https://odb.org/MY/2023/02/12/information-and-evidence
John 21:15 is interesting as John mentioned that Jesus did many other things as well. If every single one of them were written down, he supposed that even the whole world may not have room for all the books that would be written. John 20:31 states that these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Thus, the perspective of the Gospels is that they had to pick and choose the major and more significant landmarks or milestones in Jesus’s 3 years plus of ministry as there are just so many things that He did and probably taught. The Synoptic Gospels will corroborate each other as they write about the same things, but John is a bit different as he focused on the diety of Christ, that Jesus was the Son of God and God Himself, incarnate in human flesh and form.
What I like about the bible is that it tells the stories of the lives of different and many people as they are impacted by God and as they relate to God, and that includes the good and bad as well as the embarrassing. For example, no attempt was made to cover up the sin of David with Bethsheba, although David is regarded as the finest of Israel.
The Old Testament is a testament to the goodness of Yahweh God while the New Testament is more about Jesus Christ as set out in the Gospels, as well as letters written mostly by Paul as he preached Christ resurrected and crucified. Nevertheless, these are stories of how the early believers lived out their faith and about His goodness upon their lives as they spread the faith out of Jerusalem and Judea, to Samaria, and to the lands of the Gentiles. The early church faced similar issues that we face today, like persecutions as well as false teachers. Division within the body. Contemporary faith issues like circumcision and homosexuality. Dealing with the pull of the world and materialism.
What I like to encourage us this morning is that our lives are a continuation of the goodness of God from the stories in the bible. We are like the people in the bible interacting and relating with God, living out our faith. We are in the world and yet not of the world. As we write and live out our own life stories, I believe there are scribes in heaven recording our lives, and like the writers of old, they will write the milestones on our spiritual journeys but without covering up our weak moments, weaknesses and sins. The books of our lives will be too voluminous if everything we ever did was recorded, but it remains that our lives will indeed be a testament to God’s goodness and love and compassion. The stories of Jesus were written, so we may believe that He is the Messiah and the Son of God. Will the stories of our lives be written that others may believe in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God? Will the stories of our lives be written as a testament to God’s goodness, love, and compassion?
Ronnie's Thoughts 