The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
112. The Living Word: Evidence for the Bible’s Divine Authority
Uncover the divine mysteries and prophecies that assert the Bible as the ultimate word of God. Join us as we explore over 300 messianic prophecies from the Old Testament, fulfilled through the life of Jesus Christ, and how historical events like the destruction of Jerusalem serve as testament to the Bible's divine origins. With insights into archaeological discoveries, such as ancient cities and figures like King David, we affirm the Bible’s authority and its essential guidance for our spiritual journey with Yahweh.
Prepare to be moved by miraculous accounts of Muslims encountering Jesus through dreams, shared by evangelist Tom Doyle. These stories from predominantly Muslim countries reveal the profound faith and courage required to embrace Christianity in the face of persecution. By contrasting these experiences with the relative ease of practicing religion in the Western world, we illuminate the resilience and steadfast belief demonstrated by those who risk everything for their faith. The tale of Job further enriches this discussion, offering timeless lessons on endurance and divine favor amidst life's adversities.
Embark on a journey through the harmonious tapestry of the Bible, spanning 66 books and 1500 years, yet resonating with a consistent theme of God's relationship with humanity. Gain insights into how Jesus's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount align with the Ten Commandments, positioning Him as a guiding figure akin to Moses. As we conclude, we leave you with a glimpse into the Bible's scientific foreknowledge, promising more revelations in future episodes. Join us as we uncover the timeless wisdom and truths found within the pages of God's living Word.
Thank You for Joining Us!
For the full show notes, including links to any resources mentioned, please visit The Radiant Mission Blog.
Follow along on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
Enjoying the show? Please refer it to a friend :)
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast. My name is Rebecca Toomey and I am here with my lovely co-host and sister, rachel Smith. Hey everyone, host and sister Rachel Smith. Hey everyone. I didn't know if I was going to go for that second Smith or not, but here we are. We are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through this crazy life and with your relationship with Yahweh, and today we are going to be talking about the truth of the Bible and the Bible being the word of God. I mentioned last week. We're getting into the series on counter-cultural topics and things that are considered counter-cultural by the world standards and, believe it or not, talking about the Bible can often fit that narrative for a lot of people. So I managed to get Rachel here. I think I said last week she's moving for the 587th time and this is it. This is all I can scrape out before you have moved to the next place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't even think I haven't officially announced that.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we'll see right. You still have to pack everything, so maybe you'll just exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean it's yeah, I am in the midst of moving again.
Speaker 1:Well, it'll be good, it'll all be good, and then we can talk about your move after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I got to get through the craziness of that.
Speaker 1:Definitely yeah. So this topic was inspired by a number of things, but I want to kind of give a little bit of context, but then we're going to dive into some specifics here and the biggest thing being that many people that are in the world, let's say, question the Bible as being the word of God, because they'll say well, it was written by men, it was written by man. But I would argue that people believe a lot of things that man writes, like scientific studies, and those are clearly false. But I digress. But you know. So we're going to talk about the Bible being the inherent word of God and what that means, and kind of some truth behind it. This is something that we'll approach from a couple of different angles. You know, talk about history, a little bit of theology and philosophy, and I think that one of the places that is most important to start is with prophecy, because that is one of the most influential pieces of the Bible being truth is how many prophecies have been fulfilled that were written in the Bible. But before we get into that, one other thing or you are exploring some of these things I would say the reason why this is so important is because the Bible God gave us the Bible for a reason. He gave us the Bible to help guide us in our relationship with him, and, yes, I do believe that prayer and having a direct relationship with Yahweh is important and asking him for guidance in all things. But our hearts and our minds can lead us astray and we can convince ourselves of things that may not actually be of God. And that is why I think personally and feel that it is important for us to read it, understand what he's trying to express to us, because there are laws and things that are important for us to understand. Now I don't want to get into a whole side conversation about, well, what is salvation and like can't I just believe in Jesus and that's enough? Like that's a whole separate situation here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about a little bit about fulfilled prophecies, things or pieces of evidence we could say about the Bible's divine origin. Are these numerous prophecies that have been fulfilled? So there are messianic prophecies. The Old Testament contains over 300 prophecies about the coming Messiah. Some examples are in Isaiah 53, in Psalm 22, and in Micah 5 too, and these were fulfilled with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So a lot of. If we're going to talk about? What is that? An English allegory, you know. These things were said and then they came true.
Speaker 1:The other piece of this is the historical events that prophecies, like the destruction of Jerusalem, which was predicted in Daniel 9 and then fulfilled in AD 70, or the rise and fall of the empire, as seen in the book of Daniel. Those are some examples of the Bible foretelling future events and being accurate. I know we're waiting on a couple of prophecies right now to be fulfilled, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But, those ones aren't really the most. I don't want to use the word exciting, because that just means that the end of the world is here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some people think that that's here right now, like those prophecies have already been fulfilled too. Yeah, true.
Speaker 1:I can point to Jessica Spies. We had her on the podcast a long time ago I want to say it was in winter of not this past year, but the year before so we did talk about biblical prophecy and she has some really good stuff and she also has a biblical timeline that she has available on I think it's on Etsy. So between now and doing the show notes, I'll find that and I'll include her information for anybody that might want to look into some biblical prophecy and so that you can see the timeline, because it is very interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's like why we've done episodes on it. It's a whole topic in and of itself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Yep. And that kind of brings us to the second part of this, which is, you know, we just talked about historical events, but the continued historical and archaeological evidence for the Bible being true. You know, archaeology has discovered and corroborated many of the historical details that have been found in the Bible. Being true, archaeology has discovered and corroborated many of the historical details that have been found in the Bible. Some of those things are cities and people groups. So archaeologists have uncovered evidence for ancient cities and civilizations that were mentioned in the Bible, like Jericho, nineveh and Babylon, as well as figures like King David, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. All of those are attested by historical sources outside of the Bible. I don't have this in my notes, but Jesus Christ himself is a person that has been cited. I believe he is the most cited historically of any figure of his time outside of the bible yeah, yeah, or possibly any historical figure ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like there's more third-party documentation of him than like alexander the great yeah, and I mean, we could even argue that even people that believe in other religions believe that jesus existed.
Speaker 1:He was a person yeah, you know, even muslim and jewish religions believe that he know that he lives, he's, he was a human being that was born and walks this earth. So some other interesting things are manuscript evidence. The Bible has more manuscript support than any other ancient text. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, were preserved as part of the Old Testament and show that the texts have been transmitted faithfully over the centuries. And then some other things are the New Testament reliability, so historical accounts of early Christian communities, writings by Roman historians like Tactaeus and Josephus Josephus.
Speaker 2:Josephus. Thank you, Josephus.
Speaker 1:I can never pronounce these.
Speaker 2:Josephus actually makes more sense of his pronunciation.
Speaker 1:I have such a hard time. We have been doing a study. Why is it? What are the two prophets that have the same, almost the same name? I don't know why this is. I'm having Elijah and Elisha. Elijah and Elisha and all of the people that are in the story stories. Aside from them, I can never pronounce any of their names. Every time we get to someone, I'm like whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:You should try reading my Bible. That it's in English, but it put all the names of everyone back into Hebrew when you get to like. I mean, even in regular Bibles, a lot of the Old Testament genealogies are the Hebrew names, but it's like overwhelming to read it all.
Speaker 1:You know, I was just reading Matthew this morning, one and two, and in Matthew one it gives the genealogy of Jesus, really the genealogy of Joseph, up to Joseph and then Jesus. Right, you mean Joseph? Yeah, joseph. And the thing that's hilarious is that the first couple of generations the names were pretty generic. They were pretty like easy, and then there was a period of time where I'm like who was coming up with these names?
Speaker 2:Maybe that was when they were in, like the Babylonian exile or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then it went back to easy to easy to communicate names. It was like jacob and then you know, then it was joe david and then solomon and then joseph, and I'm like what? What was with the names that were in between? Something happened here names definitely, and maybe it's just that some of these other names have been americanized and yeah, they have, like like jacob, that's not, his name was yaakob.
Speaker 2:That is hard but, like the letter j didn't exist in any language. It's a. It's a english invention as of like 500 years ago, so it's true pretty much in the bible. Any name that starts with a j, whether it's joseph, jacob, jesus, all of their actual names started with joshua um, which is closer to what jesus's name would have been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yahushua which is why a lot of times we'll say yeshua or yeshua, yeah. Yeah, I always laugh at how not laugh, but like makes me smile how your husband says yeshua, very like musical yeshua. I don't even know if that's how he says it. I'm probably not pronouncing how he says it, right? You mean like Yeshua?
Speaker 2:Is that what he says? There's a lot of ways to pronounce things, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeshua, Yeshua, Yeshua, whatever. So yeah, historical accounts of these early communities and external sources are providing evidence for the New Testament events like the life of Jesus, as we talked about, and him being crucified, and the spread of Christianity, Something that always was very impactful for me. I don't know if you remember this story, but when we were kids, one of the things that dad shared with me as a kid that he felt was very moving was how people were persecuted for believing in jesus, yeshua, yeshua and the coliseum. They used to take believers of jesus into the coliseum to tear them apart for entertainment purposes, and this was cited by historical sources. This isn't something that was in the Bible. There's not like the story of the Christians that claim to know Jesus and got ripped apart by lions. That's from actual historical pieces of literature or I guess you could call that news at the time and that is very interesting and moving to me too, to think that those persecutions were noted by people that corroborate the Bible.
Speaker 2:The bible, yeah, and, and these are like first and second, or more like first century believers, and you have to really feel strongly and really believe in something if you're not only willing to be thrown to the lions for it, but for your family to as well oh yeah, because that was the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Is they would start with the children and the wife? Exactly, the husband wait until last, watch his whole family get ripped apart, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that that is how strongly they testified to the things that they witnessed in following Yeshua and his miracles.
Speaker 1:Do you think that people today would break under that circumstance?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I, I, um, any American would. We are so blessed that we're cursed because we don't even know the first thing about persecution or suffering or what it means to you know, believe in something so wholeheartedly that we would willingly choose suffering for it. And people like I hear stories all the time of people in other countries, like North Korea or China or the Middle East, that are followers of Christ and that's all they have. They literally have to flee and hide, otherwise they are hunted down and tortured and killed, and that's their life every day. I actually was just listening to this podcast recently. That was so good I think I sent it to you.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if you have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have it on my to-do list. It is so. I literally cried multiple times listening to it, so I'll just recommend it now to everybody listening. It's a Blurry Creatures podcast and it's one of their recent episodes. I'm going to look up exactly what it's called right now so I don't quote it wrong. It's called Divine Dreams with Tom Doyle, and Tom Doyle is a evangelist and he's written books on ministering and sharing the stories, really, of Muslims who they don't just come to faith in Jesus Christ, they experience him before believing anything, in dreams.
Speaker 2:That there's like this phenomenon happening in mostly Muslim countries of people who they don't know anything about Jesus whatsoever and they have these reoccurring dreams and there's even like the dreams are all seeing the same things and people who are not even related having the same dream and encounter with Jesus and calling them to follow him and then like giving their whole life to become a follower of Jesus and what's at stake for them in a Muslim country like they're in, when all of their family and friends that if you deny Islam and say that you are going to follow Jesus, it's not just a matter of being cast out of your family and society, which they are, it's also a matter of you'll literally be killed, they will kill you.
Speaker 2:And he shared this one story of this woman who literally was faced with that. That her literally was faced with that. That her I think it was her husband or something said that if you go get baptized, I'm going to kill you. And she showed up at this gathering where everyone was being baptized, just with tears streaming down her face. Everybody was crying because they knew exactly what it meant for her to be baptized, that she would die. And that kind of persecution is and it was. It's unfortunately was the norm in the first century and now today we just hear stories and rumors from other countries and in the Western world, like we just don't know what it's like to live with that.
Speaker 2:Not at all that kind of of faith and testimony kind of of faith and testimony. The worst thing that happens here is you get fired from a job, you get in trouble at school, people say mean things to you, people talk delete you on social media or don't like you like yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah it is. You know, the freedom that we have to practice our faith is a beautiful thing, and I think that's one of the great things about being born and living in the United States. Yeah, so what's?
Speaker 1:not to be afraid of.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, yeah, and it might not last forever. If these come true in our lifetime, yeah, exactly, and it's like we're being, like we're so fortunate and we consider ourselves so blessed because of you know like whether it's financially or just how easy life is here that we have a roof over our head and food on the table. Like that just kind of lulls you into complacency.
Speaker 1:That is a great segue into the story of Job yeah, who I recently read last night. Story of Job, who I recently read last night, and it's an interesting story for those and I'm sure you can add a lot of color to this. But for those that aren't familiar, that Job was highly favored by the Lord because he had so much faith and was such an upright. He was the most upright man of his time and followed God and all of God's laws and he had about nine children. I think he had seven boys and three girls or something like that, and this is the way that I hear the story in English lingo. His kids were having parties all the time and drinking a lot of wine and getting a little crazy and Job being an upright man of God, every time his kids would throw a party he'd be like, listen, god, I'm sorry for what they're doing. I'm going to burn some sacrifices here and, just to be clear, job owned so much livestock, he was one of the wealthiest people in his era, in his area. He was very blessed and favored by the Lord, so he'd burn offerings, you know, on behalf of his delinquent children, if you want to say that, of his delinquent children, if you want to say that.
Speaker 1:And Satan comes along, and God and Satan get into a conversation and God's like what's up, satan? What are you up to? And he's like oh, nothing, just going to and fro. I see you're over here guarding your boy, job. You've clearly got a hedge of protection around him because I can't get to him. And he's like no, job loves me, no matter what, job loves me. And Satan's taunting God like listen, man, if we took things away from Job, he wouldn't like you anymore. And God's like all right, do what you want to Job. I'm going to prove to you that he loves me, but don't kill him. And so all these crazy things happen to Job's family, right, his house, some of the houses of his children get messed up, some things don't go right, but Job still is faithful to God.
Speaker 1:Satan comes back, listen, but if we take all of it, if I take his health, he's not going to love you anymore. And God's like all right, just don't kill him. So he gets boils and skin problems all over him. He doesn't even look like himself. His friends don't even recognize him as they're coming up to him. But they sit with him and pray for him for a week and Job, even Job's wife, is like are you still going to be this dedicated to God? Look at all this turmoil that he has brought onto you.
Speaker 1:And this story to me, as I was reading it was like he has the ultimate faith. That it's not just about. It's just like marriage vows right In sickness and in health. It's not just when we have it all, when we have all of the money, when we have all of the resources, when we have all of the health. We trust God, then, but do we trust God when everything is stripped away from us? And to me, job was that example of trusting the Lord through his circumstance, through his circumstances, no matter what they were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good summary of it.
Speaker 1:It's my american summary yeah, yeah, that it's.
Speaker 2:That can be a really tough book, because it's often, you know, when we are in times of suffering or loss, we look to the bible. We for guidance, we might look at the book of ecclesiastes or Job, because they're books of loss and hardship and, in the end, the message. I mean, people have a hundred different interpretations of it, but it really is like you just said, that in sickness and in health, and in good times and in bad times, and Job was pushed to beyond his limit and his faith was challenged, but he still was a righteous man because he still trusted Yahweh, he still was like I refuse to curse Yahweh.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's something that and an important reason why I feel that reading the Bible and being in the word is an important part of our walk as believers. Because there are stories like this meant to teach and guide and encourage us. Because that's the thing Again, it's important for us to have that relationship and that personal relationship with God. But when I read stories like this, I'm like whoa, it really puts things into perspective. And then it also helps me to reflect on my life, because there have been times where I've had like you could argue I've had everything. And then there's been times in my life where I made the decision to live in the most expensive place in the world and had nothing, not the world, but in the US, in the U? S and got. I've been at a point in my life where I had my last couple of dollars and I didn't know how I was going to make it the next month and the Lord provided and I knew he would provide that. I just was, you know, walking very slowly and poorly with him and he did provide. And that was a very big moment for me in my personal life, having those little moments and reflecting back on those times. You know to. Just he gets us through, and this is also an encouraging thing.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned to you before we started recording that I'm part of this women's Christian group on Facebook and all kinds of women share all kinds of stories and look for encouragement and things like that, and that's something that sometimes I'll see. Women post stories about them being in a hardship situation and then other women of Christ saying keep praying, keep doing what you're doing, keep yourself in the word. You know the Lord will provide, and I think that that encouragement is sometimes what we need to hear, right Like don't quit, keep going, you know the Lord sees you. And this isn't to say like prosperity, gospel or anything like that, but just you know we have to do our part too. We can't just lay down in the grass and expect that a house is going to get built around us because we're praying, maybe, maybe for some special person but it did kind of happen to jonah, true.
Speaker 2:True that god had a, a shelter pop up out of the ground to cover. Actually, that was a great example of of god showing him like I give and I take away. Because Jonah was all upset and pissy that God wasn't destroying Nineveh because they all repented and he thought they were wicked, awful Gentiles that didn't deserve to be alive. He was sulking and God, he just was like I'm just, I want to sit here and die. That's what he said. He wanted to die. So God had a plant just grow spontaneously from the ground and shelter him from the heat, and Jonah loved it and thought it was great. And then God had it wither just as quickly as he had it grew. And then Jonah was like now I want to die even more. He had it grew. And then Jonah was like now I want to die even more. And God was just trying to give him an example of just like you didn't make this plant grow, this doesn't belong to you, I made it grow and I can take it away if I want. Just like the people of Nineveh, I choose if they are saved and they repented, just as I asked them or told them to, and so I choose for them to live. And that's, you know, like it's interesting how these prophets that God spoke through, like Jonahah or I mean even in some senses, job, was kind of a prophet that god didn't just like strike them dead for even questioning him or challenging him, like there's a really amazing dialogue, especially between Ghana and Job, of just seeing how almighty and powerful and how he has created everything and he is beyond time, stoop to our level and give us any amount of understanding. And that is exactly what he has done through dozens of prophets, has done through dozens of prophets speaking through them to the people of Israel or to Gentile nations, and even going so far as putting on flesh and becoming a human in the form of his son Yeshua, that he is stooping to our level to not only experience the hardships that we experience and do it with us, but do all of that to save us. He is our salvation and from Genesis to Revelation, from Genesis to Revelation and I wanted to say, because you were talking about the importance for faith or when you're going through hardships, reading the Bible is, I found in my experience that this is how the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
Speaker 2:I hear a lot of times people say the Lord gave me a word today and I'm not going to question that. He very well may give people an exact message or word, like he did with the prophets throughout the Bible. I'm not going to question that he stopped doing that. I've experienced things like that myself. But I believe, and from my experience, the main way that he speaks to us is through his word, his written word, the Bible, and that's not even always necessarily like while we're sitting and reading. So you know you said you were reading Job last night or whatever, and that there was a lot that you can get from that and reflect on your own life. But what I have found reading the Bible over and over again, like the whole thing through, is that and when that's done regularly and it's renewing your mind in the word, it's like marinating it.
Speaker 2:If we want to think of our brains like computer hardware, it's downloading these files in over and over again. Because our computers are kind of old and slow. They'll lose files if you're not continuously updating it. Things get accidentally deleted, right, exactly. So the wrong folder, yeah, continuing to update that and continuing to be in the Word. Then when I am going through something, or I am praying or I am seeking the Lord on something, he pulls from those files. He still speaks to me through his word, by pulling the word out of my memory. So that's in my experience. See that a lot and when you're really following the Bible and you're respecting the wisdom and the guidance that's in there because it's everything you need in life and beyond this life is in there. It transforms your relationship with God, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just mentioning to you, right before we got started, that I started a new Bible study I'm going to share with the audience today. I have Rachel mentioned she likes to read the Bible through and I have done that a number of times as well, where I've read it through from Genesis to Revelation, and then there's the choice to also read it chronologically in the order that they think that you know it may have been written in, but this Bible study that I got, I was I don't know. I wasn't expecting anything, to be honest with you. I just was like, oh, read the Bible in 52 weeks, cool, let's do it. And so I bought this Bible study by Alabaster Co, called A Beautiful Year in the Bible, the 52-week Bible study for women, and it is by the company that makes those coffee table, those pretty Bible coffee table books. And anyway, it is in an order that I have never seen before, and this had has me very intrigued.
Speaker 1:I'm only through the first week, but I'm just going to give you an example of week one's reading plan. So this is a daily plan. Every day it are different chapters, but multiple chapters within the day. So day one Genesis one through three day two, romans one through two, three, joshua one through five, and I'll just say the rest of them instead of saying the days. Then Psalms one through two, job one through two, isaiah one through six and Matthew one through two. And, as you can see, that's not Genesis one through whatever on the first week, that's not Genesis 1 through whatever on the first week.
Speaker 1:And the thing that was super interesting about it is this whole theme and the why those specific verses and chapters were chosen is because it's about the relationship between God and humanity. So in Genesis 1, he creates the earth, he creates humans, he creates everything. And then in the other chapters that are mentioned and then read through it kind of details through some of the key point relationships that have happened since the creation of the earth, and Jesus is of course mentioned, matthew and in Romans, but Job was one of those stories and a couple of other stories. But something that really stood out to me specifically was how he created everything with purpose and order, that there was purpose and order for everything. That man, he created woman from man to be with man. And then in some of these other areas it speaks to how, and of course we talk in Genesis about sin. So then we start to get into some of these other chapters where humans are violating those terms, with God defiling what God created, and men are getting with men and women, with women, and defiling God's order that he had created, and then discussing the chaos that ensues from that, and then, of course, in Job, talking about temptation, and the temptation of the flesh and temptation of sin, and it's just been a very interesting perspective in the way that I am reading these Bible verses, and I've read all of these Bible verses before, but never in this format. So, anyway, it's cool so far. I agree with what you're saying, though, that it's important for us to be in the word, and I'm excited about the lessons that I'll learn from doing it this way and from this perspective, because it's a little bit different, you know.
Speaker 1:Then week two is on divine guidance and provision, different. Then week two is on divine guidance and provision, and then we get into new beginnings and just all these different topics. The way that it's structuring them is pretty interesting, and I know that the Lord is doing something by leading me to this study, because I have about 25 books on my desk here at studies, and this was the one that I was, like I really feel, called to start this one. Yeah, that's great, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of the Bible, since we're talking about that, I want to talk a little bit about the unity of the Bible, because what's pretty crazy is that the Bible is a collection of 66 books written over 1500 years by about 40 different authors from various backgrounds. We have kings, we have prophets, we have fishermen, tax collectors and so on, but yet the Bible maintains a consistent theme and message and many of them correlate and cross over each other, and these people didn't know each other. So it's very interesting from a theological perspective that, despite there being many human authors, the Bible is a unified story of God's relationship with humanity, with us the fall of man, the redemption of man through Jesus Christ, and then the hope of eternal life, and then as well, from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible reveals a progressive unfolding of God's plan for us and his plan for humanity, and that things like creation and sin and redemption and his kingdom suggests to us and reveal to us that his hand is guiding this whole narrative.
Speaker 1:A couple of Bible verses that stuck out to me that I wanted to include here. In Matthew 15, 3, jesus calls the Old Testament the commandment of God. In Mark 7, 13, jesus refers to scripture as the word of God, and then in Matthew 4, 4 through 10, jesus answers the temptations of Satan by quoting from the Old Testament. So if Jesus, the son of God, is using the Bible as a reference, shouldn't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, every single one of the temptations he specifically quoted from Deuteronomy, yeah.
Speaker 1:So something else. I'll just name a couple of other interesting things as we're kind of wrapping up today. You know there's a transformative power with the Bible and its impact on us, as we've been talking about today. But talk about personal testimonies. Millions of people throughout history have said that reading the Bible has transformed their lives, and I know that it's transformed mine and it's brought them to a faith in Christ. It's given them peace in times of dismay and pain and hardship and it's helped to guide them through hardship and spiritual decisions. But it also is a way that it has helped us as societies, in our cultures, to shape laws and ethics and have values that influence other things as well. They've influenced literature and philosophy and art and have such a huge impact.
Speaker 1:And I think that some people could go off the other end and say, you know, well, that's the whole point is that's trying to keep us, keep us down. You know, keep, make laws and create rules and stuff like that. But I'm going to tell you I think we need some. Some rules and ethics are not a bad thing, especially in this sinful, crazy world. Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:We need them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there's the internal consistency and moral teaching that comes along with this, which is what we're talking about right now, this moral teaching of the Bible, particularly as revealed by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, which is in Matthew 5 through 7, and then the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, those events are extraordinary, they're transcendent, but it's also important for us to point out that it's pointing to moral authority, that the Bible's teachings about love and forgiveness which did you know that's countercultural Forgiveness? Yes, which did you?
Speaker 2:know that's countercultural forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did. Justice, humility and service these are some of the highest ethical principles, and they're obviously things that are taught in the Bible, but our world wants to strip that away and say no. There's also some internal consistency that's worth pointing out here, that the Bible doesn't contradict itself in terms of theology or morality or prophecy, and that is why some people can even argue that it supports the idea that it was inspired by a single divine source, because how could 40 people not contradict each other?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and actually those two examples you just gave, the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments, like from Exodus, that were given by Moses in case anyone listening didn't know is, I was listening to this teaching once and it really blew my mind because he was making connections how, when Yeshua came on the scene and was giving these really powerful speeches, like the Sermon on the Mount, the Jewish people listening, who spent their whole lives hearing the Torah and hearing about Moses, they would have seen him as the second Moses.
Speaker 2:Part of what Yeshua came to do is what Moses couldn't. He did lead the people of Israel out of enslavement to the Egyptians, of enslavement to the Egyptians, but he could not say and he led them to the God of Israel and what is righteousness. But he stopped there and when Yeshua came, he pointed back, just like Moses, to the righteousness and having a relationship with the Father and what that looks like and how you love God. And he led his people and continues to lead people out of our slavery to sin. So there's just so many just going back to that consistency throughout the Bible of morality and prophecy of different people wrote the books of Moses. Moses wrote the books of Moses, but then other people like Joshua wrote about Moses. You know there's all these different authors and then other men wrote about Jesus, but there's this consistency throughout the story of them just pointing back to each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, it's amazing. It really is a beautiful and amazing, incredible thing that could only happen by God making it happen. Yeah, so the last two points, one of them I'm just going to breeze through really quick because we're probably going to do a whole entire episode on this. We are I actually already scripted it, so we definitely are, but by we it's either just going to be me, by myself or Rachel, maybe later when she's moved, we'll see. But that point is scientific foreknowledge.
Speaker 1:The Bible is not a scientific textbook but guess what? It has scientific principles that were not known to humanity at the time of its writing and have been discovered since. I'm only going to give two examples, maybe three Isaiah 40, 22,. When we want to talk about cosmetology and the above us realm, the Bible speaks about the circle of the earth. Which questionable how we want to interpret that. Right, this is a, this is it, it's. This could be a series in and of itself, because, uh, many people will say the earth's spherical shape or round shape, or I'm not going to get into flat earth today, but people do use that verse to say oh, it's a circle.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it does describe the earth as being a circle or round or a sphere or globe. Well, we'll have to address that later. Hygiene is something that is in the mosaic law and discussing hygiene and sanitation and quarantine from certain things in leviticus 13 through 14 and that predates modern understanding about germs and disease and things.
Speaker 1:Again, this could be even even like um, dna and the significance of blood that was the third one I wanted to mention is mention is the life of the body is in the blood and that's in Genesis. Yeah, so there are many scientific things. That again is its own topic. But the last that I have on here for us to chat about real quick are the claims of Jesus or Jesus being real. We already have talked about this.
Speaker 1:He plays such a central role in the truth of the Bible and his endorsement of scripture. I mentioned a couple of verses from Matthew and Mark. Jesus frequently quoted the Old Testament and he has referred to it specifically as the authoritative word of God. I have in my notes here Matthew 5, 17 through 18, and John 10, 35 as some examples, and he himself endorsed its divine origin and fulfillment of his life and ministry as well. The resurrection is another example that Jesus is the ultimate validation for his divine authority and his teachings, and this includes his affirmation of the Bible.
Speaker 1:But yeah, these are a couple of just different points that we wanted to mention here. I guess I did have one more the spiritual witness of the Bible that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of scripture. That's mentioned in 2 Timothy 3.16, that all scripture is God-breathed, and in 1 Thessalonians, 2.13 as well, and that you know the truth of the Bible in a personal way and often through this is kind of what you were saying often through prayer or worship or study, it allows us to have that inner conviction and that the Bible is more than just a human book, but it's the living word of God. So, all of that said, read your Bibles. In conclusion, read your Bible.
Speaker 2:Could have made this a two minute episode. Yeah, yeah, I could have.
Speaker 1:Right, but I just really wanted to dig into some of these details because I know that it is. We're talking about countercultural things and right now, reading the Bible or using the Bible as your source of reference to help deepen or strengthen your relationship with God is seen as counter-cultural. So there we go. Anything else you wanted to mention today?
Speaker 2:No, I think we got all the highlights of it. The Bible to me, the scripture came to my mind that I believe it's Paul. I can't remember exactly where that's the thing is. I might have a lot of my memory crammed in there of different passages in the Bible, but I never remember the chapter and verse. But anyway, it's Paul and he talks about how the word of God will cut you through, even through the bone and the marrow. And that is so true in my life, and obviously countless of millions of people's lives, that if you allow the Holy Spirit the opportunity to transform you through his word, he is faithful to do that. And that doesn't always feel good. The Bible's not just a feel-good book.
Speaker 1:No, it's not encouraging. You're going to feel good about yourself a lot of times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is encouragement, but there's the truth that you have to hear too. Exactly, yeah, and the convictions that a lot of us feel when reading the word of God is because it points out our sin, and perhaps that's why it's so controversial, because we live in a world that wants to say that everything you do is okay, that everything you do is okay and you can have your truth and I'll have my truth. But the Bible is the opposite message, and that's you know you're repeating this series is about being counter-cultural. The Bible's message is not your truth, their truth, my truth, it is god's truth. This is it, this is what's god's truth, and we can allow him the opportunity to transform us through his truth or we can choose our own way and choose our own way and and yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2:It's not as much fun as people act like it is to live in opposition to the creator of the universe. He's got the blueprints for our bodies and our minds and the spiritual world and the afterlife. And if we trust him and we follow his way, it's not necessarily that life is going to be easier, but it's going to be better because we can trust him, because he is the creator of everything.
Speaker 1:You're making me think about how there's been a couple of memes that have come out about people being like y'all need to fear the lord a little bit more there needs to be more fear of the lord out here really does, and he says specifically many times telling us like, hey, y'all should be, y'all should have some fear here, you should be a little bit scared. If you're going to be scared of anything, it's of my hand, yeah so I mean that is.
Speaker 2:that is the, from start to finish. The gospel is painted through every part of the bible, and the gospel is summed up in Yeshua's very first sermon. I've said it before and I will keep saying it until everybody hears it Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. That is the summary of the gospel, and the Bible shows us how to repent over and over and over again, in so many different ways. This is what repentance looks like. Do it because God's kingdom is near. It is here, but it's not this life. And if we want to live in his kingdom, we repent from the wickedness of this life and walk with him, and that's-.
Speaker 1:Amen, that's a great place to close. Yeah, thank you, rae. Yeah, thank you for listening. Yeah, thank you all for tuning in and for being on this journey with us. As always, you can follow along outside the podcast on Instagram, at the Radiant Mission, on Facebook, at the Radiant Mission Podcast, and on YouTube If you search for Rebecca Toomey, you will find the Radiant Mission there as well. And today we are going to close with 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17. And this points directly to what we were just talking about. All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. We're wishing you a radiant week and we will see you next time. Bye, everyone.
