When one reads the accounts provided of the life of Jesus in the New Testament, the knowledge and respect that He had for the Old Testament Scriptures ought to impress upon us the same urgent need to increase our own knowledge and respect for God’s Word.
Jesus believed the words of the Bible. When He taught about the resurrection of the dead, He quoted from Exodus, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” to prove that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:37). Jesus believed the words of the Bible. Do you?
Jesus believed the stories of the Bible. When He taught about the nature of His own death, He illustrated it by referring to when “Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness” (John 3:14). Jesus believed the stories of the Bible. Do you?
Jesus believed the prophecies of the Bible. When He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, He read from Isaiah 49:8-9 and then said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16-21). Jesus believed the prophecies of the Bible. Do you?
Jesus believed the eternal truths of the Bible. When He was asked about the ever-important subject of marriage, He pointed His challengers to “the beginning of the creation” (when God created marriage) and quoted this everlasting precept of God, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Mark 10:1-8). Jesus believed the eternal truths of the Bible. Do you?
Jesus believed even the “hard to believe” things in the Bible. There is a story in the Old Testament that tops every skeptics list as something they count to be “purely mythical” or “scientifically impossible.” In their estimation, “Jonah was never swallowed by a big fish, surviving three days in its belly before being extruded out on land none the worse for wear.” However, of all the ways to depict His burial and His resurrection on the third day, Jesus chose to use the story of Jonah for comparison. “…[N]o sign will be given…except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:39-41). Jesus believed even the “hard to believe” things in the Bible. Do you?
Do you believe in Jesus? If so, do you, like Him, believe every word of the Bible? Do you respect the Bible like Jesus did?