We got five.  How about Herodotus (the Father of History)?  We got less than ten.  New Testament?  SIX THOUSAND!

Well, how about when they were written, 'cause they say these things were written so late?  Well, we've got manuscripts or portions of manuscripts that can take us back as early as AD 120 to 150. 

 "Oh that's a long time after the originals."  

Oh, really?!  With Julius Caesar it's about 900 years with, 'Gallic Wars'.  Aristotle's, 'Poetics', we got about 1300 or 1400 years.  That's the earliest thing we can put our hands on.  With Homer (The Illiad)?  About 2100 years is the earliest thing we can put our hands on.   The New Testament?  Within the lifetime of eyewitnesses!

So far, we've just got a good history book. It gets good now.  They report to us supernatural events.  Look at what he says here.  He says:
     "For when we received honor and glory from God the Father such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, 
'This is My Beloved Son with Whom I am well-pleased.'  And we ourselves, heard this utterance made from Heaven when we were with Him on the Holy Mountain."

Now we got supernatural stuff happening, not superhuman stuff, supernatural.  We're not talking about things that, you know, are just out of the ordinary.  We're talking about a withered hand growing back.  We're talking about a man who was blind, he's got nothing in his head to see with, able to see!  We're talking about a paralytic who's never walked in his life being told to raise up and take his cot and walk!  We're talking about (one of my favorites), Jesus saying, "Go to the other side of the lake, and I'll meet you."  Later on, on the ship, I see something like this:
"Um, Hey, um...did Jesus say how He was coming?"  
"No, why?"
"Cuz...cuz...He coming!"

Or my favorite: Friday? dead. Sunday, risen!  Not just superhuman, but supernatural events.

So we got a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses, during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.  They report supernatural events.  By the way, these events took place in fulfillment of specific prophecy.  Now, I know you know this.  But, I just want to do it anyway because, I just love to do it.  Turn with me in your Bibles to the left to Psalm number 22.

Now, realize if I was asking you to turn to Psalm number 22 and we were living, oh some random time, like the first century AD 30, just to pick something out of the air.  Let's say AD 30, and we're around Jerusalem, since we're just being 'random' here.  We're around AD 30; we're around Jerusalem and, let's say, we're people who like to talk about the Old Testament in, I don't know. Just pick a language...Aramaic, okay.

If I wanted you to turn to Psalm number 22 and we're living somewhere around AD 30, and we're living in Jerusalem, and we refer to the Old Testament in Aramaic, I can't tell you to open to Psalm number 22, because there were no chapters and verses until a few hundred years ago.  I would have to tell you to open to the title of Psalm number 22.  So I would have to tell you to open your scroll to, "Eloi, Eloi...Lama Sabachthani", "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"  That ought to sound familiar.  It's precisely what Jesus said when He was being crucified.  Why on earth do you make reference to Psalm Number 22 when you're being crucified?  I know you know the answer but, bear with me because I like this.  "My God, My God, Why have You Forsaken Me?"

Look at verse six:
     "I am a worm and not a man. A reproach of men and despised by the people.  All who see me sneer at me.  They separate the lip.  They wag their head saying, 'Commit yourself to the Lord.  Let Him deliver him.  Let Him rescue him, because he delights in Him.'"
Sound familiar?  That's what's being said while Jesus is being crucified. 

Look at verse 12:
     "Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.  They open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and roaring Lion.  I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of Joint."
Why?  Because you're being crucified.
    
   "My heart is like wax.  It is melted within me." 
Interesting.  Pierce Him in the side, thrusting upwardly with a spear, blood and water rush out as you pierce the pericardium. 
     "My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
(I thirst)
 and you lay me in the dust of death.  For dogs have surrounded me; 
(Huh, Gentiles, could those be Roman soldiers?)
a band of evildoers has encompassed me 
(one on the right and one on the left) 
they pierced my hands and feet.  I can count all my bones. 
(Why? Because your legs didn't have to be broken to hasten your death.)  
They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing, they cast lots."  Psalm 22:15-17 

That was written 1000 years before Jesus even was born, by a man who never once saw a crucifixion in his life because crucifixion had not yet been invented.

And now, the juicy part, they claim their writings are divine rather than human in origin.  Look at what he says:
     "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of ones own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." 2 Peter 1:20-21  That's where people have problems. 

"Men wrote the Bible!"  I love that.  
"You say that's the word of God, but men wrote the Bible..."  
but, the men who wrote it claimed that they were writing the Word of God.

"Yeah, but it was written by man.  You can't rely on things that were written by man."  
Here's what I want you to do thin if you believe that.  You know a college student who's studying mathematics.  They've been taught the Pythagorean Theorem and they got it wrong in the test. I want you to tell them to look at their professor and say: "You can't mark me off on that.  Because, that information came out of a book that was written by men."

As a matter of fact, if that's your problem with the Bible, I want you to get rid of every book that you have, because every one you have was penned by men.  If your argument is that information is inherently unreliable because men take pen to paper, you can never trust anything else that you ever read in life.  You got to do better than that.  

Well, then they try to do better than that; and they say, "Well okay, But, I'll believe that stuff if you can prove to me scientifically."  
At this point, I need to confess something to you.  There's a man who lives inside of me, his name is bad Voddie.  I try to only let him out at night, late, once a week, when nobody's around.  But sometimes he escapes.  And one of the times he tries to escape is when people say this about the Bible, "I'll believe that if you can prove it scientifically."  When that happens, I clench my fists and try to grab real tight before Bad Voddie just goes off and does his thing.  However, usually I fail.  
I have to confess that.  Please pray for me.  
Because he doesn't do things the way that I would like to do things.  'Cause he hears that and just goes off.  

He says, "Wait a minute.  Did you just say to me that you'll believe the Bible if I can prove it to you scientifically?"  We have serious problems here.  The first problem is, you stating that indicates to me, that you don't even deserve to be in this conversation.  However, I'm going to allow you to stay in this conversation, because I'm going to enjoy this.  

Because, you saying that indicates two things to me, number one, you have no clue about the authority of historicity of the Bible; and number two, you don't even know anything about the scientific method.  If you did, you'd realize that in order to perform the scientific method, something has to be observable, measurable and repeatable.  

Newsflash!  Historical events are not observable, measurable, and repeatable.  You can't use the scientific method to prove that George Washington was our first president.  So, if you actually have a problem with the Bible because you can't apply the scientific method, you've got a problem with history itself. 

Now that we've settled the fact that you don't deserve to be in this conversation, let's go back to the real issue at hand, which is this; if something is written, the only way you can question it is if you don't have corroboration or, if there's internal inconsistency.  

We can't find any internal inconsistency and we've got multiple corroboration.  We've got three languages: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.  We've got three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe.  We have over 40 authors, most of whom never met one another because, they wrote over a period of some 1600 years.  Look in your dictionary.  That would be the very definition of corroboration. 

So, unless you have anything that would negate what we find in the Bible, you have to accept the fact, based on the evidenciary method, not the scientific method, that...
The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents, written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.  They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that the writings are divine rather than human in origin.  

I know that I missed verse 19 (Psalm 22) 'cause that's where the gravy comes from.  Because the gravy is... 
'Oh by the way, I tried it and it works for me!     

_________________

Well, that was my favorite presentation of the credibility of the Bible.  I hope you enjoyed it.  If you have questions, you can email me at areasoningtogether@gmail.com.  There is also a video on You Tube called, "What Must I do to be Saved."  It is a good place to start if you would like to come to Christ.