The Book of Hebrews - 1 Timothy 1:3-4 No one will take your Kids captive - Part II
1 Timothy 1:3-4 · Vern Peterman · Jul 13, 2014
Hebrews, No. 60
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926434157817

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to finish up our parenting series here today. What we looked at last week, we started with Colossians 2.8.

Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. We said last Sunday, as we addressed biological evolution, we said it's one faith versus another faith. Skepticism requires that one have faith many times over, we said, often when there's no evidence to support it. It's not a matter of science versus faith. but of one faith with no God versus another with faith in God. So the way we summarized it was the skeptic believes in multiple miracles without a God and without revelation or evidence. But the Christian believes in multiple miracles by God as revealed by him in his written word.

Now, what we're going to do here is shift over and look at history. And so in that context, the word here translated captive means to be taken captive by pirates or thugs. Essentially, it's a very dishonest taking captive that the world seeks to do. The picture that today's aggressive historical skeptics paint is this. They say they stand on reason and solid historical evidence. But the Christians just have groundless faith in myths and legends and contradictory scriptures, even if the facts prove otherwise. It's real history, so they say, versus religious faith. But that, as we'll see here this morning, is deceptive.

Here is a chart that we presented last week. This is a chart that shows the best realm for science to work in, is things that are presently observable. repeatable, where we can control the inputs and measure the outputs. And this is the best realm for science.

It's also at a scale where it can be easily reproduced and done by others. And the example we gave last week is If you say that the freezing point of water is 32 degrees, then anyone could go and check that out. If you say, Vern, I'm not so sure, you could go and check it out and find out for yourself. Fairly easily done. It's repeatable. It's something that other people can do as well. Now, when we step into history, certainly we have human record, but what we do is we presently observe past human written observations. And we look at evidence from the past in the present. It's not repeatable, is it?

We can't go back and do it again. Can we go back and ask Pontius Pilate questions about why he pronounced sentence on Jesus and how things turned out with his wife, who warned him not to have anything to do with Jesus? We can't. We can't do that. Can we repeat Pilate's interrogation? No, we cannot.

So history is something we can indeed study. We study it in the present. We can't go back in the past and ask some questions. We might very much want to. For today's purpose, we're going to be looking at history, and we're going to have the scope primarily, in order to keep from being here all day and in order to allow people to get over to Silo Park, we're going to look primarily at the Gospels and Acts, and particularly at the author Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.

When there's history, human events are recorded. Like the unrecorded past, the events of history cannot be repeated. We can't go back and redo them. But there is human observation, and sometimes more than one person will write about the same event or individual or process.

There is a system of evaluating historical documents to determine their truth or falsehood. And that system applies not just to scripture, but to all kinds of historical documents. And that same system can be applied to the documents that we have from scripture. That system of tests can be applied to any document of any age, and it is objective.

Now, you have here on page two a half-page slide that summarizes something we'll be stepping through. There are three basic tests that can be applied to any historical document, and that's the bibliographic test that talks about how did the documents get to us. The internal evidence test is how internally consistent is a document, and then the external evidence test, which says how does it check out with other things outside, other facts that we have available to us. So those three tests are tests that can be applied to any historical document. Let's take a look at this bibliographic test.

This is the one about how did the document get to us. And so you have the question, how did the document get to us? We want to look at the quantity of evidence. We want to look at the quality of evidence and the timeline from the origin to the earliest written record. All right.

So now, the New Testament documents, there are at least 5,309 surviving hand-copied Greek documents. And actually, I was checking on that just This last week, one fellow who tracks this has actually claimed the number is up to 5,600 documents now. So at least this is a conservative figure.

And then, there are more than 19,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts in Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and other languages. The oldest copies of the New Testament known to exist are actually the Syriac and Old Latin versions. All totaled more than 24,000, and some would claim the number is about 25,000 now, handwritten copies of the New Testament have survived. A great many. documents.

You have this bar chart, and as I was talking this over with Nancy, she says I don't relate to bar charts, so I'll have to explain this a bit. What this is showing, the one on the left, is showing the time from the original writing, in the case of the New Testament, the original writing by the Apostles and their associates, to the earliest known copy. So to have a small chart is a good thing because it means you've got from the original writing until the time of the earliest known copy is very small. So we've got copies very close to the time of the original writing.

That is not so much the case with other ancient documents. You have Homer who was a contemporary of Isaiah, wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. Then you have some Latin writers there, and then a Greek writer, Demosthenes. Notice with Demosthenes, we have 1,400 years after he originally wrote his earliest copy.

So the New Testament, among these ancient documents, and we could put others in there, but the point would still be made, the New Testament is the closest from the earliest copies we have to the time of writing of any of the ancient documents. Next, this one over here, this is the number of handwritten copies known to modern scholars. And so you see for Caesar and Livy and Tacitus, very, very few copies. And then when you get to the New Testament, a great many copies.

And by the way, this bar chart only shows the ones that are in Greek. It doesn't show the ones that are translated into other languages, which would make it even greater and it'd be off the chart. All right, now you got one more bar chart here to cope with. Are we holding together okay?

All right, this one shows the dates by century. and how many documents we have in each century. So for example, the 2nd century, which would be between 100 and 200 AD, we do have a small number of copies. All the New Testament was written in the 1st century, so we have copies, some of them in the 2nd century, more in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. What you see there is in the 12th century, that is 1100 to 1200 AD, That's the greatest number of handwritten copies out of that century, and then the number goes down. So the dates are here shown by century up to the 16th century when finally they had printing and they didn't bother with all this handwritten copies. All right, so we have lots of copies that Some of which are very close to the time of the apostles and their associates writing them. Many, many copies compared to any other ancient document. We have a wealth of documentary evidence. Now, how different is copies of copies of copies any different from the telephone game? Ever played that? It's been a while, but it is kind of fun. How something starts out and how something ends in the telephone game is kind of astounding. Now one thing we have to take a look at, you see we have these tests that we can apply.

But with the telephone game, you don't get a chance to go back and say, what did you say? you don't get a chance with a telephone game to read back and feedback, you know, this is what I heard you say, is that what you said, right? But with the copying, you have that opportunity. That is, someone can say, okay, now that you've copied that, read through your copy and let's see if that matches with the original. You do have that opportunity.

And it's in writing and we can apply more tests to something in writing than we can to something that's oral and one time through. And there's another point too, and that is that with the New Testament documents, it wasn't a matter of one person makes a copy and then another person makes one copy from that and another person makes one copy. Frequently, from the original, you might have two, three, four dozen copies made from that one copy. So instead of having a linear one and one and one like the telephone game, you've got a geometric growth. You end up getting hundreds and hundreds of copies and multiple copies at a time. All right, now let's take a look at the internal evidence test. How internally consistent is the New Testament?

How able was the author to testify to facts by reason of geographical and time proximity to the people, facts, and events in question? Now, what you have here is these initial questions are dealt with very directly by eyewitnesses, right? Geographical proximity, standing right there. An eyewitness is right there. Time proximity, the eyewitness is right there. The Gospels and the Book of Acts is eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony is as good as it gets, and so most of Matthew, Mark, and John are eyewitness testimony over a period of three years.

These guys were right there when they wrote. So they had the very best of geographical proximity there, right there. Time proximity, they're right there. They're talking with Jesus. They're listening to what he says. They're seeing what he does. The time of exposure to the evidence is the best because they're with him continually. Now, Dr. Luke, however, is different.

He wrote about 28% of the New Testament. He doesn't appear to have been an eyewitness of the Lord. We first see him show up in Acts 16. where he not in every chapter but from Acts 16 to chapter 28 will often on use we or us as an eyewitness. So he was eyewitness to many of the events starting at Acts chapter 16. Dr. Luke was very careful about what he wrote when he was not an eyewitness.

Here is Dr. Luke's approach to writing history. He spells it out in the first four verses of the Gospel of Luke. He writes to a person by the name of Theophilus, and he says, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you, in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you've been taught." This almost excellent is a term that is used to address dignitaries or people of high standing. It is quite possible that Theophilus was either an administrative judge for the Roman Empire or someone who paid Luke to write Luke and Acts.

But what you see is Luke takes great care at what he pulls together, even when he is not an eyewitness, but he talks to eyewitnesses and he gets fine details. Now, I want to look at a few things that also demonstrate the consistency of the New Testament. And there are certain touch points with history.

In 1990, there were some construction workers working on a park near Jerusalem. And as they were working, all of a sudden, a few of them just, the ground dropped out from underneath them, and they fell into this burial tomb that had this, among 12 boxes.

Now the way the Jews did it during the New Testament period is they would wrap the bodies like they did with Jesus and put it in a tomb and then a year later when all the flesh was gone they would take the bones and put them in a box and this is called an ossuary. So they put them in a box. Well it turns out that this particular box that's very ornately carved and that by the way that's unusual appears to be the box for Caiaphas, the one who interrogated Jesus.

He was a high priest from 18 AD, appointed by the Roman governor, to 36 AD. So the time fits. Here's what's scratched on the end of the box there. So it has his name, Joseph Caiaphas. Then, in 2002, an ossuary surfaced with the inscription, James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Now it's very unusual, very unusual, to list the brother. So this is exceptional. This is exceptional.

Now, this was met with a great deal of controversy. The owner, Oded Golan, the owner of this box, he'd had it since about in the 1970s. And he surfaced this and brought out the fact that he owned it. And the Israel Antiquities Authority charged him with fraud. And so there were a great many expert witnesses, over 100 expert witnesses.

But it's this inscription right here. That's the point of question. They thought, well, this guy took a box and inscribed that on there and faked it. That's what was the claim. But even one of the expert witnesses for the prosecution says, if this is a fake, I quit. If this is a fake, I quit.

And reading the opposite direction, because they go right in the opposite direction from what we have, It's James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. And it appears to be the real deal. There are still some who throw up flags and cautions on it. It appears to be the real deal.

James was killed by the Jews. He was pitched off the top of the temple. the pinnacle of the temple, but he didn't die. He was badly injured, but didn't die, so they did him in with a club. So that was about 62 AD, according to Josephus, and this appears to be the very, you know, ossuary box that he was in.

Here's another one that's very interesting that has surfaced. Here's Mark 15 21 says they pressed into service a passerby coming from the country Simon of Cyrene father of Alexander and Rufus to bear his cross. Okay this particular ossuary has scratched into the top. Alexander. son of Simon, of Cyrene. And by checking the markings over in Jerusalem and over in Cyrene, it appears very likely that this is the box of the son of Simon, of Cyrene.

So this was published as an opinion by Tom Powers in the Biblical Archaeological Society newsletter, and there's Tom Powers there. Now, here's a very interesting one. I don't have a picture of it because this is one in storage. Dr. Randall Price, and I think Randy and I have both met him, is written of an ossuary discovered by the Jewish archaeologist Eliezer Sukenik, but placed in storage in Jerusalem. The ossuary dates from 43 AD, based on the coins found inside. There were no bones in the ossuary, and the engraving on the outside says, Jesus, who ascended. Isn't that amazing? Amazing.

And it's something that Dr. Price wants to look into further, because it's one of those things that you've got to get out of storage and find it and locate it. And Eleazar Sukunic is no longer around. You'd have to do some digging into old history here. All right, now we've got this external evidence test. How well does the testimony claimed in the historical document correspond to other facts from other historical sources? And we want to look at the quantity and the quality of the evidence.

One of the things we point out here is Luke has very careful use of specific titles. As one reads through the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, and really the Book of Acts is Luke 2, right? Luke 2. The titles which are given by Dr. Luke are specific as to the time frame and the political domain in each instance.

You see, During the time of the Roman Empire, there were all kinds of little local titles of different officials, and those changed quite a bit. There was no consistent pattern, and so you had to be very careful to make sure you got the right title for each official in each area because there was no broad assumption as to how you were going to do that. Political titles and boundaries were constantly shifting. There was no uniform system of titles throughout the entire Roman Empire. Titles on the next several slides that we're going to look at here have all been confirmed.

Herod Antipas, known to his subjects as a king, was designated as a Tetrarch. And in the same verse, Luke 3.1, Lysanias was called the Tetrarch of Abilene. And also Herod Antipas' brother Philip was also called a Tetrarch, that specific title. And that has been confirmed archaeologically.

Sergius Paulus, recorded in the Book of Acts, as the pro-consul of Cyprus, and that also has been confirmed. Here is the Sergius Paulus inscription, so they have his name inscribed, but that exact title has been confirmed. Luke nails it. We're not done.

The magistrates of Philippi were called praetors, and by the way, that title praetors was only used for a few years. And it just so happens that those years were the time when Paul and Silas were in Philippi. And their disciplinary aides were called lictors. And they would beat people with rods, and that's what you get described there in the Book of Acts.

So the titles that are used there in Acts 16 are precisely matched by what we find from archaeology. Magistrates at Thessalonica were recorded by Dr. Luke as polytarchs. That's Acts 17, 6. And here is the Roman market and theater in Thessalonica. It's got a bunch of modern buildings all around it, but they have some archaeological access there. Here is the inscription at the British Museum right there that references the polytarchs. Again, Dr. Luke nails it, gets the right title.

Gallio was titled the Proconsul of Achaia, Acts 18.12. Now, it so happens, here is the Gallio inscription. It was found in the 1880s at three different times. First, they found four pieces and then they found three pieces, and then later they found two pieces to this Gallio inscription, but the inscription confirms that Gallio was called a proconsul of Achaia. Luke nailed it.

Local authorities in the city of Ephesus were known as Asiarchs. Isn't it strange all the different political titles they had? The Greek is plural in Acts 19.31, which matches how these authorities were titled. The chief official of Malta was the Protoss, the first man of the island. That was the title. And that has been confirmed. It is amazing as you go through here, Dr. Luke, he doesn't just throw a title out there. He nails it right on. OK, we're not done.

Prominent and leading women? Now, throughout the Roman Empire, and you could generally assume this, women were granted a lower level of rights and privileges. But there were two areas in the Roman Empire in which women had a higher social standing. And they were often allowed to have businesses and vote and participate in the political discussions and things of that sort.

Those two areas were Macedonia, Galatia and so when you get to dr. Luke's record in the book of Acts He has the prominent women in Galatia and Macedonia the two places He doesn't just guess and you know see how it lands. He gets it right on Acts 13 50 women of prominence Okay, Acts 16 14 Lydia the seller of purple and by the way purple was very expensive The color purple is very expensive. The dye costs more per ounce than gold. Very expensive stuff. Act 17-4, the leading women, and Act 17-12, prominent Greek women.

And these are found in exactly the same areas where the women had a higher status. Now, there's something else. There are those who say, oh, Dr. Luke didn't really write this. It was written by somebody else later and just claimed to be Dr. Luke. Well, this is getting harder and harder to believe. Paul brings up his Roman citizenship less often and with a lower profile than one might expect.

However, in the middle of the first century, the time when we see things recorded as in the Book of Acts, being a Roman, that is a Roman citizen, brought substantial rights and social standing. It was even something that Paul would bring up at certain points that were pivotal.

When they were about to beat him in Jerusalem, he says, do you beat Romans? And the guys stopped because it could be capital punishment if you beat someone who's a Roman citizen without first going through the proper procedures. But by the beginning of the 2nd century, there was a notable decline in the rights and privileges of one's Roman citizenship.

What that says is, no, Luke got it right. And it wasn't somebody later writing that just happened to guess all the right titles and happened to guess what Roman citizenship meant. The regard that Luke indicates for being a Roman fits the time context of the Book of Acts.

Now, here's where presuppositions come in. We have two of them that are critical. Do we disbelieve a document's claims and context unless independently confirmed? That's called minimalism. Or do we believe it unless clearly proven wrong? Maximalism. One way to put it is, is the document guilty until proven innocent? Or is it innocent until proven guilty?

That's one way to put it. And what many people like to do is to consider everything else more reliable than the Bible and only believe the Bible where they have independent confirmation. And so many like to take that approach. But is that really a balanced approach? What's to say that something else is more reliable than the Bible? So it is simply a matter of presupposition that many will have as they approach the scripture.

The other question is, when you see a miracle, does that categorically exclude the truth claims of a document? And so many will say, ah, there's miracles in here that's just, no, that's out. They automatically set it aside. And so by those two sets of presuppositions, a person will either have a regard for scripture and approach it objectively, or a person will discount it at the outset.

Now, ever hear the Bible's full of myths and fables? Well, let's take a look at that. Let's look at the definitions of what those things are. First one here is a legend. A narrative of human actions rooted in real or at least very possible history, but are perceived as being in the realm of reality. And a good example of a legend that you'd be familiar with would be Robin Hood. A real individual, but the stories make him larger than life. Larger than life is kind of the the sign of a legend.

Now, here's something that I think in the Bible, throughout the Bible, indicates that we're not talking about someone who is legendary. If Abraham blows it, if Moses blows it, if King David blows it, if Peter denies Christ, the Bible just tells the truth. Tells it like it is. That is not the nature of legend. It is not the nature of the nations and civilizations around Israel.

They would describe their kings and never put in anything bad, even if bad things happened. Now, the next one down is a fable, and probably the best example of that kind of thing is Aesop's fables. And those are similar to legend, but they extend into recognized unreality. You do not have a relationship between a tortoise and a hare, where they sit there and talk to each other and set up a competition and a race, right?

That just doesn't happen, okay? So it's recognized unreality. Is there anything in the Bible that is recognized unreality? No, the Bible is not written that way. So putting the title fable on it is not fitting either. Let's talk about myth. A myth would be, for example, Atlas holds up the world, right? So it is a story with meaning in a particular culture or religion, whether it's perceived to be historically true or untrue, right? A myth will explain and convey ideals, practices, beliefs, etc. And that's not really the intent of anything that's written in scripture. It's not written in that way.

The last one is a fairy tale. A good example of that might be the Narnia stories. They have things that relate to some kind of pseudo history and oftentimes with fantastic and magical things and Creatures that don't exist and things of that sort So so those are definitions of legend fable myth and fairy tale and what we find is none of those really fits the way the Bible is written So for myths to develop requires a period of time long separated from the time of the events, people, etc. Now, you might be wondering why I have a picture of Dwight Eisenhower on the phone. Now, the reason for that is if I told you, you know, when I was a kid, I used to call up Dwight Eisenhower on the phone all the time.

Now, why would that not fly? Why would that not sell? It's because there are people still living that remember those days and they would consider it very unlikely that Dwight Eisenhower would give me the time of day and accept a phone call from some little kid every day.

Very unlikely. For myths to develop requires a long period of time. An example would be Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey a few centuries after the mythical events. The events about which he wrote took place around the 12th century BC, at least supposedly, right? He wrote about the time, same time Isaiah wrote in the 7th and 8th centuries So several centuries had passed to allow these mythical descriptions in and allow those to be accepted. The New Testament, however, was written only decades after the events.

So it'd be like the situation with me talking with Dwight Eisenhower on the phone. Wait a minute, there's people around here that know that that's not so. for Peter to be able to say in Jerusalem, Acts chapter 3, you crucified this Jesus, you crucified the Messiah, but He rose again, and we are witnesses to these things.

Somebody could very easily have said, hey, wait a minute, let's take a little walk here, let's go over to the tomb, and He's still in there. Right? Could someone have done that? Yep. They certainly could have. Did they? Didn't happen. And multiple people were there to witness. And nobody objected. That would have been the time to do so.

There simply wasn't enough time between the events and the recording of the Gospels to develop the myths. You still had people around who could very easily have said, that's not the way it happened. That's not the way it happened. So is the Bible full of fables? For fables, those are recognized unreality, like the tortoise and the hare. They don't attempt to relate to history. That's not the purpose. Aesop's fables are to tell you little principles, even if the story itself is fanciful. It's to convey a principle. It's not to connect to history.

No, the Bible isn't full of fables. The closest thing you might have is Jesus' parables, except for those are all historically feasible. Those were all everyday kinds of events that people would relate to. So no, the Bible isn't full of fables. It does have a number of parables, but those are all historically feasible events. Now, here's the question. Does the Bible encourage embracing myths and fables?

So Paul writes to Timothy, which is what we had Brad read for us here. 1st Timothy 1.4 talks about nor pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. 2nd Timothy writes to Timothy again 4.4 and they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

Titus 1.14. So here you have Timothy who's an apostolic delegate to Ephesus. You have Titus who's an apostolic delegate to Crete.

And he writes to him in Titus 1.14, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

And here again is 1 Timothy 4.7, have nothing to do with worldly fables. Do you get the impression from reading this that the Apostle Paul is encouraging people to embrace myths and fables? You do not. These verses warn against it.

Now, one more point we'd like to make here, the quantity and quality of testimony, remember all those documents that we have, thousands of documents, well over 5,000, approaching 6,000 by now, New Testament documents, hand-copied New Testament documents, the quantity and quality of testimony for Christ's resurrection is beyond impressive. The testimony is from six different New Testament authors in over a half dozen of their books by more than 500 people over more than 60 years of time. Lots and lots of testimony about Christ's resurrection. Many sacrificed their lives testifying to the resurrection.

Even those who didn't believe in Christ before then came to believe when they saw him resurrected. Case in point, remember that ossuary box of James? Well, James was one who did not believe. John chapter 7, Jesus' brothers, none of them believed. None of them believed, but we have 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus, when he was resurrected, appeared to James. And James became a believer. Can you imagine growing up when your older brother is a perfect kid? And where's the manual for raising the Messiah? You can imagine that. So you can imagine the brothers were kind of like, really resisting this whole thing.

But when Jesus appears resurrected to James, that kind of turned his head, got his attention. The disciples also cannot be accused of wishful thinking. They did not expect the resurrection. You even have, as we have pictured here, Thomas, You even have Thomas with 10 of the other disciples saying, we've seen him resurrected. He says, uh-uh. For a week, for a week, he tells them, no, I'm not believing you guys, even if all 10 of you are saying this. I don't believe it.

The disciples didn't expect the resurrection, and some were even more resistant than others. Frank Morrison, it's actually a pseudonym, his real name is Albert Henry Ross, wrote the book, Who Moved the Stone? He was an agnostic skeptic who was planning on writing a book showing that the resurrection was bogus. As he examined the evidence, he was convinced otherwise and ended up writing this book, Who Moved the Stone? that he did not intend to write at first.

And that book is available in print. It's also available online in several different forms if you want to take a look at it. C.S. Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis, wrote Surprise by Joy in the mid-fifties as a response to him examining the evidence. He was a classics scholar. He examined the evidence for the resurrection He was an atheist prior to that time, and as he examined it, he said, no, this is fantastic evidence. This is great evidence for Christ's resurrection.

In more recent times, Gary Habermas, he's written several different books on the resurrection. This one he was a co-author. Gary Habermas was raised a Christian and then began to get disillusioned and disbelieved the resurrection. And he was intending to write actually against the resurrection, and he examined the evidence more closely, and he says, you know what? This is very good evidence for the resurrection of Christ. This is very good evidence, and so he's turned around in recent times and written a number of books on the resurrection, some cases like this as a co-author, and supporting it.

Again, he was turned around by the character of the evidence, even though he at first was not sympathetic to it. And so this has happened actually a number of times. I've got just a few examples. There have been others that I could bring up as well. The point being that the evidence is so good for the resurrection that even many who are skeptical and intending to try to disprove it end up being convinced.

What if we didn't have any of the New Testament documents? What if we just looked at all the other evidence that's out there written by non-Christians from the time of the first and second century? So Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, he's spoken recently in Colorado Springs.

He wrote this, he says, even if we did not have the New Testament or Christian writings, we would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, that one, Jesus was a Jewish teacher, two, many people believe that he performed healings and exorcisms, Three, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders. Four, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Five, despite this shameful death, his followers who believed that he was still alive spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by 64 AD. Six, all kinds of people from the cities and countryside, men and women, slave and free, worshipped him as God by the beginning of the second century. And that's all evidence from outside the Bible. So the things that are in the New Testament have been very well confirmed by the very best of evidence.

So, your children taken captive? Well, we'll see. This world system is increasingly attempting to take your children captive. This world does so by presenting a deception. The idea that you have real history versus Christian myths. That's what this world presents.

This fellow Bart Ehrman that I show a picture of here, he went to Moody Bible Institute and then to Wheaton to go to school and then he went to Princeton and came out a skeptic. He claims to be an agnostic and he's very prolific with his writings, lots of writings. The truth is that the historical documents behind our Bible stand up to honest investigation very, very well. And the Christian stands on good historical grounds to believe.

I had someone close to me, this was back in my college days, try to challenge my Christian faith and push me away from my Christian faith. And so it set me on a kind of a lifelong examination of what is the historical and scientific background that supports the Bible.

Is it there? Is it real? Can you stand on it? And the answer that I came to, and that I still come to, is yes, you can. The New Testament contains multiple exhortations not to trust in myths and fables, but to believe in what has been revealed in His Word. We can stand on what's written in God's Word. It's solid. It's historical. And it's real. And it talks about the Lord coming for us soon. I hope it's today. Maybe we won't even get to Silo Park. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the soundness of it, even miraculous amount of evidence that we have, the number of documents and how well preserved they are. We thank you for just giving us lots of points of contact with archaeology and with history. And we thank you that we can depend upon those, not just to know them historically, but to know you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.