Build Your House in ’09

The Foundation

Who says the housing market is down?  The financial market is a mess, uncertainty with a new administration coming in, Israel battling with Hamas, Real Pirates of the Cari…Gulf of Aden, now is the perfect time to build your house or better yet refurbish your current one.  Before I jump into other topics on my blog, I wanted to first lay the foundation for it, much like you will do with your house.  For this foundation though, I’ll be talking about something more solid than bricks, block, and mortar, I’m talking about the absolute Truth, the Bible.  Now before you bail on me thinking this will be another religious rant blog, hang in there for a sec and keep reading.

Most people’s first impression when they hear the Bible is probably one that’s been formed through a preconceived notion about someone they’ve met who’s proclaimed themselves a Christian or someone else attempting to force the Bible on them when they simply weren’t ready.  But let’s first look at the bible as a “text” to better understand its truth.  If you were to separate the “religious” truth from the Bible, there would be absolutely no doubt of its historical accuracy in the secular world.  The problem is that since it documents the life of Christ and is subsequently the foundation for Christianity many people immediately dismiss it and perhaps even lump it in with other religious texts like the Koran or the Tripitaka that lack historical accuracy. 

Let’s take a minute a review the actual facts.  Archeologists continue to find evidence that proves the Bible is historically accurate.  One such example is the Elba archive, found in Syria in the 1970’s that dates back to 2300 B.C.  Just watch the History Channel and you’ll see endless building site locations depicted in the Bible that are found, including the palace at Jericho and King Hezekiah’s tunnels through Jerusalem.  In fact, over 25,000 places mentioned in the Bible have been discovered and documented, even the controversial Land of Canaan.  So if there’s undisputed archeological and scientific data being discovered almost daily that confirms the Bible’s accuracy, why then would we consider the spiritual truth’s contained within it to be anything less than completely accurate?

The Bible tells us it is the Word of God, inspired and recorded by men of God, II Timothy 3:16.  If we were to look at the Bible in its 2 Testaments, Old and New, we would find 7 division’s.  Law: Genesis-Deuteronomy (5 books), O.T. History: Joshua-Esther (12 books), Poetry: Job-Song of Solomon (5 books), O.T. Prophecy: Isaiah-Malachi (Major: 5 books, Minor: 12 books), N.T. History: Matthew-Acts (Gospel’s: 4 books, Acts), Epistles: Romans-Jude (21 books), N.T. Prophecy: Book of Revelation.  Since we briefly touched on some of the historical accuracies and the Poetry and Epistle’s (or letters) leave no room for accuracy debate, let’s focus on the prophecies.  I’ll briefly discuss what history says about their accuracy.

There are over 2000 accurately fulfilled prophecies, including over 300 regarding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (www.faithfacts.org) Isaiah 53 paints such a picture and it was written 700 years before Christ’s birth!  Other historical texts, such as those of Plato (7 copies) and Ceasar (10 copies) have gone unquestioned despite the fact they were written with over a 1000 year gap between copies.  In contrast, there are over 24,000 manuscripts or portions of the New Testament that are dated 100 to 300 years later than the original.  To continue examining the accuracy of the prophecies, you need to look no farther than the times in which they were written.  Prophecy was not taken lightly in biblical times.  If your prophecy was wrong or you gave a false report, you were killed, period!  Take for example Daniel, who was revered by King Nebuchadnezzar because of his God-given ability to interpret dreams and visions.  The king had a dream that he wanted revealed and he requested many people to interpret it, including magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans (Daniel 2:2).  The king stated in Daniel 2:5 that those who could not interpret the dream would be “cut to pieces”.  So prophecy, or dream/vision interpretation was a serious matter back then.  Daniel successfully interpreted the dream and prophesied about the kingdoms future (Daniel 2:47).  Despite these grave consequences, the prophets and prophecies of the Bible remain because of their truth.

Although it was written by about 40 different writers, throughout 66 books, over a span of around 1500 years the central theme in the Bible remains true; God’s eternal love and gift of salvation from sin  through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus (John 3:16).  I hope you’ve stayed with me through this process of laying the foundation of truth for our new year and more importantly think on the words from Joshua 1:8, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

About the author

Christian saved by grace through faith.

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