Here’s our latest newsletter:  “Challenger” (July-September 2015) [pdf]

In 2007, the late Christopher Hitchens published his bestselling book, god is Not Great. As you might imagine the book was not a love letter to the Lord. Hitchens, an atheist, launched his complaint against religion in this book and his message was enthusiastically received by the many people who agreed with him. What is particularly telling about the book is the subtitle: “How Religion Poisons Everything.”

That is certainly an extreme opinion, and, again, it is one that is shared by many today. In fact, that premise (that religion poisons everything) has become almost an assumption among many modern people. But is it true? Specifically, is it true of Christianity, a religion that Hitchens had especial disdain for?

Put another way, has Christianity been good for the world or has it been bad for the world?

In exploring this question I want to offer two prefatory remarks. First, it needs to be understood that the truthfulness of Christianity and the truthfulness of the gospel of C hrist does not hinge upon the behavior of His followers. This is not a cop-out. This is simple logic, especially when we consider that one of the tenets of Christianity is the fallenness and sinfulness of all people.

This is not to say, of course, that the behavior of Christians is unimportant. That would be an absurd thing to say and even a blasphemous thing to say. How we act and how we as a Church have acted is extremely important. It plays a large part in the willingness of people to hear what we have to say. But the fact that Christian behavior is very important does not mean that Christian behavior has the power to falsify what Jesus said about Himself and the Father. Our failure to follow Jesus makes us tragic hypocrites, to be sure, but it does not make Jesus a liar.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge up front that, yes, Christians have done many bad and evil and regrettable and unChristlike things over the last 2,000 years. This is to our shame. I am therefore not trying to create a romantic picture of the past or present.

What I want to do, instead, is this: I want to say that those who depict Christianity itself as evil or as a poison or a force for bad can only do so by (a) grossly overplaying Christianity’s alleged crimes and (b) grossly downplaying Christianity’s virtues.

In short, Hitchens’ subtitle, “How Religion Poisons Everything,” is absurd if he was speaking of Christianity, which, in part, he certainly was. In point of fact, Christianity, even with its glaring faults, has indeed done amazing things in the world.

The coming of Jesus brought a sense of dignity and worth and value to mankind that the pagan cultures did not share.

The first thing we must realize is that inherent within the gospel, the central message of Christianity, are the theological and philosophical ingredients for a revolution that swept and is continuing to sweep the world. Those ingredients are the following four doctrines: the imago Dei, the love of God, the incarnation, and the call to incarnate ministry.

The imago Dei

The imago Dei is “the image of God.” Genesis 1 provides us with the foundational text.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

The doctrine of the image of God means that men and women have inherent worth and dignity and value because humanity is not an accident and does not consist of mere animals. Rather, humanity is made up of image bearers who reflect the character of God. We are fallen, of course, and the image of God in us is marred and covered by our own rebellion and sinfulness, but we still bear the image.

The love of God

Along with the imago Dei is the doctrine of the love of God. To call this a doctrine seems coldly reductive, for the love of God is the very heartbeat of the gospel and stretches over the scriptures like a canopy from Genesis to Revelation. In John 3 we read:

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Christianity therefore asserts (1) that human beings bear the image of God and (2) that God loves human beings. But Christianity also teaches that the world is fallen. Even so, God’s love still stands. In fact. It was out of love that God sent His Son to us.

The incarnation

The incarnation refers to God taking on human flesh and being born of the Virgin Mary. It refers to God coming to mankind, reaching to lost men and women in and through Jesus. Thus, in John 1 we read:

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So God comes to us in our lostness, and redeems through Christ all who will come to Him in faith and repentance. In Christ, then, God has redeemed and created a people for Himself. Not only has He redeemed us, He has called us to be the body of Christ. That is, He has called us to incarnate ministry.

The call to incarnate ministry

God calls the Church to live out the life of Christ, to reach out to the world with the same heart of love that our Lord Jesus has. We are called to incarnate ministry in Philippians 2.

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is most significant: we are called to do today what Christ has done. We are called to love with God’s love, to go as Christ came, and to help people return to the God in Who’s image they are made.

These four theological ingredients – the image of God, the love of God, the incarnation, and the call to incarnate ministry – come together in the Christian movement in such a way as to grant a dignity to mankind and a framework in which the early Church, and the Church today, could love with absolute reckless abandon all of humanity. These four doctrines converge in Christ to create an incendiary revolution of love and care and compassion.

One beautiful expression of this comes from the novel Doctor Zhivago in which the character Nikolai Nikolaievich records the following thoughts about what Christianity brought into the world in his diary:

Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction. Dacians, Herulians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Gyperboreans, heavy wheels without spokes, eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves. There were more people in the world than there have ever been since, all crammed into the passages of the Coliseum, and all wretched.

And then, into this tasteless heap of gold and marble, He came, light and clothed in an aura, emphatically human, deliberately provincial, Galilean, and at that moment gods and nations ceased to be and man came into being – man the carpenter, man the plowman, man the shepherd with his flock of sheep at sunset, man who does not sound in the least proud, man thankfully celebrated in all the cradle songs of mothers and in all the picture galleries the world over.”[1]

Nikolaievich is right. The greatest good that Christianity has brought into the world is the gospel, the liberating, humbling, empowering gospel of Jesus.

Christianity is a revolution that has sought to alleviate suffering and evil in the world in a way that is truly astonishing.

This theological foundation gave rise to an amazing revolution of love and compassion and mercy. In short, the Christian Church immediately made amazing strides in alleviate suffering and combating evil in the world.

Greek Orthodox philosopher and theologian David Bentley Hart has written of “Christianity’s twenty centuries of unprecedented and still unmatched moral triumphs – its care of widows and orphans, its almshouses, houses, hospitals, foundling homes, schools, shelters, relief organizations, soup kitchens, medical missions, charitable aid societies.”[2] Hart went on to give numerous examples of Christian charity, including the fact that “during the Middle Ages, the Benedictines alone were responsible for more than two thousand hospitals in Western Europe.”[3]

That is but one small example out of many. In a very insightful article entitled, “A New Era in Roman Healthcare,” Professor Gary Ferngren of Oregon State University wrote of Christianity’s revolutionary and attention-grabbing care for the poor in the Roman Empire. After observing that, “compassion was not a well-developed virtue among the pagan Romans; mercy was discouraged, as it only helped those too weak to contribute to society,” Ferngren offered some examples of how Christianity changed this unfortunate reality. Consider:

• “Church leaders encouraged all Christians to visit the sick and help the poor, and each congregation also established an organized ministry of mercy. Presbyters (priests) and deacons added benevolent ministry to their sacramental roles.”

• “By the third century the number of those receiving aid from the hands of the church had grown considerably, especially in large cities. Congregations created additional minor clerical orders, such as subdeacons and acolytes, to assist deacons in benevolence as well as liturgy.”

• “Altogether the church in Rome ministered to 1,500 widows and others in need. It has been estimated that the Roman church spent annually between 500,000 and 1,000,000 sesterces—an enormous sum—on benevolent work.”

• Concerning the 251 AD plague in Carthage, North Africa: “Carthage’s bishop, Cyprian, enjoined the city’s Christians to give aid to their persecutors and to care for the sick. He urged the rich to donate funds and the poor to volunteer their service for relief efforts, making no distinction between believers and pagans. Under Cyprian’s direction, Christians buried the dead left in the streets and cared for the sick and dying. For five years he stood in the breach, organizing relief efforts, until he was forced into exile.”

• Concerning the 416 AD plague in Alexandria, Egypt: “the Christian patriarch of that city organized a corps of men recruited from the poor classes to transport and nurse the sick. They were called the parabalani, the “reckless ones,” because they risked their lives by exposing themselves to contagion while assisting the sick.”

• “In the early fourth century, lay Christian orders began to appear in the large cities of the Eastern Roman Empire. The two best known were the spoudaioi (“the zealous ones”) and (in Egypt) the philoponoi (“lovers of labor”). The mission of these groups, drawn mostly from the lower classes, was to reach out to the indigent sick in cities such as Alexandria and Antioch. These cities had a large population of homeless sick and dying on the streets. The philoponoi would distribute food and money to them and take them to the public baths, where their basic hygienic needs could be met and they could find warmth in winter. None had medical training, but they were motivated by compassionate concern.”[4]

The old canard about the Church exhibiting two thousand years worth of cruelty, indifference, and violence has become so commonplace that the average person today is most unlikely to have heard much if anything about the amazing things that God has done through the Church throughout her history. In truth, honest observers, whether Christian or not, have marveled at the kindness that the Church has shown throughout history. The Swiss historian of medicine and Professor of the History of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University, Henry Sigerist wrote that Christianity introduced the “most revolutionary and decisive change in the attitude of society toward the sick.” He continued:

Christianity came into the world as the religion of healing, of the joyful gospel of the Redeemer and of Redemption. It addressed itself to the disinherited, to the sick and afflicted, and promised them healing, a restoration of both spiritual and physical…it became the duty of the Christian to attend to the sick and poor of the community…the social position of the sick man thus became fundamentally different from what it had been before. He assumed a preferential treatment which has been his ever since.[5]

Even more striking is to hear an acknowledgement of Christianity’s kindness and works of mercy from an ardent opponent of the faith. Julian the Apostate, in the early 360’s AD, was a Roman emperor who sough the eradication of the early Christian movement and worked towards a revival of the old pagan religions. The problem was that the paganism he was seeking to revive was failing to exhibit the kind of benevolence for mankind that the Christians he was seeking to thwart were exhibiting. Julian wrote a famous letter to Arsacius, high pagan priest of Galatia, in which he said the following:

Why do we not observe that it is their [the Christians’] benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism [unbelief of the pagan gods]?…For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans [Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us. Teach those of the Hellenic faith to contribute to public service of this sort.[6]

Amazing! Here we see a pagan emperor instructing his pagan priests to study Christianity so that they could learn how to be loving and kind and merciful to others. That is quite an endorsement!

Contrary to the consistent charge of bloodshed, Christianity is not a primary cause for war.

Having shown evidence of the great good that Christianity has done, I would like now to refute a popular claim that simply needs to be refuted, namely, the charge that Christianity is a bloody, violent religion that has been a primary cause of war in the world. For one example of this charge, consider the following statement that was sent in an email to one of our church members from one of his friends.

[I] believe that organized religion is the cause of wars, hate, bigotry, non-acceptance and cruelty. History proves that, the very words in the Bible proves it, the recent past & present proves it.

Another example can be seen in the words of Robert Green Ingersoll, who wrote:

Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, “religion,” covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death. . . . Although they have been preaching universal love, the Christian nations are the warlike nations of the world.[7]

Well. That is quite a stunning accusation. But is it true? In his amazing book Atheist Delusions, David Bentley Hart writes of his frustration with this particular accusation.

[I]t is sometimes difficult, frankly, to be perfectly generous in one’s response to the sort of invective currently fashionable among the devoutly undevout, or to the sort of historical misrepresentations it typically involves. Take for instance Peter Watson, author of a diverting little bagatelle of a book on the history of invention, who, when asked not long ago by the New York Times to name humanity’s worst invention, blandly replied, “Without question, ethical monotheism…. This has been responsible for most of the wars and bigotry in history.”‘

After touching briefly on some of the reasons why wars have actually been fought, Hart concludes:

By contrast, the number of wars that one could plausibly say have actually been fought on behalf of anything one might call “ethical monotheism” is so vanishingly small that such wars certainly qualify as exceptions to the historical rule.[8]

These are two very different statements indeed! Who is right? Has Christianity, and, for that matter, religion in general, been the primary cause of war in the world or has it not.

In his book, The Irrational Atheist, Vox Day writes of his own examination of history’s wars and their causes.

A more systematic review of the 489 wars listed in Wikipedia’s list of military conflicts, from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars to the 1969 Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, shows that only fifty-three of these wars—10.8 percent—can reasonably be described as having a religious aspect, even if one counts each of the ten Crusades separately.

Day next goes on to cite the three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, an exhaustive scholarly work of over 1,500 pages that looks at over 1,763 wars. Of those 1,763 wars, the authors concluded that 123 wars could be said to be religious in nature. Vox Day explains:

That is 123 wars in all, which sounds as if it would support the case of the New Atheists, until one recalls that these 123 wars represent only 6.98 percent of all the wars recorded in the encyclopedia…It’s also interesting to note that more than half of these religious wars, sixty-six in all, were waged by Islamic nations, which is rather more than might be statistically expected considering that the first war in which Islam was involved took place almost three millennia after the first war chronicled in the encyclopedia, Akkad’s conquest of Sumer in 2325 B.C. In light of this evidence, the fact that a specific religion is currently sparking a great deal of conflict around the globe cannot reasonably be used to indict all religious faith, especially when one considers that removing that single religion from the equation means that all of the other religious faiths combined only account for 3.23 percent of humanity’s wars. The historical evidence is conclusive. Religion is not a primary cause of war.[9]

I repeat what I said earlier: Christianity has committed some heinous crimes over the years and the Church’s betrayals should not be excused. But I would simply like to point out that the charge of Christianity’s warlike nature is simply a slander, a gross misrepresentation of the actual historical record. I do not think such a charge should be allowed to stand unchallenged.

Christians could begin here and now to reclaim and live out once again the revolutionary nature of the message of the cross and empty tomb, and, in so doing, capture the attention and curiosity of the watching world as it once did.

All of this raises an interesting question: could Christianity, which, today, is tragically anemic, regain its revolutionary reputation through amazing acts of transformative benevolence, love, and compassion? Indeed. Indeed we could.

In fact, wherever Christianity is actually lived out, people still marvel at it. Case in point: on December 27, 2008, The Times of London published an article by Matthew Parris entitled “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.”

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.[10]

Oh church, do you see? The unbelieving world is watching. Will we be a revolution again, a Jesus revolution? In Revelation 3, Jesus calls us to return to Him.

¹ “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. ² Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. ³ Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Church, let us wake up and live again! Let us live in such a way that the world marvels at us, and, more importantly, at our King, Jesus.

The fact of the matter is, the revolutionary spirit of early Christianity is still alive and well in the lives of many Christians today. And that makes sense. If we have been born again, we possess the Spirit of the living God through the saving work of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Lord Jesus has never changed. The Spirit of God today is the same Spirit Who led men and women to turn the world upside down with astounding acts of compassion in the first century. That is why even today, amidst all the failures of the Church, we see amazing glimpses of the Kingdom of God, living and active and still revolutionary.

How else to describe the behavior of the members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, who responded to Dylann Roof’s murder of nine church members (because he said he wanted to start a race war) by forgiving him?

“I’m reminded of some news media persons that wondered why the nine families all spoke of forgiveness and didn’t have malice in their heart,” [Rev. Norvel] Goff said during the Sunday service. “It’s that the nine families got it,” he said, reminding worshippers that members’ unwavering faith in God shows how to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”[11]

They “got it.”

And we “got it.”

And we need to live it.

Has Christianity been good for world? Indeed it has. It has had its failures, to be sure, but it has also succeeded in truly amazing ways, bringing light and life and hope and transformation to the world.

May it do so again, and may it do so with us.

[1] Boris Pasternak. Doctor Zhivago. (New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1958), p. 43.

[2] David Bentley Hart. Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Kindle Locations 184-185). Kindle Edition.

[3] David Bentley Hart. Kindle Location 434.

[4] https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/new-era-in-roman-healthcare/

[5] Darrel W. Amundsen and Gary B. Ferngren, “Virtue and Medicine from Early Christianity through the Sixteenth Century.” Virtue and Medicine: Explorations in the Character of Medicine. Volume 1. Earl E. Shelp, ed., Philosophy and Medicine. 17 (D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1985), p.50.

[6] https://www.milestonedocuments.com/documents/view/julian-the-apostate-letter-to-arsacius/text

[7] Quoted in Day, Vox (2008-02-01). The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, And Hitchens (p. 97). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

[8] David Bentley Hart. Kindle Locations 116-126.

[9] Day, Vox, p.103, 105-106.

[10] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/matthewparris/article2044345.ece

[11] https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/21/us/charleston-church-shooting-main/

Exodus 18

¹ Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. ² Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home, ³ along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”), ⁴ and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). ⁵ Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. ⁶ And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” ⁷ Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. ⁸ Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. ⁹ And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. ¹⁰ Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. ¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” ¹² And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. ¹³ The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. ¹⁴ When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” ¹⁵ And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; ¹⁶ when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” ¹⁷ Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. ¹⁸ You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. ¹⁹ Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, ²⁰ and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. ²¹ Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. ²² And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. ²³ If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.” ²⁴ So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. ²⁵ Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. ²⁶ And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. ²⁷ Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.

Philip Ryken has shared the story of the conversion of Edward Studd.

            One man who excelled at telling the gospel truth was Edward Studd, the father of C.T. Studd, the famous missionary to Africa.  Studd was a wealthy Englishman who led a life of ease and entertainment until suddenly he was converted by the preaching of D.L. Moody.  Edward’s sons were away at school at the time; so they didn’t know anything about what had happened to their father.  They were shocked when he arrived at Eton in the middle of the term and instead of taking them to the theater, as was his custom, took them to hear Moody preach.  C.T. Studd later said:

Before that time, I used to think that religion was a Sunday thing, like one’s Sunday clothes, to be put away on Monday morning.  We boys were brought up to go to church regularly, but, although we had a kind of religion, it didn’t amount to much…Then all at once I had the good fortune to meet a real live…Christian.  It was my own father.  But it did make one’s hair stand on end.  Everyone in the house had a dog’s life of it until they were converted.  I was not altogether pleased with him.  He used to come into my room at night and ask if I was converted.[i]

It is a powerful thing when the head of a home comes to know the Lord.  It tends to leave a marked impact on all who are in the family.  That was certainly the case with C.T. Studd and the conversion of his father.  Even though C.T. Studd would come to be more well known than his father, the conversion of his father was a seminal moment in his life.

Something along those same lines is happening in Exodus 18.  Moses is certainly more well known than his father-in-law Jethro, but here we are privileged to witness the conversion of Jethro and his ascendancy among the people of God to a position of leadership.  The chapter may be viewed in two parts:  first, Jethro’s entry into the family of God and, second, Jethro’s role in organizing the family of God.

Becoming part of the people of God

Moses had first met Jethro, the priest of Midian, after he saved his daughters from the threatening shepherds in Exodus 2.  Moses married Zipporah and she bore him two sons.  Then God called Moses back to Egypt to deliver His people.  What we have here, then, is a reunion.  Moses is being reunited with his wife, children, and father-in-law.

¹ Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. ² Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home, ³ along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”), ⁴ and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). ⁵ Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. ⁶ And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” ⁷ Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. ⁸ Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. ⁹ And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians. ¹⁰ Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. ¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” ¹² And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.

Moses was understandably elated to see his wife, children, and father-in-law.  Less understandable to the modern reader is the immediate affection he shows to Jethro with no record of him showing affection to his wife.  Victor Hamilton has said of this:

But what about seeing Zipporah and the boys? I am sure that if I have seen neither my father-in-law nor my wife for a long time, I know which one I am going to kiss first! But that is a Westerner speaking. Middle Eastern cultures, both past and present, operate differently.[ii]

Hamilton is right in pointing to the differing times in which Moses lived, but likely what is happening here is simply a matter of spotlight.  That is, the spotlight needs to fall on Moses and Jethro at this point in order to show Jethro’s entry into the community of God and the role he would play in their strategic organization.  The story of Israel’s salvation is more focused on key developments than on assuaging the romantic curiosity of sentimental moderns like us.

What we see, then, is Jethro’s apparent conversion.  We will use the term “conversion” here, though the details of Jethro’s theology are not as exhaustively revealed as we would like.  The Anchor Bible Dictionary points out that some have attempted “to connect [Jethro’s] priesthood with a pre-Mosaic Yahweh cult whose beliefs and rituals were transferred to Moses and Aaron (Exodus 18).  This concept maintains that the Hebrew religion has Midianite roots.”  It then goes on, rightly, I believe, to reject this view as “doubtful” on the basis of our text, noting that Jethro seems to come to a confirmed belief in Yahweh only in Exodus 18 and that Jethro’s belief in Yahweh makes him “unique, for it is clear from other sources that generally the Midianites were idolaters (cf. Num 25:17-18; 31:16).”[iii]

What does seem to be abundantly clear is that when Jethro hears the tale of God’s deliverance of his people, he realizes and accepts that Yahweh God is the supreme God over all.

Terence Fretheim, while cautioning against forcing a conversionist template onto this scene, helpfully lists the telling steps in Exodus 18 that point to Jethro and his family’s assimilation into the people of God.

1. Jethro hears what God has done for Israel (v.1).

2. Jethro with Moses’ family visits the newly delivered community.

3. They go into the tent (sanctuary).

4. Moses declares the good news to Jethro…

5. Jethro rejoices over all the good that God has brought to Israel…

6. Jethro gives public thanks (=blesses) to God…

7. Jethro publicly confesses that Yahweh is God of gods and Lord of lords.

8. Jethro presents an offering to God…[iv]

It is tempting to make this a kind of template for conversion.  Moshe Reiss, writing for the Jewish Bible Quarterly, shows how many rabbinic commentators did just that.

The suggestion that Jethro was a convert has a threefold basis: the fact that he

blessed the Lord; that he made sacrifices and a burnt offering to God; and that he then participated in a festive meal, breaking bread with Aaron and the elders before God (Ex. l 8:1 0,12). The battle with Amalek (Ex. 17:8-16) that immediately precedes Jethro’s arrival apparently leads on to Exodus 18:1, Jethro…heard everything that God had done for Moses and for Israel. This fostered the rabbinic understanding that Jethro was inspired to convert after hearing about the defeat of Amalek (TB Zevahim 116a; Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, 3). In other midrashic sources, Jethro and his family spontaneously converted before ever meeting Moses. This explains why the shepherds in Midian disliked and oppressed Jethro’s daughters (Shemot Rabbah 1:32)…

…R. Berechiah explains that Jethro converted and then returned to Midian in order to convert the rest of the Kenites, who later came to live in Israel (Judg. 1:16). R. Berechiah’s pro-convert stance is attested by his statement that Israel’s merit can be ascertained from the number and quality of converts, “like Jethro, Rahab and Ruth” (Kohelet Rabbah 6:5). Going even further, R. Eleazar states that God told Moses:  “1 am He that brought Jethro near, not keeping him at a distance . . . some say that the Shekhinah went with him” (Mekhilta, Yitro).[v]

The only possible problem with this is Jethro’s statement in verse 11, “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.”  Does this mean that Jethro believed there are still other gods but they are not as powerful as Yahweh, or does this mean that Jethro now saw that there was only one God?  In other words, did Jethro convert to monotheism, did he reject the pagan deities for whom he was a priest, or did he simply come to see that the God of Israel was the most powerful of many gods?

It is hard to say, and it is not an unimportant question, but the answer to that question still does not negate the point that what we do see in Jethro’s behavior contains all the marks of true conversion:  he is drawn to God, he learns the good news of God’s amazing saving works, he rejoices at this good news, he embraces the Lord God as supreme, and he moves on to worship God.  Conversion is more than this (in the sense that it does indeed need to include belief that God alone is God), but it is not less than this.

It raises an interesting question.  Have our lives been similarly marked by these movements of faith:  coming, hearing, accepting, rejoicing, worshiping?  When you look at Jethro, do you see your own journey?  Of course, there are a thousand different ways we move from point to point, but these points should be there:  coming, hearing, accepting, rejoicing, worshiping.

Organization within the people of God

Having entered into the family of God, Jethro noticed something about his son-in-law’s leadership style that prompted him to offer some paternal advice.

¹³ The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. ¹⁴ When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” ¹⁵ And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; ¹⁶ when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” ¹⁷ Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. ¹⁸ You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. ¹⁹ Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, ²⁰ and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. ²¹ Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. ²² And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. ²³ If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.” ²⁴ So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. ²⁵ Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. ²⁶ And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. ²⁷ Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went away to his own country.

This may seem to be a matter of mere logistics, delegation, and organization, but notice that what was at stake ultimately was the survival of the leader of Israel and the people of God and their final entry into the land of promise:  “If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

Jethro’s entry into the community of Israel was therefore significant both for what it meant for Jethro and his own salvation and for Moses and his own survival.  Simply put, God brought the right man at the right time.

One cannot help but be struck by the humility of Moses in hearing and heeding the advice of his father-in-law.  Moses could have brushed him off with wounded pride or he could have asked self-righteously what exactly a new convert had to teach a champion like himself.  But Moses did neither.  He honored and heard and obeyed his father-in-law.  Perhaps he was so exhausted that he knew something had to change.  Perhaps he simply knew his father to be a wise man who was not to be lightly dismissed.  Either way, Moses did something that it is hard for leaders to do:  he humbled himself and listened.

As a result, the large congregation was strategically segmented into units that could be more manageably ministered to.  In the Church, this passage is occasionally appealed to as a kind of Old Testament forerunner of the New Testament office of deacon.  Indeed, the rationale for this organization we find in Exodus 18 is similar to that of Acts 6.

¹ Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. ² And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. ³ Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. ⁴ But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” ⁵ And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. ⁶ These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. ⁷ And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

In both cases, organization and delegation are necessary so that the leaders of the congregation will not burn out and ultimately be of no use to God’s people and so that they can focus on their primary tasks.  Furthermore, it is interesting to compare the qualifications of Israel’s division heads with the qualifications of New Testament deacons.  In our text, Jethro called for a particular kind of man to be given leadership.

²¹ Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe

Similarly, Paul writes this in 1 Timothy 3:

⁸ Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. ⁹ They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. ¹⁰ And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. ¹¹ Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. ¹² Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. ¹³ For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

This should not surprise us, these similarities, for the character of God does not change and His love for His people does not change and the marks of a useful servant of God does not change.  In both cases we see the providential care of God for His people:  His raising up of new leaders, His granting of humility to those leaders who have already been raised, His involvement of willing servants in the care of his people, His concern about the concerns of all His people, and His provision for His people on their journey home.

This book contains the presentations that were given at a 2012 conference by (essentially) the same name at my alma mater, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.  (Videos of the presentations can be viewed here.)  I have been mildly interested in reading this, to be honest, but not overly so.  However, when I saw it offered on sale at Amazon the other day I happily purchased it.  Having just finished it, I can say that this is an extremely interesting and informative work and one, I should say, that is more than worth the full retail cost.  (In fact, I may very well purchase a hardcopy because I think this would be a valuable addition to my library.)  Thus, my mild skepticism was wrong, and I gladly stand corrected!

There is way too much information in the book to summarize here, but, suffice it to say, you will walk away from a reading of this book with a very good understanding of the key personalities, historical developments, and controversies of the Anabaptists.  You will also come away with a deep appreciation for these brave men and women.  To be sure, the authors do not seek to gloss over some of the more unfortunate theological, political, and personal aspects that have been associated with the movement, but they convincingly show these to be anomalies and perversions of the true Anabaptist spirit.

What is the true Anabaptist spirit?  I would say it is radical discipleship.  This discipleship arose out of a fearless and honest reading of scripture and a desire to implement what was read therein.  This led to regenerate church membership, believers baptism, missions, and personal holiness.  The Anabaptist movement was filled with fascinating and colorful personalities who were persecuted by Catholics and (amazingly) Protestants alike.

There were many things in the book that I found very interesting.  The Anabaptists’ relationship with Zwingli, for example, is as interesting as it is frustrating.  Furthermore, if Luther hatched the egg that Erasmus laid then the Anabaptists can rightly be said to have hatched the egg that Luther laid.  Speaking of Erasmus, the book’s discussion of his impact on Balthasar Hubmaier was likewise intriguing.  The account of Luther’s detestation of the Anabaptists is tragic.  What is more, the magisterial Reformers’ wrestling with and ultimate rejection of believer’s baptism is a most unfortunate example of the victory of eisegesis over exegesis.

This is a very, very good book.  I’m sorry I did not read it when it first appeared.  If you would like to see church history taught in an engaging way, read the lectures in this book.

As we continue with our consideration of the reliability of the Bible (with special attention being paid to the writings of the New Testament), I would like to review the premise and the three basic historical facts we looked at earlier.

The premise from which we are operating is as follows: the reliability of the Bible is important as it is from the Bible that we learn information about the person of Jesus: who He is, why He came, and what He has done and is doing.

We believe this is a matter of paramount importance. Can we trust what we read in our Bibles? Behind this specific consideration is the larger theological issue of revelation and the modern skepticism concerning the reality of it. But Christianity is a revealed religion, and, in fact, is the steward of the definitive revelation of God in Christ. It is through the teachings of the Bible that we learn about Christ. Thus, our confidence in scripture is our confidence in the revealed truth of God, or God’s word.

The three basic historical facts that will continue to frame our discussion are:

1. The books of the New Testament were written. The original manuscripts are called “the autographs”
2. Immediately, copies began to be made of the autographs and spread throughout the world. We refer to these as “the New Testament manuscripts.”
3. In the year 367 AD, Athanasius, in his Festal Letter, provided the earliest known list of the 27 books of the New Testament as we know them.

We will be giving the first two facts particular attention.

No other ancient work has such a strong body of manuscript evidence as close to the time of its writing as does the Bible.

One of the significant arguments for the reliability of the Bible has to do with the manuscript evidence that we possess. In order to get at this, we will need to remember especially those first two facts. Let us use 1 Corinthians as a case study. First, let us realize that 1 Corinthians was written by Paul in the mid 50’s AD.

The original letter, the first edition of 1 Corinthians, is call “the autograph.” We do not possess it. We do not possess any of the New Testament autographs. However, what we do possess are numerous copies of the original letter.

So how do we know what 1 Corinthians says? Primarily by looking at the earliest manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts are usually given the greatest weight because they were copied closest to the time of the original writing. Then we look at all the manuscripts we have for 1 Corinthians, comparing them as we go. We also consider the writings of the earliest church fathers and how they referred to and quoted or paraphrased 1 Corinthians. In this way, we are able to see what the original said. The process is a lot more complicated, of course, and there are specialists in numerous fields that contribute to this process, but, in general, this is how we come to know what, say, 1 Corinthians says.

It has become fashionable for critics to harp on the fact that we only possess copies of the New Testament writings and not the originals. As we have already said, this is not terribly significant. Papyrus and other mediums do not last forever and the fact that the autographs have not survived is neither here nor there. Perhaps God in His wisdom knew that the Church would be tempted to make an idol of the original writings had they survived. And, of course, perhaps they have survived and have not yet been discovered. Exciting early manuscript finds happen all the time!

No, the truth is that, what we have with the New Testament and its manuscripts is, in the words of Dan Wallace, “an embarrassment of riches.”

What does he mean by that? What he means is that the manuscripts we have for the books of the New Testament are so voluminous and are so much closer to the time of the writing of the biblical autographs than are the manuscripts for other ancient works that are generally trusted today that if we cannot trust the Bible, then we have much more reason not to trust these other works.

Let me demonstrate. Below is a series of ancient works. Their authors are listed as are the book/s they wrote, the date they were written, and the date of the earliest surviving copy we have for that book. We likewise possess none of the autographs, the originals, for any of these writings. Then the time gap between the date of the writing of the autograph and the date of the earliest manuscript is written along with the number of manuscripts we have for that work. Let us consider how the New Testament stacks up to these other works of antiquity.

An embarrassment of riches indeed! This is simply staggering. Let me share Dr. Wallace’s conclusion concerning this amazing comparison:

In terms of extant manuscripts, the New Testament textual critic is confronted with an embarrassment of riches. If we have doubts about what the autographic New Testament said, those doubts would have to be multiplied at least a hundred-fold for the average classical author. And when we compare the New Testament manuscripts to the very best that the classical world has to offer, it still stands head and shoulders above the rest. The New Testament is far and away the best-attested work of Greek or Latin literature from the ancient world. Precisely because we have hundreds of thousands of variants and hundreds of early manuscripts, we are in an excellent position for recovering the wording of the original. Further, if the radical skeptics applied their principles to the rest of Greco-Roman literature, they would thrust us right back into the Dark Ages, where ignorance was anything but bliss. Their arguments only sound impressive in a vacuum.[1]

The late Frederic Kenyon, famed British paleographer and classical scholar, put it even more poignantly:

The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.[2]

Church, marvel at the amazing evidence and the mountain of confirmation that God has left His people concerning the reliability of His word.

The variants in the manuscript copies are almost completely trivial.

But let us go back a moment to the autograph and the manuscript copies.

The next question is do the manuscript copies we have contain discrepancies between themselves? In other words, if we compare all of the copies do they all completely agree? And the answer is clearly no. There are discrepancies among the manuscripts.

Much is made of this fact by detractors of the Bible. Indeed, of all the arguments marshaled against scripture, this is one of the most common. It is asserted with confidence that since there are discrepancies among the manuscripts we therefore cannot know what the Bible says. But when this attack is made, those making it are really revealing their own biases and personal agendas.

In point of fact, discrepancies among the manuscripts do not matter and do not touch on the reliability of the Bible for two important reasons.

The first is that the doctrine of inerrancy, or the idea that the Bible has no errors, applies to the autographs, to what Paul or Matthew or John or whomever actually wrote, not to later copies. For instance, were I to ask all of you to open your Bibles to the little book of Philemon in the New Testament and then give you all pen and paper and ask you to copy the book of Philemon, I guarantee you there would be discrepancies in our copies. But the fact that you and I might have made mistakes in copying the book does not mean (a) that the book itself has errors or (b) that our errors make the original wording of the book unattainable.

The doctrine of inerrancy has always applied to the autographs. The classic evangelical statement on inerrancy is the 1978 “Chicago Statement on Inerrancy.” It is a very interesting and well-done statement that should be closely considered. A few of its affirmations and denials are especially apropos for our considerations.

Article VI. We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

Article X. We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

            We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.[3]

Thus, any discrepancies in the manuscripts simply cannot touch the doctrine of inerrancy. But what of the discrepancies? What kind of variances are there? Are they so great that they conceal the wording of the original from view? Hardly. The fact is that the vast, vast majority of these discrepancies are matters of spelling or obscurity.

This certainly takes a good deal of steam out of the bluster of the critics. Theologian Wayne Grudem has summarized the differences in the manuscripts like this:

…for over 99 percent of the words of the Bible, we know what the original manuscript said. Even for many of the verses where there are textual variants (that is, different words in different ancient copies of the same verse), the correct decision is often quite clear, and there are really very few places where the textual variant is both difficult to evaluate and significant in determining the meaning. In the small percentage of cases where there is significant uncertainty about what the original text said, the general sense of the sentence is usually quite clear form the context.[4]

More significant is the conclusion of Bart Ehrman concerning these differences. His conclusions are significant because Ehrman is a former evangelical turned atheist New Testament scholar. He is the current media darling on these matters and has made quite a comfortable living attempting to debunk and cast doubt on the New Testament in particular. To be clear, he feels that there are a few places where the discrepancies really do matter, but in his book, Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman, in answering a question posed to him by the editors, likewise admitted that the presence of discrepancies is not simply shattering to Christianity and that the vast majority of them simply do not matter.

Why do you believe these core tenets of Christian orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on scribal errors you discovered in the biblical manuscripts?

Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.[5]

Furthermore, last year, in a June 19, 2014, blog post entitle, “Who Cares?? Do the Variants in the Manuscripts Matter for Anything?” Ehrman spoke further to this when he said the following:

“[T]he vast majority of the…differences are immaterial, insignificant, and trivial…Probably the majority matter only in showing that Christian scribes centuries ago could spell no better than my students can today…[N]one of the variants that we have ultimately would make any Christian in the history of the universe come to think something opposite of what they already think about whatever doctrines are usually considered ‘major.’”[6]

Church, given the staggering amount of manuscript evidence over the first fifteen hundred years of the Christian era, we would expect human errors in the copies. What is truly wonderful, however, is that the insignificant and truly petty nature of over 99% of these discrepancies in no way affect our understanding of what the original manuscript said. You may therefore hold your Bible with confidence, especially in the face of uniformed challenges to its reliability from those who, on the basis of a surface reading and understanding of the data, think they have found an irrefutable silver bullet against the faith.

Jesus and the Apostles viewed the Bible as reliable and God-given and quoted from it extensively.

Above all of these reasons, however, is one that is more significant than all others. We can get at this reason by listening closely to what Jesus said in His wilderness temptations in Matthew 4.

¹ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ² And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. ³ And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴ But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple ⁶ and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” ⁷ Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ⁹ And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” ¹¹ Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Do you notice how Jesus began all three of his responses to the devil?

⁴ It is written…

⁷ Again, it is written…

¹⁰ For it is written

“It is written.” Jesus appeals three times to the writings. What writings? The writings of scripture.

Jesus thought the Bible was reliable and authoritative. He agreed that the scriptures are theopneustos, God-breathed.

This is the evidence above all other evidence, the proof above all proof: Jesus, the Son of God, quoted and relied upon scripture. Furthermore, so did the apostles. In fact, the New Testament is filled with references to the Old Testament. Here, for instance, is a chart showing every place in which the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, in which any portion of scripture references any other portion:

And here is another showing how often Jesus quoted the Old Testament:

The evidence is undeniable: Jesus and His apostles felt that the scriptures were authoritative and reliable. In his essay, “New Testament Use of the Old Testament,” Roger Nicole writes:

[A] very conservative count discloses unquestionably at least 295 separate references to the Old Testament [in the New Testament]. These occupy some 352 verses of the New Testament, or more than 4.4 per cent. Therefore one verse in 22.5 of the New Testament is a quotation.

If clear allusions are taken into consideration, the figures are much higher: C. H. Toy lists 613 such instances, Wilhelm Dittmar goes as high as 1640, while Eugen Huehn indicates 4105 passages reminiscent of Old Testament Scripture. It can therefore be asserted, without exaggeration, that more than 10 per cent of the New Testament text is made up of citations or direct allusions to the Old Testament. The recorded words of Jesus disclose a similar percentage. Certain books like Revelation, Hebrews, Romans are well nigh saturated with Old Testament forms of language, allusions and quotations…

If we limit ourselves to the specific quotations and direct allusions which form the basis of our previous reckoning, we shall note that 278 different Old Testament verses are cited in the New Testament: 94 from the Pentateuch, 99 from the Prophets, and 85 from the Writings. Out of the 22 books in the Hebrew reckoning of the Canon only six (Judges-Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra-Nehemlah, Chronicles) are not explicitly referred to. The more extensive lists of Dittmar and Huehn show passages reminiscent of all Old Testament books without exception.

Nicole then says this about the New Testament use of the Old Testament.

The New Testament writers used quotations in their sermons, in their histories, in their letters, in their prayers. They used them when addressing Jews or Gentiles, churches or individuals, friends or antagonists, new converts or seasoned Christians. They used them for argumentation, for illustration, for instruction, for documentation, for prophecy, for reproof. They used them in times of stress and in hours of mature thinking, in liberty and in prison, at home and abroad. Everywhere and always they were ready to refer to the impregnable authority of Scripture.

Jesus Christ…quoted the Old Testament in support of his teaching to the crowds; he quoted it in his discussions with antagonistic Jews; he quoted it in answer to questions both captious and sincere; he quoted it in instructing the disciples who would have readily accepted his teaching on his own authority; he referred to it in his prayers, when alone in the presence of the Father; he quoted it on the cross, when his sufferings could easily have drawn his attention elsewhere; he quoted it in his resurrection glory, when any limitation, real or alleged, of the days of his flesh was clearly superseded. Whatever may be the differences between the pictures of Jesus drawn by the four Gospels, they certainly agree in their representation of our Lord’s attitude toward the Old Testament: one of constant use and of unquestioning endorsement of its authority.[7]

The Bible is authoritative and reliable and trustworthy. It is God’s word to us. It is the Bible that Jesus quoted and pointed to time and again. It is the Bible that the apostles quoted in advancing the gospel in the world. It is the Bible that the early church fathers pointed to and quoted and alluded to time and time and time again. It is the Bible that the followers of Jesus wrote then copied over and over and over and over again. It is the Bible that was spread and sent and carried throughout the world. It is the Bible that followers of Jesus have labored to copy and preserve and whose value many of them have demonstrated and confirmed with their own blood. It is the Bible that this Church preaches and on which we stand.

It is God’s word to humanity. It points us to Jesus, the Word who was with God and who is God. It is the infallible, inerrant, trustworthy, reliant word, the scriptures that still reveal the power of the gospel and teach us divine truth and draw our eyes to Jesus.

[1] (2013-07-01). In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture (Kindle Locations 3210-3219). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] Quoted in F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), p.20.

[3] Carl F.H. Henry. “The God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part Three.” God, Revelation, and Authority. Volume IV. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), p.213.

[4] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p.96.

[5] Referenced by Dan Wallace at the 50.20 mark in his 2013 Ouachita Baptist University lecture, “How Much Did the Scribes Corrupt the New Testament?” https://vimeo.com/74471900

[6] https://ehrmanblog.org/who-cares-do-the-variants-in-the-manuscripts-matter-for-anything/

[7] https://www.bible-researcher.com/nicole.html