Trusting the Bible: Part 2 - Matt Romett - 4/26/26

Thank you for taking the time to listen to the well church saturday's podcast,

we pray that you enjoy this message and that it creates a well of hope in your life today.

I'm so glad you guys are here I'm glad

that you came out And open your Bibles to Luke chapter 1 We're going to get

Luke 1 · chapter mention

there Eventually it's going to take a little while A couple of weeks ago We

started a message series Called trusting the Bible And you guys may have noticed

I said message series Because I meant to do it all one Sunday Then I thought

all. Maybe it's a two-parter.

Now I think I'm going to be talking about this for a while. It's going to be a message series.

We have six core values as a church family. One of them says we value the Word

of God. The Word is a lamp and a light.

It lights our path and shows us which way we should be headed.

It also is a lamp unto our feet and shows us what's going on around us.

The Word of God is not just true, it is truth.

While we value prophecy and culture, they must line up with what the Bible says.

You guys remember, anything that culture tells us, we hold it up to the truth

of scripture and we find out the truth about it.

And the reason we're doing this is I feel like right now, there's an invitation

for God's people in this season to immerse themselves in the word of God.

Not just read a little bit, but immerse themselves in the scriptures.

And see what we already know, remind ourselves of that, and also see things we haven't seen before.

And I'm seeing this in my own life.

I've found some new ways to connect with Scripture, and it's been really good.

I'll share those as we go.

Now, there may be someone here thinking, I already know I should read my Bible more,

and I already know that the Bible is true, So this might kind of be a waste

of time But I realize that most of us believe the Bible is true Because we've

done what it says and we've seen results.

There's people that have tithed forever And they

will tell you that even though they live on 10% less than their co-workers They

seem to have so much more by way of the goodness of God And people that forgive

others like the Bible says we should forgive Like we've been forgiven Will tell

you when they forgive they're set free And we use this and we say,

this is why the Bible is true.

And most of us have believed that Jesus lived and died and rose again so we

might be saved. We believed and received that and it's working in our lives.

So we believe the Bible is true and something that we can trust.

Now, our testimony about the word, about how the word has changed our life is

so powerful. I'm not discounting that.

But when we're talking to not yet believers and we're limited to our experiences,

as the greatest reason the word of God is trustworthy, that doesn't always translate.

It's almost the equivalent of saying it's authentic because I said so.

So this message series is meant to give you more facts to share about why they can trust the Bible.

And if they read it and do what it says, it will change their life.

And this is really something we should be doing.

Instead of arguing with skeptics and people that have already decided the Bible

isn't authentic, but a work of fiction.

Instead of arguing with them, we should invite them to read the Gospels for themselves.

So in part one of this series, we came to the conclusion that the reason most

people don't believe the Bible is true is because they want to do something

in their life that the Bible tells them not to do.

And we even see this with Christians where they're picking and choosing certain

portions of the Bible and saying it doesn't mean when it says there,

it means something different than this or that.

And what they're ultimately doing is trying to adjust what the Bible says so

they can do something in their lives the Bible tells them not to do.

And as much as I think we should confront sin, we should invite people to read

the Bible and see for themselves how

its study is beneficial and how its application can change their lives.

A lot of people that don't know Jesus, you may have noticed this too, they don't have peace.

And you may have noticed some people that know Jesus don't have peace.

Do you know what the Bible says about itself? In Psalm 199,

165 It says Great peace have those that love your law And nothing can make them

stumble Great peace have those that love your law And nothing can make them

stumble Other versions say Nothing shall offend them And the question is Do we have great peace?

Maybe yes, maybe no Do we want great peace? Well, the Bible says Study the Bible

and do what it says Be in love with the scripture and does it feel like sometimes

we're stumbling around in our lives or does it feel like we're offended?

Are we offended and angry with people? Are we stumbling around?

We should read and study the Bible and fall in love with it and the Bible says

we won't struggle with those things.

Here's an excerpt from a book about the Word of God, The Pleasure and Profit

in Bible Study by D.L. Moody.

Now, we used to work with a group of younger people and I used to have this

saying that I got away from, it's called Make a Dead Friend.

And I got away from it because the young people thought I was like channeling up dead people.

Now, D.L. Moody is my dead friend in this season. All of his books are available online for free.

And I'm reading his books and I'm learning from the life of a man who lived 100 years ago.

This book is called Pleasure and Profit in Bible Study by D.L.

Moody. I have a PDF if anyone would like. I can email it to you.

So this is what he says in his book about the word of God. He says,

Bear in mind, there is no situation in life for which you cannot find some word

of consolation in scripture.

If you're in affliction, if you're in adversity and trial, there is a promise for you.

In joy or sorrow, in health or in sickness, in poverty or in riches,

in every condition of life, God has promises for you stored up in his word.

In one way or another, every case is met, and that truth is commended in every

man's conscience. If you're in impatient, sit down and commune with Job.

If you're strong-headed, read about Moses and Peter. If you're weak-kneed, look at Elijah.

If there's no song in your heart, listen to David.

If you're a politician, read Daniel.

If you're getting sorted, I looked this up in the dictionary.

Wretched, dirty, filthy. If you're feeling sorted, read Isaiah.

If you're chilly, read the beloved disciple.

If your faith is low, read Paul. If you're getting lazy, read James.

If you're losing sight of the future, read Revelation about the promised land.

In the Bible is the answer for everything we need.

So before we head over to Luke chapter 1, let's review some questions we tackled

Luke 1 · chapter mention

in the first part of the series. If you missed it, it's on the church website,

dwellwiththewel.com or anywhere you get your podcasts now, even on YouTube.

And it's one of the recent messages called Trusting the Bible.

Just because I was there looking, in the last 30 days, there's been 374 downloads

of the messages shared in this room, and 19 of them were in Vietnam.

So anyway, God's using what he's doing here all over the world.

Anyway, we have powerful testimonies of what Jesus has done in our lives.

Lots of it is a result of reading the Bible, believing what it says,

and doing our best to adjust our behavior to live like it commands us to.

But when we're sharing with certain people, these questions around trusting

the Bible might come up. And it's okay if you guys wonder about them also.

So the first question we tackled in the first part of the series is,

can we trust the manuscripts?

So some of you guys weren't here. This is the first idea we delved into last

time. The Bible was written so long ago.

How can I know it's been accurately preserved for us?

And this launched us, or rather me, into a very nerdy discussion about ancient manuscripts.

You may or may not remember that tacticus is a great name for a cat.

Now, because I am so nerdy out on this, we're just going to do it again real

quick. Bear with me. So I have my four ancient manuscripts.

We'll start with Tacticus. This is the Annals of the Roman Empire by Tacticus.

This is a modern translation of an ancient manuscript.

Tacitus, guys, but we like calling them Tacticus because it's a good cat name.

The Annals of the Roman Empire. These were written 100 years after the birth

of Jesus. This is a modern translation of those documents.

The earliest copies of the manuscripts we have, the ancient documents,

copies of the original, were 800 AD.

So there's a 700 year difference between when this was written and when archaeologists

have found fragments or copies of it and the number of manuscripts.

Now remember, everybody accepts this as an authentic ancient manuscript.

Do you guys remember the number of manuscripts? It's okay.

Two. Two. Tacticus, two.

Ticetus, two. Okay, so there's two. I also have it written on the back of the book so I can remember.

All right, so the next one we'll look at, these are the Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar.

Everybody accepts this as a historical accurate account, modern translation

of ancient manuscripts.

Now, I have kind of a nitpicky thing here because Julius Caesar,

if you read this, he looks really amazing.

He doesn't share any mistakes, any struggles.

This war that he thought was amazing. So I feel like it may not be a completely accurate account.

Contrast that with what we have in the gospels.

We have the disciples writing the stupid things they did and how Jesus called

them Satan and how they misunderstood about the sword and they cut the guy's

ear off, and how they denounce Jesus,

and how one of them runs faster than the other one, and one of them Jesus likes the best.

They put all this stuff in there, and that wasn't to trick us.

That was because it's a real account of what happened.

So the Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar, these were written 50 years before the birth of Jesus.

The earliest copies we have, ancient copies we have that we found, were 900 AD.

So 950 years difference between the original on the copies we found.

Everyone thinks this is authentic and accurate. All the experts and the number

of copies found, fragments and full copies, 10.

It's exciting to me.

All right. Great dialogues of Plato. I have to get rid of this because one of

my kids thinks it's cool to read it.

The great dialogues of Plato, you know, philosophers sit around and think and attain enlightenment.

The dialogues of Plato were written 350 years before Jesus.

The earliest manuscripts 900 years after Jesus was born.

So we're going to say 1,300, 1,450 years, right? The,

The number of copies, seven. All right.

The history of Herodotus by Herodotus, another self-work. Sure, it's 100% accurate.

Written 430 years before Jesus. This is one of the oldest ones we have.

The earliest manuscripts, 900 AD.

So more than 1,300 years is what the experts say. And the number of copies, nine.

So New Testament, this is our keyboard Bible. It's extra large print.

So you can play the keyboard and read the scripture at the same time,

particularly just the gospels are these numbers.

They were written 45 to 95 AD.

Remember, so the reality is that the zero in the calendar is four years off.

So at plus four is when Jesus was born. Jesus died at 33.

So that's 80, 37 is when Christ was crucified.

The gospels were written. there's four different ones.

You guys knew that, but they were written four different times between 45 and 95 AD.

So Jesus died in 37 AD, and the first gospel account is 45 AD.

So there's not much of a gap there. The earliest copies we have are AD 125.

So we've gotten back to where we found almost the originals.

The number of copies, fragments, and

full copies of New testament books because they were widely

distributed 6 000 in greek and 20

000 translated into other languages so 26

000 to see this too all right good you guys are done with my nerdy thing i can

tell all right so today i want to specifically drill down on the gospel of luke

that's why you're in luke chapter one so who wrote luke luke was luke a disciple book.

No, Luke was not a disciple. So who? So, right, right. He was a follower of

Jesus. Thank you for that clarity.

He wasn't one of the 12 disciples, original disciples of Jesus.

He was the Greek physician that was a companion of Paul.

Luke was Greek and the original language of this gospel, the language it was

written in was Greek. Greek.

Scholars date the gospel somewhere between 80 and 95 AD.

So less than 50, 60 years after the events in the book happened,

Luke wrote about the events that happened in the Gospel of Luke And the reasons

they believe Luke, they believe that Luke was written about that time Is the

book of Acts and Luke are considered to be a single work.

And Acts has knowledge of world events through the 70s AD, the original 70s, not the last 70s.

I was alive in the last 70s. I don't remember it, not because of drugs,

but because I was really young.

All right. So the largest surviving manuscript of Luke is known as Papyrus 75 or P75.

We believe that that manuscript, that copy of the original of Luke was made

at between 175 and 225 AD.

And this copy, P75, is the oldest copy and it's almost fully intact.

It starts at Luke verse 318 and goes through 2453.

So the first beginning of this has been lost to probably the elements of nature.

So it's relatively almost a full text.

It's a high quality text, they said. The print's really clear.

If you want to Google Papyrus 75, you can read scans of it. I mean,

if you can read Greek, you can see scans of it.

So Luke is believed to be the author in 80 AD, the earliest copy, 175 AD.

So our gap is somewhere between 95 and 145 years.

Remember Tacitus, Tacitus' gap is 800 years.

And the numbers are smaller for Matthew and Mark But we're focusing on Luke today For Luke,

there were originals and copies that existed during that gap So if P75 was an inaccurate copy,

it would have been identified The copies that are lost to us existed when it

was copied And so that said,

I just want to take a minute and talk about oral tradition because the stories

that allow Jesus for a very short moment,

not a long moment, a short moment of 15 to 20 years, existed as an oral tradition.

So in your head, do an exercise with me.

Recite Jack and Jill.

Guys are doing it, right? All right. Everyone's done it? Everybody thinks they've done it correctly?

Okay. So it goes, Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Who was 100% perfect?

Who had one word wrong that didn't matter? Who didn't know it?

All right. So we all know Jack and Jill, right?

Okay. If I had printed out Jack and Jill and handed it out so we could read

it together, some of you would have refused it, the paper, and some of you would

have wondered why I wasted the toner, which is the expensive part of printing.

Think back. You might not know the answer to this question, but how did you learn Jack and Jill?

Okay. Somebody. Okay. So here's what I want to say.

The chance that someone told it to you is far greater than the chance that you read it in a book.

And you may have even told it to other people. And everybody on earth,

well, that's an assumption, a lot of people know Jack and Joe.

It's old and no one knows how old because it wasn't written down till 1765.

It was published in 1765 in

mother goose's melody its origins are uncertain

uncertain it's very likely that we

didn't read it from the book written in 1765 it's more likely that someone taught

us and someone taught them and someone taught them maybe we have seen it in

print but i will tell you if i bought a book and that was printed in it i would

think it was a waste of a page.

The book of Luke is not like that, though. Luke wrote the letter,

and it was copied by hand by professional scribes.

The copies were checked for errors, and they were distributed.

And the earliest copy we've managed to find is somewhere between 95 and 115

years after the original letter was written.

Remember, Tessitis, 800 years, two copies.

Luke was written around 30 years after Jesus died and rose again.

Again, these stories were known, oral traditions, between the time it happened

and the time Luke wrote them down.

Excuse me. Luke may not have been there when the events of the gospel took place,

but he had access to the people that were there.

And it's likely that if what he wrote down wasn't true, someone would have said so.

There's at least 8,000 surviving ancient manuscripts of the gospel of Luke,

2,000 in Greek and 6,000 more in early translations.

So that leads us to number two. The second argument people will use to justify

living like the Bible tells them that we want to be able to challenge today,

and we covered this in part one,

is how can we know it was translated accurately for us?

And we really drilled down on Bible translation in part one of the series,

and this is where we landed.

I know someone told you that the translation you read is the best,

and I'm glad you love your translation.

We all should be reading a translation that is accurate and that we understand.

And we should never use a Bible translation that we or another believer use

to feel superior to them or to write off what God is saying to them through the translation.

The goal of every Bible translation is accuracy and readability.

We did this with a bunch of verses last time. I'm going to do it with one.

Luke 1.1, you're already there.

This is a direct from the Greek word for word translation.

I did this. for as much as many they embraced to carefully organize a thorough

account of those things having been carried to fullness into to us of doing.

That's accurate. That's word for word what the Greek says.

It's not readable. I mean, you can make out what it means.

Word for word from the Greek, super accurate, not readable.

We can figure out the meaning, but reading the Bible this way would be a challenge.

So we have translations, kings and Bible societies and publishers and denominations

that even individuals have provided us with over 450 English translations.

In the early days of our nations, our universities were actually seminaries,

Harvard and Yale and alike, were established to train people in one subject,

and that subject was the Bible.

And a condition of graduating was submitting your own Bible translation.

Ministers were not told what version to study. They were taught the original

language and its meaning.

With so many translations available to us, the hard work has been done for us,

but there's still some hard work to do.

And there may be somebody here that would prefer to be told what version to read.

Well, in order to do that, I would have to give you all a vocabulary test.

Because the version you're reading would be determined by your understanding

of the English language.

We would then be able to figure out what we would understand if we read it.

Many people just Google about a translation if they want to know it's accurate.

You can do this about your translation. In almost every case,

you'll end up on an article called the top 10 worst Bible translations.

There's a lot of those articles out there.

And you can read about why the translation is bad based on some denominational

opinion or absurd doctrine or tradition. I was researching that translation.

They were caught up on three words, three words that I didn't feel were important

at all when I read the Bible.

So the red flags stick out if you look for them. There's obvious crazy stuff.

Our goal should be find a Bible we understand that accurately explains the story

of what happened and is said in a way that we understand it. We have great tools.

There's 30 English translations. You can read all at one time on Bible Gateway.

Bible Hub, or Blue Letter Bible.

Blue Letter Bible lets you click and see the Greek and a definition of the Greek word.

And we did this last time. Look at John 1.1. It says, in the King James Version,

in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And if you go on Bible Gateway and you click view in all English translations,

29 translations all say that exactly the same way.

Now, one of them has two commas and one of them capitalizes the W on the word

word, but 29 of them have translated that exactly the same way.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

Now I had to look hard to find one that translated it a little differently.

So the New Living Translation says, in the beginning was the word already existed.

It means the same thing as in the beginning was the word.

In the beginning, the word already existed. It means the same thing.

And then it says the word was with God, the same, and the word was God.

So the meaning hasn't changed. Now, here's another one. This is one,

I'll talk about this in a little bit, called the easy to understand version.

It says in the beginning, the word was already there.

Does that mean the same as in the beginning was the word?

In the beginning, the word was already there. the word was with God and the word was God.

So I delved a little deeper. I wanted to find one that maybe wasn't the same. So I found this one.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a God.

Right. So that's the translation that Jehovah's Witnesses use.

And they do that to support their doctrine. So I'm telling you the red flags stick out.

You guys know what the Bible says most of the time in most of the places.

What we need to do is find of translation we understand. So let's go ahead and

do one more verse just as a form of review that shows more slight translation differences.

We did this in part one. So here's a direct word for word from the Greek of Mark 10 50.

All right. So this is it. Ready? The conjunction. There's a

there you don't read casting off the garment of hen rising he came towards the

jesus the conjunction casting off the garment of hen rising he came toward the

jesus i see a lot of you guys looking in your own bibles those of you that aren't

looking what's the verse say.

There's a guy, he cast off a garment, he came to Jesus, right?

All right, so King James translates that.

And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.

The NIV says, very different, throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

English Standard says, and throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

Christian Standard Bible translates this. He threw off his coat,

jumped up and came to Jesus. this.

The Amplified says, throwing his cloak aside, he jumped up and came to Jesus.

Now, is it important theologically if the man threw off his cloak,

outer garment, hoodie, sweatshirt, mittens? It's not important at all theologically.

Does it matter if he sprang, jumped, rose, or stood up? What matters is Jesus

called the man and he got up and he went to Jesus.

We have extremely accurate and easily readable versions of the Bible,

but are we reading them that way?

Are we distrusting of them and deciding what we think they should say or shouldn't say?

Or do we select a version that confuses us and we don't actually understand

because someone told us it was the one we needed to read?

There isn't one better or best or most accurate. There are the ones that help

us accurately understand what Jesus said, and the best version for us to read

is more determined by our ability to understand English than anything else.

So if you're choosing a translation, look at Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God

created the heavens of the earth.

Look at John 1.1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

Look at John 3.16. Does it basically

say the same thing as all the other translations in a way you understand?

Has it been published by people that don't believe in marriages between one man or one woman?

Would have another reason to change what it says to line up with their beliefs?

Is it commonly accepted as accurate?

So I have a 16-year-old who is constantly asking me what words mean.

This was disruptive to family devotions.

And a lot of times we'll be watching TV, he'll hear a word, he'll say, what does it mean?

So I bought him a dictionary and I say, look it up in the dictionary because

I don't know what it means.

And then I have him tell me. And then when I read scripture to my other son,

you know, the one we're believing God will move and heal his mind I read him

easy to understand english versions His receptive language is really high.

His understanding of king james english is not And a lot of times A lot of times

when i'm reading those easy to understand versions i'm like,

oi that's what that means Because I didn't understand it in the version I was reading.

We're working within the parameters of his disability Of believing God is moving

to heal him Even through the word of God And it's not limited to what translation

I bring up on my phone to read scripture to him,

So if you're doing family devotions with children We should read a translation

they can understand And then as their vocabulary grows We can change to another version,

Asking a child to understand King James Might as well read it to them in Greek,

If there's a portion of scripture you want to understand better,

before you look for a sermon about it, which is an awesome way to understand

scripture, look at other versions.

Use the YouVersion app. I know a lot of you guys have that, Bible Gateway or

Hub, to read it in other versions.

So what we've talked about today, we can trust the manuscripts.

They've been accurately preserved for us. We can trust the translations.

Because we have so many English translations, the ones that are mistranslated

are actually easily identified.

The last question we want to tackle today is can we trust the authors?

This is going to run into part three of the series. We're not going to put it

to rest. Can we trust the authors? Did they make up these accounts?

In 1938, there was a radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds by Orson Welles

and the Mercury Theater.

It was a radio broadcast.

Many of us have heard it about an alien invasion disguised as radio news broadcasts.

You may have heard that people died over this. That's actually not true.

There's no evidence to suggest anyone died over this broadcast,

but it did create so much panic that Orson Welles had to go down to Congress

and have congressional hearings over this broadcast.

During the 60-minute broadcast, the story was paused three times,

and it was identified as a work of fiction.

Three times clear, explicit statements at identifying it as a drama or a fictional play.

And my point is this, when people create a work of fiction, they normally identify it as such.

In Luke chapter one, Luke does the opposite.

You guys are there. This is New King James. And as much as many have taken in

hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us,

just as those from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered to them,

it seemed good to me also,

having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,

to write an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know with

certainty of the things in which you were instructed.

So I'm also going to read that in another version, just to make sure all of us caught it.

Remember, we're looking for if the author is letting us know he's presenting

us with a work of something fiction or factual.

This is the easy English Bible. Notice the clarity here.

The heading over the passage says, Luke writes the facts of Jesus.

Many people have written about the things that have happened in our country.

Verse two, some people were present when these things started to happen.

They saw everything that happened and they told us about it.

There are people who wrote down the good news for us.

Verse three, I have checked the facts about what really happened.

So now I know about all the things that happened from the beginning.

I am writing to make the facts clear to you, my important friend, Theophilus.

Verse four, people have already taught you about these things.

Now you can be sure they are true.

It doesn't start once upon a time. It doesn't start a long time ago in a galaxy far away.

It doesn't say, here are some stories I heard about Jesus.

Luke says, I've investigated the facts, interviewed the eyewitnesses and compiled

those facts about what really happened for you.

People have taught you these things. Remember oral tradition.

People have taught you these things.

Now you can be sure they're true. This is 30 or so years after Jesus died and rose again.

This was widely distributed among early Christians.

People that heard Jesus teach were still alive. They would for sure have said,

this isn't what happened.

This book is not accurate, if it were not true.

When I was seven, probably in the second grade,

We all gathered in an auditorium To watch a space shuttle launch And I remember

this It's like 800 kids A big metal cart and a TV That wasn't real big but was really deep,

Right Strapped to the top of this cart Some of you guys are tracking with me.

You guys may have been in elementary school when this happened.

The plan was to have a teacher go on the space shuttle and teach us lessons

about science from space.

That was top cutting edge tech that we could even see a video from space on

a TV strapped to the top of a car from 75 feet away.

Anyway, that was the situation. You guys know the space shuttle blew up.

And I remembered the pandemonium in that room.

I remember my mom had to walk to the school and get me for an early dismissal.

I remember that Saturday when I saw my grandfather, who I called pop, he was sad about it.

And I remember this happened as a seven-year-old.

And this is my earliest memory that's historical.

You know, I have lots of memories of playing baseball and family stuff,

but this is a historical event.

Now I'm going to be 47 this coming week, 47. So 40 years ago, this happened.

Could you convince me something different happened? If a guy named Luke wrote

a book saying it didn't happen, would I be like, Luke must be right?

Right. So here we're 30 years after Jesus. Remember, Jesus is healing people,

arguing with the Pharisees.

When they crucified him, the sky turned black.

The three earliest gospels, we definitely have people alive,

would have said, hey, you made that up.

Instead of they said, oh, yeah, that's what happened.

So think about a 7 year old That heard Jesus teach or saw a miracle Or overheard

two adults chatting about him Being arrested and crucified I'm sure they tried

to keep it from the kids As we would too Maybe even saw the resurrected Jesus,

Jesus appeared to anywhere Between 300 and 500 people.

John 20, verse 30 and 31. This is what John says about his gospel.

John 20:30

John 20, verses 30 and 31. This is the NIV. I'm going to read it in easy English

John 20:30

too. The New International Version.

It says, the heading there says, the purpose of John's gospel.

And John himself, this is not once upon a time in a magical faraway land,

or wouldn't it have been cool if this happened.

John says, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples,

which are not recorded in this book.

And then verse 31, he says, but these are written so that you may believe that

Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The Easy English Bible, same verses, says the purpose of his book.

Jesus did many other miracles while the disciples were with him.

I have not written about all of them in this book, but I have written about

these things so that you will be able to believe the truth.

You will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God.

Because you believe in him, you will have life with God.

You know, and this is really as far as we can get today around this idea.

The next time we share, I wanna go deeper with this and eventually lean into

how to study the Bible as believers.

But my challenge for you this week is to spend some time with the eyewitness

testimony provided to us by Luke, and I'd encourage you to use an easy-to-understand version.

Go easy on yourself. Last week, the Bible was read at our Capitol by an interesting

mix of politicians, pastors, and other leaders in our nation.

They read the whole Bible.

It took them less than three hours to read the Gospel of Luke.

Believe most of you can do that as well. So find three hours this week, set aside the time,

read the gospel of Luke, accept every word of it as factual testimony and read

it just like we read when John said, it was written so that you'll be able to believe the truth.

Not written so you can question the truth, written so you'll be able to believe.

You will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, because you believe

in him, you will have life.

And maybe you've been a skeptic. Maybe you have never believed and received Jesus as your Savior.

I definitely would like to pray with you today to do that after the service.

There's also going to be people in the prayer room to pray for anyone that would like prayer ministry.

Why don't you guys go ahead and stand up. Remember to make the time to read

the facts about the Gospel of Luke this week.

So, Father, we pray that you would draw your people towards your word,

that we would accept every word of it as truth, that we would trust that you gave it to us.

We thank you, Lord, that the love of it and the study of it will give us peace,

that we won't stumble, that we won't be offended, but we'll grow into everything

you created to be. We bless your people as they go.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. All right, guys, have a good week.

Thanks for taking the time to listen. We're glad that what the Lord is doing

among us encourages you.

For more info about the church, follow us on Facebook or connect with us on Instagram.

Visit dwellatthewell.com or come out and see us on a Sunday morning 228 Ridge

Avenue, Southerton, Pennsylvania.