Day 3
Most people find reading history a challenge to say the least. I find it
fascinating. Most of these historical books are not about the bible, but are
written in biblical times so they give us the customs, and on some occasions
mention some of the same events as the bible. Almost all these books were
written by people who were not Christians and in the case of one writer, hated
everything Christians stood for. He did however confirm the gospels and Jesus’
death on the cross. He was there, he saw it first hand.
There are books of archeology that also confirm
history. In 1945 there was an archeological discovery that both confirms the
scriptures and opens new questions about some of the scriptures content. They
don’t change the scripture, just the way we understand it. Example: in F.F. Bruce’s “New
Testament History,” he talks about
the Dead Sea Scrolls and brings up a question. If you look at Matthew chapter 3
it describes John the Baptist and the beginning of his ministry. John came out
of the wilderness preaching repentance and baptism. A look at the map shows us
he came from the direction of Qumran. His preaching was the same as the people
of Qumran. These were the people who kept the Dead Sea Scrolls. Is this a
coincidence? Things like this makes you want to study more. Things like this
give new life to the bible.
There were also historians writing before the
life of Jesus. The Apocrypha books fill in an important gap left by the silence
of God. Most of these books are confirmed by other historians.
There were historians in the Gentile world also.
These historians confirm the travels of Paul and some of the incidents that took
place during Paul’s ministry. There were Roman historians who wrote about the
establishment of the church at Rome and blamed the church for the fall of
Rome.
There have been Christian movies made using
these historical books along with the bible. History is not really a bad thing.
History confirms the bible and raises our hopes even higher that second coming
of Jesus will be soon.
Daily
Bible Readings:
1. Read Matthew
chapter 3
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