Accurate & True

Luke 24:13-35

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On the very first Easter Day Jesus appeared with two of his disciples as they were walking to the town of Emmaus. But we’re told something very interesting. Jesus did not let himself be recognized. The question is why? Why did Jesus hide himself from those disciples that day? Well, the answer is Jesus wanted their attention to be on his words instead of on the fact that he was standing in front of them.

Jesus had something important to teach those disciples as they journeyed along and walked together. He showed them how all the scriptures were fulfilled in his death and resurrection, how all the Bible points to Jesus. Essentially, what Jesus was doing is he was building up their trust and your trust in the Bible.

Now there’s one invasive thought in Christianity today that absolutely destroys people’s trust in God’s Word. It’s this idea that there is a kernel of truth in the Bible. And that over years and over generations, at this kernel of truth, this story about Jesus kind of had this snowball effect. And so each generation added their own little bit of twist to the story. And so by the time that the Bible comes to you and me today, you’ve got all this baggage that the church has added. Now suddenly Jesus is this powerful Son of God who’s risen from the dead.

Why do people believe this idea, that there’s just a kernel of truth in the Bible? Well, the answer is that they’re looking for a way to dismiss the unpopular things Jesus said or taught. They want to be able to say, no, that’s just the church. Jesus didn’t really teach something like that. Now the problem with this idea is that there’s no evidence. There’s no proof of it. In fact, when it comes to archeology and archeologists that dig all around, all around the world. The most common ancient text found by archeologists are copies of the New Testament.

In fact, you know how many copies of the New Testament we found? Over 30,000. If you were to take that stack of papers and stack it up, you would have a tower over a mile high. And as you study those documents, you’ll see that they’re from different places, from different times, but you’ll see that consistently, the very same story was passed on from generation to generation. People weren’t changing it.

There are, however, to be perfectly honest, things called transcription errors. And I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about what those are with you. A transcription error is, for lack of a better word, a typo. Imagine someone spending day in and day out copying line after line of text over. They’re bound to make a little mistake here and there. A missed comma, a misspelled word. Oftentimes when people attack the Bible, they’ll use these transcription errors. They’ll point to so many transcription errors and say that you can’t be certain about anything the Bible says.

Well, the truth is, if you take all those transcription errors and you average it out over that mile high stack of 30,000 copies of the Greek New Testament, do you know how many transcription errors, typos, you average per document? 13. I want to put that number in perspective for you quickly. There’s 138,162 words in the New Testament. That’s enough to make an adult fiction book about this big. I don’t know when the last time you wrote a paper was, but I know for myself, when I write a two page sermon, I have more than 13 typos in it. Can you imagine 138,162 words and only having 13 typos?

You can be certain that the Bible you have today has been preserved by the Holy Spirit throughout the ages. And if there’s any doubt in your mind, just know that there’s 29,000 other copies of the New Testament to compare to. Jesus wants you to be certain that the Word of God is accurate and true. You can be certain that the Jesus of the Bible that Jesus predicted throughout the entire Old Testament who came, lived, walked on this earth, suffered and died on the cross, rose again from the dead. He’s the same Jesus who forgives your sins today. You can count on that. Amen.