Our Life Hidden In Christ

He sent from above, He took me;

He drew me out of many waters.

He delivered me from my strong enemy you,

from those who hated me,

for they were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

but the LORD was my support.

He also brought me out into a broad place;

He  delivered  me because He

delighted in me.

Psalm 18: 16 -- 19

            From the depths of Babylonian religions and extending their false teachings by the inculcation of their religiosity and practice towards beliefs in many gods into the following empires which captured them and by assimilating their gods even by their renaming of them held influence over the people.  Even God's chosen people, the Israelites, God had to send to His people warnings of what would happen to them if they assimilated these false teachings and practices.  History will testify to the fact that the Hebrews did not always follow the teachings of God and inculcated foreign religions and began to practice what was and is detestable to God.  God is not the delighted that people would teach and practice that which was contradicted in his revelation of Himself and His law that would keep His people from false teachings and idols.  Some may cast their objections that God had not a people for Himself and there are many ways by which a person can come to know God.  This is the belief of many people in today's society.  The culture today is a pluralistic society that does not condemn a person for having a "truth" different from another.  A person's belief is there is and is a persons path to find God.  Many people today are not even searching for God and have for their objects those things that will give them happiness even in the face of calamity.  Even some Christians become stagnant in their service, and a worship of God thinking that He is either far removed from the circumstances of this world or simply believe that He does not hear their prayers causing them to become apathetic.  Yet, this almost tells us an important fact that God sent from above taking his child and delivering him from a strong enemy, an enemy that is found in our circumstances of calamity.  He delivers his children because he delights in them.  Therefore, God is the superior object of our faith, and worship.

            God is unchangeable and because He is unchangeable He is true superiority.  If a person was to contest this fact it is to object to the truth that is common to all sentient people for God cannot be contemplated to be anything else or if there is objection to this truth all that has been done is to disguise the truth by veiling it by placing other objects to be superior and only worthy of their respect and desire.  God being unchangeable then His wisdom is unchangeable and to see this in any other way is simply to shroud the truth; there is a shrinking back from what can be seen mentally.  This objection speaks of man's evil habits, to pursuit a less valuable object and to place their praise and worship upon an object other than the true object which is the unspeakable, unchangeable, and superior One: God.  It is simply this fact, there are those who desire such evil and do not wish to own the superior object: God.  How does a person compare the things of this temporal world which are changeable and place their praise upon such things that are changeable and will not praise and worship and unchangeable God?  How can a person come to know and see this unchangeable God?

            Man is fallen in his nature by the act of the first man Adam which has corrupted the souls of Adams progeny.  God has revealed himself because what may be known of God is a manifest in them because God has shown it to them as we find by inspiration this revelation given through Paul: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1: 18 -- 20).  To be able to enjoy the Truth which lives in unchangeably the soul must be purified so that it may have the power to believe the truth and when the truth is perceived they may rest in this truth.  It is by the purification of our souls that we can come near to God Who is in every place, and sentenced to its children the pure desires and virtuous habits.  When we speak wisdom we must come to understand that God is Wisdom and it is His Wisdom that became incarnate and by that incarnation He has set forth the pattern that leads His children to purification.  God has condescended to adapt Himself to our weaknesses, and to show us the pattern of a holy life that can be formed even in our humanity.  For us to come to God is to act wisely even though when Wisdom came to us proud man thought him to be foolish.  And when we come to Him we become strong even though there are those who think that Christians are foolish: "but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that in no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Corinthians 1: 24 -- 29).

            We now must examine the Wisdom of God sent by Him delivering His people who he has delight and saved by the incarnation of His Wisdom.  This will be the subject of the neck blog.

If then you were raised with Christ,

            seek those things which are above,

where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

            Set your mind on things above,

not on things on the earth.  Before you died,

and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you

            also will appear with Him in glory.

                                    Colossians 3: 1 -- 4

Die today from the world’s principles

Richard L. Crumb

Our Ineffable God! Worship Him!

Behold, God is great, and we

do not know Him;

nor can the number of His

years be discovered.

Job 36: 26

For now we see in a mirror,

dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part,

but then I shall know

just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love,

these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13: 12 -- 13

            Throughout all history man has tried to understand God.  As evidenced by the many archaeological findings relate that religion has played a foremost an important part of human life.  They design and need to know God which has made cause for many peoples to develop and devise gods that they hoped would help them to understand life and the circumstances of life.  Religious practices ranged from simple prayer and worship to the more horrendous practices of human sacrifice.  Today, we see these practices as atrocities, yet we have with them the Roman Catholic Religion many who will abuse their bodies by doing such things as crawling on cobblestone to reach an icon that is supposed to represent our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and this they do until they bleed thinking that they are doing pious worship.  Others in churches that call themselves Christian reaches out into the supernatural attempting to duplicate some of the things that our Savior did when he was here on earth; i.e., healing people physically, raising the dead, and practicing such things as having to pass through "tunnels of fire."  Many people do other things to be able to feel as though they have come to know God and this they do by practices which are not appointed for Christians to do in Scripture.  Much of today's practices come from those men, and women, who talked heresy, and in the least false teaching.

            God is ineffable, that is, in a certain sense that there is an inability to express God.  The fact is that God is unspeakable, but that does not mean that He is unknowable.  There can be no completeness in our knowing of His Greatness and to say more than what God has revealed in Scripture.  These attempts to explain God outside of Scripture must be avoided.  What can be known of God is that He has condescended to accept our worship of Him.  Therefore, when we speak of God as the unspeakable, we have spoken of Him and that He must exist.  When we say the word God our minds immediately perceive Him, of His  Excellence which is His nature, and His eternal existence.

            How are we to understand that term God?  There are those religions that have surmised more than one God, although they also place one God in a superior position.  This can be seen in Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism who conceive of many gods and that's the superior guide has a physical body, and with Jehovah Witnesses, who conceived of many gods, or that Jesus Christ is simply a created god, and that God stands apart by some physicallity allowing Him His separateness from all other things that is created which is simply an anthropomorphizing of God.  Those who believe in gods and worship them as gods, still conceive of a higher, more excellent, and exalted God above all gods.  Pantheism which holds to be ideology that all things are God, and if they try to get beyond the existing things; i.e., the heavens, which are pictured as infinite, a form that is conceived as the most beautiful, even those, viz, Mormons, who represent a higher being, God, in human form, they think this as being superior to all existence.  Therefore, this supposed and speculative ideology which has become a theology has made a physical God to be the object of their worship and yet this is not the God of scripture who is ineffable.  Those who claim that God is above all things, invisible, not in bodily form, all intelligent, all knowing, and in no way conjoined to anything that is changeable, strive to give exultation, excellence, to no one's superior God.  They all believe in this fact: God excels in dignity, and in excellence, above all other objects. This is the revelation of God that can be found in Scripture, and is what all Authentic Biblical Christians hold as the doctrine that is to be found in the Word of God.

            God is the object that is above all else in as much as He is unchangeable.  To think of God is to think of Him as a living being, what ever conception can be seen of God and to think differently, that He can be known outside of Himself as revealed by Him, is to think of absurdity, and to consider Him to be unworthy.  For God to be understood even in the least manner He must be considered as a living Being as He is creator, and controller, of all things and must stand in difference to the created and He must be unchangeable, all knowing, all powerful, and life itself.  If God does not live, then how does anything live?  If God is not superior of all things and not to be a thing, then how would anything come into being that exists, it is God who quickens life, animates life, for life is more than just being a nutritive life, a life without sensibility, yet even plant life has sensibility for when worn by the sun flowers will extend their petals to catch the rays of the sun, and when darkness comes they close their petals, and when winter arrives many of the plant life lose their leaves which fall to the ground, and in those same plants that lost their leaves produce new leaves in the Spring, the cycle continues.  Thus the cycle of life is an exercise of wisdom.  Wisdom can never be unwise.  God is eternity, it is not that God resides in eternity, He is infinite making him superior over all things.  The fact that all things are created by Him and that all things demonstrate that He is wise and is all wisdom.  Why then would a person who is sentient and has the ability to catch in the least a ray of His wisdom the desire any other object to place their faith?  To put anything, and object, above God is to go beyond the nature that they claim to be unchangeable, a nature that even when done meagerly, that is, to put their confidence partly in Him the superior object, and to put a part of their confidence in other objects, is a dichotomy of unreasonableness.

            You and I must come to know the ineffable God as he has revealed himself in Scripture and to make him, the most Excellent of all excellencies of the universe as the object that has the priority, and worship of our lives.  We will continue to examine this subject and then move on to the subject of signs which seems to be of most interest to many people who flock to churches that revel in what is supposed as to be supernatural signs.

In fact day the LORD of hosts will be

            for a crown of glory and a

diadem of beauty to the remnant

            of His people, for a spirit of justice

to those who turned back the battle at the gate.

                                                Isaiah 28: 5 -- 6

Place God as the priority of your life

Richard L. Crumb

Our Highest Object Of Our Worship And Faith

O foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you

that you should not obey the truth, before

whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed

among you as crucified?

This only I want to learn from you:

did you receive the spirit by works of the law,

or by the hearing of faith?

Are you so foolish?  Having begun in the Spirit,

are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

            As we study the history of the early church it is clearly demonstrated by the many false teachings, and heresies, that Paul must address this problem that some Christians were being bewitched.  The Gospel, which is simply that Jesus Christ came down from heaven, God himself, the very Wisdom of God clothed in human flesh, Who suffered, and died upon the cross, was resurrected from death after three days, and ascended bodily into heaven in this site of many witnesses, so that the debt of sin was paid in the result of his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven could now be applied to all of God's children.  The question that was asked years are you so like to once by faith believed upon this gospel to have now returned to the works of the flesh?  This is what was happening in the early church and is happening in many of those churches who claim to be Christian.  Yes, we walk by faith and not by sight but this faith is the faith in that which is real, that which is the highest object for our faith and our worship.  Therefore the question for each of us is simply this; watch or who holds the highest estimation in our lives and has our faith?  What holds the highest enjoyment in our lives?  For us to enjoy a thing is to rest solely upon and four the sake of the thing.  When we employee they use of a thing is to use what ever means or at our disposal enabling us to obtain that which we desire, that is, if it is a proper object of desire, for if not, then it is to be called abuse.  If while I was in a foreign land and became homesick desiring to go home I am a properly used an object of my enjoyment; i.e., a candy apple red Corvette. Ha!  While I was traveling to my desired destination, in my candy apple red Corvette, a destination which is my home, and I became in Hamburg by the surrounding lands due to their beauty and began to desire of them causing them to become my objects of enjoyment, I may become unwilling to continue towards my destination and be diverted from my home which is my true happiness, I am misusing a thing, a candy apple red Corvette in this case.  Is this not the condition in which this life which is immortal?  We desire to turn to and return to our Fathers home, yet we have wandered far from our desired destination.  We have allowed other objects to become the highest priority for our enjoyment.  This enables us to be diverted from our destination, our return to the Fathers home.  Yes, we must use this world, we are a part of this world, and what the world can offer is for us to be able to use and enjoy.  But we are not to enjoy this world in such a manner as to turn us aside from our destination, causing us not to see the invisible things of God who is to be understood by the things of this world that are made by God: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even he is eternal power and Godhead, so that they are with out excuse" (Romans 1: 20).  Our proper use of the things of this world, those things that are temporary material we are able to a whole upon that which is spiritual and eternal.

            A question that must be asked at this point in this discussion is; What Clark threw objects of our enjoyment?  Is it the Trinity?  It is the Trinity that is our crew object of enjoyment, the father That, the Son, and the Holy, who are all at the same time the Trinity, one Being, Supreme above all, all the same essence.  It is the Trinity that is the common object of our enjoyment.  This is true if He is an object and not simply the cause of all objects or even if he is the cause of all things.  How do we express the One of such excellence?  It is impossible unless we speak of Him this way, the Trinity, one God, of Whom all things are and exist, maintained, and controlled by his providence.  The Trinity is not three separate god's for Scripture speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as God at the same time, not as the Donatists say, then each is God and there is no separate Person's that make up the Trinity rather they believe and teach that God operates in separate modes.  Scripture is clear on this fact, that God in three Persons, the same substance.  The Father is not the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit Son.  The Son is not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit: the holy That Spirit is not the Father nor a Son.  The Father he is the Father, The Son, The Son; the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit.  Each poll belong to eternity and they all have the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, and the same power.  And they Godhead, The Trinity there is unity in the father That, the quality in the Sun, and in the Holy Spirit so that all our harmonious of unity and equality, and these three have all the same attributes and each have attributes that are displayed towards man, and are all one.  Before closing this particular discussion allowed me to use Tertullian’s argument in favor of the Trinity where he was the one who first used the term Trinity.  His argument is by way of illustration using the sun, the ray of the sun, and the power released by the sun.  All three of those separate parts of the sun are the sun, and all are of the same essence, therefore all already the sun; three in one.

            Let me ask this question in closing: who or what is your highest enjoyment?  I pray that God of the Scriptures is that object.

Those who forsake the law

            praise the wicked,

but such as keep the law

            contend with them.

                        Proverbs 28: 4

Praise God for He is Good

Richard L. Crumb

The Reward Of Truth: The Tree Of Life!

Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines.

For it is good that the heart be established by grace,

not with foods which have not profited those who have

been occupied with them.

Hebrews 13: 9

            The interpretation of Scripture has been adduced to have several different meanings which may or may not have been responsible for either correct understanding of Scripture's or to have led to corruption of Scripture.  A first rule is that interpretation of Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture.  In line with the first rule is that interpretation of Scripture depends on discovery and meanings.  This is to be undertaken through dependence on God's aid.  Keeping this treatment of interpretation in good order I must first treat the mode of certainty, then to make known the meaning which is an arduous task, and cannot be carried forth in my own strength.  I must apprehend the aid promised to all Christians; the Holy Spirit.  My hope in accomplishing this task, rest on Him through supplies that He has supplied me with and my many thoughts on this subject.  I am not speaking of some special revelation as is done in such churches that have a theology of charismata, Pentecostalism, or some form of supernatural revelation that a person receives outside of Scripture.  This supply from God is given when I or you begin to use what He has already given: The Holy Scriptures!  To share what you have from God is not to have His supply diminished through the sharing of it with others, for this is what Jesus commanded: "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but who ever does not have, even what he has will be taken a way from him" (Matthew 13: 12).  When we impart understanding through proper interpretation watch is shared is grown by God which leads a person to be able to rejoice in this marvelous wealth.

            To began this search and to be able to obtain correct and proper interpretation we must be stern between what a thing is, and why it is a sign.  Due to misuse of these two elements, things, and signs, many have fallen prey to private interpretation and have corrected true Authentic Biblical Faith.  Wrong interpretation leads to wrong discernment: "He answered and said to them,' when it is evening you say, ' It will be fair weather, for the sky is red;' and in the morning,' It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.'  Hypocrites!  You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern that signs of the times.  A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sighing shall be given to it except the sign of the Prophet Jonah" (Matthew 16: 2 -- 4).  When instruction is given it is either about things or signs.  What is a thing?  In the strict sense it is that a thing is never to signify a sign of anything; i.e., would, Stone, animals, and other things of that kind. Can those things be used as a sign?  Yes, and examples of this are; though would thrown into bitter waters making them sweet by Moses, or the stone used as a pillow by Jacob, or the RAM cock in the thicket when Abraham offered up his son as a sacrifice.  These are things, and they were also used as signs of other things.  There are signs of another kind, i.e., words or example.  Words are used as signs of something else and we understand them as signs indicating something else.  Now, every sign is also a thing.  How can this be except that for what is and if not something, then it is nothing at all.  However, everything is not a sign.  Keeping this in proper order it must be remembered that what is now being considered is about thing and what they are in themselves, not what other things they are signs of.

            Proceeding in this subject we must understand that by not using certain rules the door is ajar allowing for personal interpretation by means of our presuppositions, ideologies, philosophies, and theologies, which our contradicted in Scripture, this leads to improper exercise of faith and an incorrect worship of God.  History testifies to this fact, that false worship of God can be consigned to such religious groups as, Gnosticism in its various sects, Montanism which may be found in some form and certain churches, Manichaeism that led to asceticism, the practice of celibacy by religious leaders, and other forms of religion that are not Scriptural.

            Moving forward in our study and to reach an understanding of things we must first understand that some things are for use, and some for in enjoyment.  By not understanding the difference between the two is to become hindered in our attainment of true happiness.  There are those things which are objects of enjoyment that make us happy.  As for me, an object or thing that I could in joy, and be made happy, is a new candy apple red Corvette: you may desire another thing.  There are things which are objects of assistance, and support us in some way in our efforts to attain happiness.  In my example of a Corvette, a thing which would make me happy, and give me enjoyment, may be misused.  If the Corvette is a thing being used so that I am seeing, or think I am, a person to be held in high regard, then I am using the things (candy apple red Corvette) for a purpose other than a thing in itself to be used for enjoyment, to be used for watch it is intended and not to be used for what it is not intended: this is misuse!  Misuse will turn us back from our person can of the real and proper use of objects of enjoyment.

            These next few blogs are designed to establish the rules and our understanding as to how misuse of the rules of interpretation, and the understanding of things, and signs, have been anathema to the Christian religion.  Follow me closely as we take this time to gain proper certain rules by which we could hold fast we will find a way to avoid falling into any euros of absurdities.

Blessed are those who do His commandments,

            that they may have the right to the tree of life,

and may enter through the gates into the city.

                                                Revelation 22: 14

May God bless your study of  Him

Richard L. Crumb

God Gives Instruction: Man Is To Hear And To Put Into Action Those Instructions

Deliver me, O my God, out of

the hand of the wicked,

out of hand of the unrighteous

and cruel man.

For You all are my hope, O Lord God;

for You are my trust from my youth.

By You I have been upheld from birth;

You are He who took me out

of my mother's womb.

My praise shall be continually of You.

Psalm 71: 4 -- 6

            Before I Continue in my elaboration as to how the knowledge of history will aid us in our growth in faith towards God, I think that it would be profitable to establish certain rules for interpretation.  By means of these rules we will be able to profit by reading the scriptures and by those works of others who have studied the sacred writings.  These are certain rules will afford us the ability to meet the connections of those who take exception to this work or the work of others.  Those who would continue in their objection will not be able to prevail so as to have some influence upon others that would turn them from their study of Scripture.  To object before a study is to be a dull ignorance and their objections and no foundation.  This is why for the serious student who desires to know God must die so as to ward off ignorance.  By such ignorance some have been led astray to false teachings leading to a demonstration of their faith which is contrary to the doctrines in Scripture.        

Understanding of the rules is foremost if a person is not to object properly due to their misunderstanding of the rules attempting to apply Scripture or to interpret Scripture, many fail to establish with clarity a point of doctrine they wish to be clearly understood.  When we do not receive assistance by using thorough investigation then interpretation is open to all opinions, and opinion which may be offered is often without substance and can be of little or no use.  Some people imagine that they know the Scriptures, and that they have certain hours to be able to interpret and understand Scripture, yet they have not the direction which is attained by using certain established rules.  Some may object that rules are not necessary, that all is done simply by the grace of God.  Do we not have rules set forth by the state as to our driving a vehicle on the road?  Should a driver of a vehicle know the rules?  Will not those rules of the road be extended to him by the state, and not by some ethereal importation?  So why should the God of the universe who sets forth the standards for our lives not command that we follow his rules?  Yes, some Scripture is obscure, at least in the beginning, but with study, and the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit through His Word, the light begins to shine brighter and brighter in our darkness? we must pray to God for him to grant to us the insight we need to understand Him, and His revelation of truth for our lives.  I may be able to point to an object, but I do not have the power to open men's eyes of understanding so that they may see the fact(s) to that which I am pointing, or to the object at which I point.  It does not take some tenuous investigation to see that there are those who talk boastfully about Divine Grace, and with unshamefullness they speak of their understanding, and the fact that they can explain Scripture without the aid of such direction as rules, and the power of the Holy Spirit working in their minds and hearts of illuminating them by the pure and plain scriptures.  May those persons be reminded that they can justly rejoice in God's great gift of the Holy Spirit.  I must insist to those Christian who professed to understand the Scriptures without any direction from man (if this be the fact, then they boast of having a real advantage, and such advantage as not to be the ordinary kind), yet they must admit that every one of us have learned our language by hearing it constantly from childhood, and if we learn any other language foreign to us it is by the same method, by hearing it spoken to us from a human teacher.  Does not the Bible and instruct us to teach our children: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22: 6).  The profit Jeremiah stated under inspiration: "Be instructed, O Jerusalem, lest My soul depart from you; lest I make you desolate, a land not to be inhabited" (Jeremiah 6: 8).

Let us beware of such a dangerous temptation leading to a pride: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16: 18).  Even the apostle Paul was admonished by the voice of God on his way to Damascus, and a man was sent to him so that he may receive the sacraments and be admitted into the church.  Peter had to go to Cornelius and instruct him as to the proper objects of faith, hope, and love.  Could God have done this simply by sending His angels?  Yes!  But this He for God uses man as his hands, his feet, and his voice.  This He did not do, therefore, let us put away false pride and learned what ever we can from man and let us by our learning become aware of those who are not teaching the truth.  Let us not be arrogant and have jealousy causing us to remain where the truth is not manifested.  If we remain where we should not we are all really tempting God by our own perversity and allowing the enemy to influence and control our lives.  It was not the eunuch reading the prophet Isaiah?  Did not the apostle Philip explain the Scriptures to him?  Did not God open the mind of the eunuch so that he understood the will of God even to the point of being baptized as a symbol of his conversion?  God uses the age of man gives Christian be undertaking of interpreting the Scriptures to others.  It therefore behooves us to study to know the truth, to examine what ever man has to say in light of the Scriptures bear by allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us the truth.  By holding fast to certain rules, and following up certain indication, we will arrive at a hidden sense without any error, or at least without falling into any gross absurdity.  This is the road I am traveling and while we transverse through history and investigating what is written we will not be unduly influenced or led or error.

The heart of the righteous

            studies how to answer,

but the mouth of the wicked

            pours forth evil.

                        Proverbs 15: 28                     

Commit all you do to God

Richard L. Crumb

Jesus Christ Our Salvation

And He said to them, “Why are you troubled?

And why do doubts arise in your hearts?

Behold My hands and My feet, that it is

I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does

not have flesh and bones as you see I have”….

Then He said to them, “Thus it is written,

and thus it was necessary for the Christ

to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,

and that repentance and remission of sins should

be preached in His name to all nations, beginning

at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you,

but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are

endued with power from on high.”

Luke 24:38–39,46–49

            It is the love of God that is so great that He in His mercy and grace saves those whom He has enabled and drawn to Himself. We know that as sinners we need salvation, and many have succumbed to a teaching that is contradictory to Scripture, that is, they can save themselves. Somehow they can muster up enough faith to believe in Jesus Christ. How? If man is not totally depraved, a sinner that needs salvation by Him who is the creator and only One who can truly save a person, then all that person would need is information. But information does not save a person. Many people have information about God, His Son, but do not come to believe. How does a person know that God is drawing them, enabling them? Do you have a desire above all else to know Him, to serve Him, to live for Him? Are you becoming formed in the image of His Son: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). There are those who scoff at the Christian religion, and in some ways they have every right to do so for there has been many atrocities done in the name of Jesus Christ and many false teaching are occurring and have occurred in the name of Jesus Christ. Do we fall upon such error done in the name of Jesus Christ so that the Christian religion is anathema? Is the Christian religion based on supposition and not facts? Read this:

· Number of manuscripts.

In all of the ancient Greek and Latin literature, the Iliad by Homer ranks next to the New Testament in the greatest number of manuscripts in existence.

There are in existence over 5,000 complete or partial Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (the original language in which it was written). In total, there are over 24,000 extant manuscripts of the complete NT or portions of it, if copies in different languages are included. Notice in the following table some of the distinctives of the NT when compared to one of the most reliable writings in ancient literature, the Iliad.

Work	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	No. of Copies	Accuracy of Copy
Homer (Iliad)	900 BC	400 BC	500 yrs.	643	95%
NT	40-100 AD	125 AD	25 yrs.	5,000	99+%

Bruce Metzger, textual scholar, has compared the accuracy of the NT to that of other works of antiquity using various textual tests. He has determined that of the 15,600 lines in the Iliad, 764 of them are in question while of the 20,000 lines of the NT, 40 are in doubt (about 400 works). These are the accuracy figures in the table. Furthermore, none of the questionable words profoundly affects the message of the NT text.

·        Interval of time between original and extant copy.

Was the time between when the events occurred and their writings of them so long that it resulted in alterations in oral tradition i.e. folklore?

To test this we need to compare the time interval between the earliest copies of the writing in existence and when they were actually written. How does the NT compare with other literature? We will look at one of a few main examples.

Author	Works	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	No. of Copies
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 BC	900 AD	1000 yrs.	10
Livy	Roman History	59 BC - 17 AD	-		20
Plato	Teratalogies	427-347 BC	900 AD	1200 yrs.	7
Tacitus	Annals	100 AD	1100 AD	1000 yrs.	20
Pliny the Younger	History	61-113 AD	850 AD	750 yrs.	7
Thucydides	History	460 - 400 BC	900 AD	1300 yrs.	8
Aristotle		384-322 BC	1100 AD	1400 yrs.	49

            Now! Ask yourself the question: What am I basing my facts upon? Can I offer any proof that the record does not show that Jesus Christ lived? Did not Jesus Christ upon His entrance into the world, His death, and his resurrection and ascension change the world? Are there those men and women who have converted to Jesus Christ and have their faith in Him and in His promises just foolish? Or, should Christians just be apathetic and silent and not preach the Gospel? Does not the Gospel change a person for the better and the more they know about the history of the Christian religion their faith grows even more. Facts alone will not save a person, it is God, and then this is by the Holy Spirit operating in the lives of the children of God. How does one come to believe? It is by faith and that is the gift of God: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that HE is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

            This is the mission of this blog, to aid us to seek Him diligently.

For everyone practicing evil

            Hates the light and does

Not come to the light, lest his

            Deeds should be exposed.

But he who does the truth comes

            To the light, that his deeds

May be clearly seen, that they have

            Been done in God.

                                    John 2:20–21

Be Assured; God Loves You

Richard L. Crumb