There were two questions as a non-believer that I was asking of the New Testament. The first one was, can we hold the New Testament in our hand and say what we have is what was written down or has it been changed? I’ve already looked at that in a number of segments but the second question was even more important to me. Was what was written down true? Did Jesus actually do that? Did He actually say that?
I’d like to walk eventually through four lines of reasoning. Now it might take ten or twelve segments to do it. The four/five lines of reasoning that brought me to the conclusion that I can hold the New Testament in my hand and have confidence that what it says is what happened and what Jesus said, and what Jesus did.
Now the first line of reasoning is this: the writers of the New Testament, the Apostles, they wrote as eye witnesses or they recorded eye witness accounts. Matthew, Mark and John in any court of law would be considered eye witness accounts. Now even though Mark wasn’t; you say “What?” No, Mark didn’t observe much of what he wrote about in the gospel of Mark. You say, “Why didn’t he?” For this reason: Mark was a scribe. He copied down all that who said? Peter. Peter was the eyewitness, and he was simply writing down what Peter had seen and heard personally. So that would be an eyewitness account.
Now Luke was not. Luke was assigned to examine everything carefully from the various eye witness accounts. You see there were many, many records of what Jesus has said and did and the New Testament church was so committed to accuracy. They were so committed they wanted to know exactly what Christ taught. Why? One they were dying for it. They wanted to know that it was the truth that they were going to give their lives for. So Luke was given the assignment, and he says in Luke 1: 1-3 that he examined everything carefully from the beginning from those who were eye witnesses to check out each element to see that it’s accurate. And then he said to write out the exact truth of what has been taught among us. So Matthew, Mark and John were eye witnesses, Luke recorded his gospel from those who were eye witnesses.
There were two questions as a non-believer that I was asking of the New Testament. The first one was, can we hold the New Testament in our hand and say what we have is what was written down or has it been changed? I’ve already looked at that in a number of segments but the second question was even more important to me. Was what was written down true? Did Jesus actually do that? Did He actually say that?
I’d like to walk eventually through four lines of reasoning. Now it might take ten or twelve segments to do it. The four/five lines of reasoning that brought me to the conclusion that I can hold the New Testament in my hand and have confidence that what it says is what happened and what Jesus said, and what Jesus did.
Now the first line of reasoning is this: the writers of the New Testament, the Apostles, they wrote as eye witnesses or they recorded eye witness accounts. Matthew, Mark and John in any court of law would be considered eye witness accounts. Now even though Mark wasn’t; you say “What?” No, Mark didn’t observe much of what he wrote about in the gospel of Mark. You say, “Why didn’t he?” For this reason: Mark was a scribe. He copied down all that who said? Peter. Peter was the eyewitness, and he was simply writing down what Peter had seen and heard personally. So that would be an eyewitness account.
Now Luke was not. Luke was assigned to examine everything carefully from the various eye witness accounts. You see there were many, many records of what Jesus has said and did and the New Testament church was so committed to accuracy. They were so committed they wanted to know exactly what Christ taught. Why? One they were dying for it. They wanted to know that it was the truth that they were going to give their lives for. So Luke was given the assignment, and he says in Luke 1: 1-3 that he examined everything carefully from the beginning from those who were eye witnesses to check out each element to see that it’s accurate. And then he said to write out the exact truth of what has been taught among us. So Matthew, Mark and John were eye witnesses, Luke recorded his gospel from those who were eye witnesses.
SUMMARY: Two questions concerned Josh McDowell regarding the scriptures. First can we hold the New Testament in our hand and say what we have is what was written down? Second, was what was written down true? In this section he writes about 1 of 4-5 lines of reasoning to conclude we have what was written and it is true. Eyewitnesses’ accounts were given by the apostles Matthew, Mark, and John. Mark was a scribe writing down what Peter the eyewitness said. Luke was assigned to examine everything carefully from various eyewitnesses. The New Testament church was so committed to accuracy since members were killed for what was believed.
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