Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries
"Not a Jot"
Feb. 7, 2018
(Jesus said) "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
~ Matthew 5:18 (ESV)
Gerald Winters is a Stephen King fan.
By that I mean when Winters read his first King book, way back in 1998, he became addicted. For the next two decades he collected everything which was related to or had sprung from the fertile, albeit somewhat twisted, mind of the famous horror story author.
Eventually, Winters' collection grew so big he decided to open up a rare books store in Bangor, Maine. Naturally, Stephen King was at the heart of everything Winters did. After a while, it became apparent that Winters needed to reorganize his book collection. There was nothing for him to do but clear the shelves and transport everything to his basement where he could bring organization out of chaos.
It was a great plan, and I'm sure Winters could have been able to pull it off without any kind of problem ... if it were not for the fact that a water main burst near his store, flooding the basement with six feet of water and, in the process, ruining 90 percent of his inventory. Included in the waterlogged pile are seven of King's original typed manuscripts, dozens of first- and limited-edition books, foreign language prints, signed tomes, and other hard-to-find collectibles. Even Stephen King reacted to the news by saying, "I'm horrified. As a book lover, my heart goes out to him."
Reading about the disaster in Winters' bookstore, I wondered if the same kind of thing could have happened to books of our Bible.
Suppose Moses was sitting in his tent out in the Sinai and his brother came in with a pitcher of iced tea. And supposed Aaron tripped and spilled all over Deuteronomy. Or suppose it was a cold night in Ephesus, and John wanted to start a fire in the fireplace. Without thinking, he used some dry paper-like stuff to get the fire going. Then, when he looked closely, he realized what he had done; there went Fourth John.
Well, folks, that didn't happen.
The first and most important reason it didn't happen is that the Holy Spirit inspired the words used in those books, and He was not going to let them disappear. After all, those words point to the Savior and the salvation His sacrifice has won.
The next reason it didn't happen is there has always been a tremendous thirst for the Word. That means copies of Scripture were constantly being made for the growing church. In practical terms, our Scriptures are the best attested documents of the ancient world.
What does that mean?
It means this: when it comes to writers like Aristotle, Plato, Caesar, Tacitus, and Herodotus we have an average of 20 ancient copies of those manuscripts. And the Bible? There are 5,000 individual Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament. These are 8,000 copies of the Vulgate, the fifth-century Latin version of the Bible, translated by Jerome. In short, the Lord preserved His Scripture so you would have them and be sure they had he truth.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I give thanks for Your Word which is the Savior's story of salvation. In Jesus' Name I give thanks. Amen.
Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
Gerald Winters is a Stephen King fan.
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