THEGOSPLEWORD

                                                                  T he Church has moved steadily across the world from nation to nation, culture to culture, people to people, on the Lord’s calendar and in His time. The Savior’s mortal ministry was complete. His suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross was over. We learn from Acts 1 that He had ministered for 40 days after His Resurrection, “being seen” of the Apostles and “speaking of … things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). He told them that “ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Shortly thereafter, “he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. “And while they looked steadfa...

        T he Benefits of Preaching the Gospel The gospel, the message about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, is the central message of the Bible. It is the message that God is seeking to communicate in all of his word. And so we preach the Bible rightly as we seek to preach the gospel by prayerfully expounding God’s word. Beginning with the desire to preach the gospel reminds us to preach the Bible s the word of God-the word that calls on everyone who hears, every time they hear it, to respond with obedience and faith. We must not preach the Bible without calling on people to respond to it. Further, by aiming to preach the gospel we remind ourselves to preach the whole of the Scriptures with reference to Christ, the point and purpose of all of God’s work in the world. In short, by aiming to preach the gospel, we remind ourselves to preach the oracles of God as the oracles of God. 1. Glorifies God - I Cor 10:31 - Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. ...

  “ H ow do we know that the New Testament is reliable? How do we know that we can trust the words that we have there? Well, there's a number of ways to answer that question, but one of the most helpful things we can do is look at it through the lens of textual criticism, and looking at the manuscripts that we have, and we can see how these foster a sense of the confidence that we can have in Scripture. Let me explain what I mean by that. In terms of the number of ancient witnesses we have to the New Testament, we have a remarkable number of copies of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. In fact, we have over 5,500 Greek manuscripts alone that are a Greek manuscript that is part, or all, of the Greek New Testament. That's an amazing number, an astoundingly high number for a document of such antiquity as the New Testament. If we compare that for example, to the ancient historian, Tacitus, I think we only have about three manuscripts of his works. I don't think any of thos...