Today we have another great question about the Bible.
And it's one I've heard dozens of times in my Christian life.
It says, "How do you respond to someone that questions the teachings of the Bible
due to how many times it's been translated?"
It's a great question, huh?
The Bible was written starting with Moses, about 14,1500 BC.
And ended with the writings of John in the 90s, maybe up to 100 AD.
That's a lot of time to play the telephone game, right?
To copy one page of the Bible to another page, to another page,
over all those years,
all those people, flawed, broken, mistaken, confused, distracted people.
How do we know this is actually what God says?
I have two answers for that question.
The first one comes from God.
Jesus promised that not a dot, not a single letter of God's Word, would be lost.
Later in the first century, Jesus' friend, Peter, said this,
He was quoting a passage from the Old Testament
that God's Word would endure forever.
No one would destroy it.
No one would lose it.
No one would twist it so much that we wouldn't have it.
Now, it's true, if you google it you'll find that there are a lot of variants in the Bible.
What that means is, with all the copies and copies and copies,
sometimes the wording is different.
But, but here's this incredible comfort.
Did you know less than 1% of the 31,173 verses in the Bible have any disputes?
And out of that 1% of those verses, none of them put any of the teachings of the Bible into question?
There might be a variance where one manuscript says "God the Lord"
and another says "the Lord God."
There might be a question about this little phrase,
but that phrase is something that's repeated in 15 other Bible passages.
And so when this person asks, "How do you respond to someone that questions the teachings of the Bible,"
I would say the Bible's teachings have never been in question.
If you're interested in digging in more, Google what happened
when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls,
proof that a scroll that was a thousand years earlier than the most recent one we had,
was almost an exact match.
That God's been faithful.
He kept his promise and preserved his Word,
so that you know when God talks about his grace and his love for you,
you don't have to question it one bit.
It's true and his Word endures forever.
I'm honored to be hosting the 'Time of Grace' television program this week.
Pastor Mark Jeske is going to open God's Word
and remind us of the powerful and beautiful work
of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives.
So click the link below and find a way to watch.
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