Matthew 5:17-18

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 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.”

Has it ever occurred to you that Christians are “betting our eternal souls” on the accuracy of a translation of copies of copies of copies of copies of a set of documents that were written between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago in languages that no one on earth still speaks today?

Well, that is exactly what we are doing!

How on earth can we do that?

Easy. We know beyond question that a “complete equivalence” or “functional equivalence” translation of the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts enables us to have a Christian Bible that is a fully preserved and a rightly canonized rendering of the Original Manuscripts of the very words of very God!

Thankfully, there are five such translations available in the English language today: The King James; the New King James; the American Standard; the New American Standard; and, the English Standard Versions all of which were produced through this process, and each of them provides us with a fully reliable rendering of God’s Words!

We are further assured by the discovery in the late 1940’s of the Dead Sea Scrolls which verified the accuracy of existing Old Testament documents; and, by the 5,600+ Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament that have been discovered.

In all of these documents, there is not a single verse that brings any doctrinal teaching into question; and comparing them with one another allows us to understand the wording of the Original Manuscripts with a reliability that exceeds 99%.

In addition to all of this empirical evidence, we have the “Ultimate” evidence of the words of Jesus in our text today!

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.”

I am thankful that God preserved this multitude of ancient documents so we can physically see and mathematically calculate the fact that we can indeed reconstruct more than 99% of the Original Manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures; but, if all we had was the promise of Matthew 5:17-18, that would certainly be enough!

Beloved Ones, we have the Word of God! God revealed it, inspired it, preserved it, and led men to rightly understand which Books ought to be part of the Christian Bible.

Now that we have it, what ought we do with it?

I hope to see you Sunday with your Bible in your hand, a smile on your face, and your family and friends by your side!

Pastor Lanny