What Is The Situation At Hand?

Chapter 5

Day 5

It’s remarkable to think about the writers of the bible and the situations they were in when they wrote their book (s). Let’s start with Moses. Moses had already lived what we would call a normal life span when God told him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. And what about the other people who assisted him in leading them. What was going on in their lives? What situations occurred during their plight. These are all things that must be considered when studying these books. It helps you understand why God did some of the things He did.

Most of the prophets also wrote under adverse conditions. Most of them were in exile and had to contend not only with a bitter nation of Jews, but also a triumphant nation of conquerors. I’m sure that it was sometimes almost more than they could stand.

Then there was David. He spent all those years on the run with Saul trying to kill him. Yet he was trying to do God’s will and be a King to Israel. Think about all the fear you can see in David’s writings. But then you can also see all the joy of a man who is, for the most part, in God’s will. To look at David’s situation, we should be even closer to God than David was.

When we look at the adverse situations in which the Old Testament was written, we have to wonder how they stayed focused enough on God to know His inspiration to write. How could Jonah who spent 3 days and nights in the belly of a whale not turn on God. If someone today were put in the same situation, do you think they would have blamed God for their troubles or finished the mission like Jonah did.

Salvation is hard for us to understand. God’s love for us is even harder to understand. Maybe the reason the Old Testament was written under such hardship, was so we could see just how loving and how great God really is. These adverse situations strengthened not only those who wrote the Old Testament, but the people it was written about. It is wonderful to have such a great God.

Something else we must understand about the Old Testament is that they didn’t have the Holy Spirit in them as we do. Read Psalm 21, David had experienced the Holy Spirit and liked what he had experienced, but the Holy Spirit had left him again. These were the pleas of s desperate man.

What about the 450 years God was silent from the book of Malachi to the book of Matthew? There were many things that happened during this 450 years that directly effect our understanding the bible. Why did Jesus tell the High Priest he had no authority over Him. You will find the answer in a history book, 1 Maccabees, one of the books of the Apocrypha. Although these books are not cannoned in the bible, they do give a historical account of events that effect the bible.

What about the New Testament? Would John be allowed to pastor a church today? No! You must find out all you can about John’s situation to know why. With Paul’s prison record he also could not pastor a church today. Why? The answer is contained in the situations that surrounded Paul. What was the situation that caused Paul and Peter to disagree in Galatians 2?

There is no doubt that the situations surrounding the writing of the bible had a great influence on it’s content. To understand the bible fully, you must investigate each situation thoroughly. These situations also dictated the mood of the people and how they received the word  of God. It was the situation of the time that probably cause the Jews to deny Jesus as the Christ. They were expecting a literal king to take back their country and rule over them.

              Without putting each verse of scripture in its proper perspective, you will miss out on a great deal of what God inspired in the bible.

Daily Bible Readings:

Read Psalm 21