\n( http:\/\/www.explorepassages.com<\/a> ) the exhibition will continue its tour to other cities, ultimately top reside permanently in Washington DC. <\/p>\n
![\"pogos](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mondayministry.com\/images\/Papyrus-39.jpg?resize=140%2C429\" "\\"papyrus\\"")
\nPapyrus 39<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
After the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in May, my friend Diane Obbema read about the exhibition and suggested we visit. It was a great day of my life. First, we were impressed by the sheer scope. An iPod audio guide is eight hours long, for visitors who visit every display case and presentation. Cases, captions, actors and robotics, videos and interactive stations. Portions are designed for younger visitors. History comes alive. You see a Gutenberg press, you can pull one\u2019s own prints.<\/p>\n
More than that is the impressive display of scarce, often one-of-a-kind, artifacts. The second-largest private collection of Dead Sea Scrolls. Many cuneiform tablets; illuminated manuscripts; the world\u2019s largest collection of vintage Jewish scrolls and ancient Torahs. Wycliffe\u2019s likely Middle-English translation of the New Testament; the majority of the rare Gutenberg Bible; many of the famous early printed Bibles, like the Geneva Bible and the first King James Version. The exhibition\u2019s surprises are\u2026 very surprising, and inspiring to see: a letter Martin Luther wrote night before his trial in Worms, half will and testament of the presumed martyr, half a rehearsal of his defiant \u201cHere I Stand\u2019 statement. In another display case, the manuscript copy of Julia Ward Howe\u2019s \u201cBattle Hymn of the Republic.\u201d Amazing.<\/p>\n
![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mondayministry.com\/images\/Luther-lettersm.jpg?resize=174%2C209\" "\\"Martin")
\nMartin Luther’s Will<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
This is the story of Christendom \u2013 the Church through the ages, managing to survive and spreading gloriously. <\/p>\n
There is an overarching story beyond the gospel story itself, yet usually missed by most of us. Often it is willful ignorance or rejection. My mother-in-law was one of myriad, in this land of many churches, who fundamentally doubted the Bible\u2019s authenticity or reliability. \u201cIt was written by men,\u201d its first putative offense, and she also indicted its authorship \u201cby many people, over many places, across many years, and through many translations.\u201d <\/p>\n
A slippery slope it is, of course, to dismiss the Bible as a collection of fables, or purloined wisdom, or irrelevant stories and lies. And, at first glance in the presence of the Green Family\u2019s collection, the sheer variety of translations and versions can seduce the credulity of an average believer.<\/p>\n
But none of us should be average believers! We are indwelt by the Holy Ghost, the same Spirit of the Living God who inspired \u2013 literally, \u201cbreathed life\u201d into \u2013 these scriptures. \u201cThe word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword\u201d (Hebrews 4:12). It has advanced despite hideous persecution. It has survived, sometimes, in remote outposts where Christianity was anathema and believers were hounded. It has also at times triumphed, in the worldly sense\u2026 inviting corruption and diluting its tenets.<\/p>\n
Yes, many men wrote the first lines; and many were there who copied, and translated, and transliterated, and remembered verses, and strove to record the words of Christ and the testimony of apostles and martyrs, who saved the songs of poets, the wisdom of the anointed, and the letters of evangelists. When men first sought to put the Words of God into the languages of the people, they were, for hundreds of years, pursued, humiliated, tortured, and killed for so doing. Yet more than a thousand tongues now have Bibles in their own languages.<\/p>\n
\u2026 are these prescriptions for error and mistakes, prejudices and bias, carelessness and sloppiness; for local churches and leaders with tempting agendas, to bring distortion? Would it not be logical \u2013 with all the people, places, and possibilities over the years represented in the display cases of \u201cPassages\u201d \u2013 that, instead of one True Bible of thousands of translations and versions, that there be thousands of competing Bibles?<\/p>\n
Yet discrepancies are a tiny fraction, seldom close to any major theological or historical point, and always quickly reconciled. To me, THIS is the evidence of the authority, even inerrancy, of scripture. Tried, tested, true: a living document that is not malleable to suit every generation\u2019s distractions. No: living, to be a vital source of hope, truth, and salvation; a reality to every one in every time and every place.<\/p>\n
The texts studied in Northern Africa, in the Fourth Century, say; or the lessons taught in Asia Minor or to the heathen in northern Europe at the same early times; or the sermon themes in faraway Ireland \u2013 all are virtually identical to the words of the Bibles we have in our homes today. About what other books can this be said?<\/p>\n
To visit \u201cPassages\u201d is inspiring. Yet when Diane and I left the \u201cExperience,\u201d I could not help but see the physical evidence of devotion, scholarship, sacrifice, martyrdom, and enterprise of uncountable saints through the millennia\u2026 and not feel a chill of caution.<\/p>\n
Is America today capable of such fidelity to the Word of God? Does Western civilization have the loyalty to Christianity that it once did at Saragossa and at the Gates of Vienna? Right now, no. <\/p>\n
The Word of God will survive always: axiomatic for the Eternal Truth. But if the Church of Christ dies in what is left of Western Civilization, it ultimately will be due not to persecution by its enemies, but neglect by its adherents. <\/p>\n
+ + +<\/p>\n
For those who cannot visit the \u201cPassages\u201d exhibition, or until its goal of a permanent home in the nation\u2019s capital, books and other materials are available from the organizers: https:\/\/store.explorepassages.com<\/a><\/p>\n I have chosen a beautiful performance in a beautiful setting of Mozart\u2019s beautiful \u201cLaudate Dominum.\u201d The text is the entire Psalms 117, shortest in the Bible, followed by the doxology. The music, if I might presume to characterize it so, is by the Holy Spirit, received and passed to us by Mozart. One of his supernal masterworks. The singer is the beautiful \u2013 yes, beauty abounds \u2013 Katherine Jenkins. The captions are the Latin text and Czech. Here is the English:<\/p>\n Praise the Lord, all ye peoples, Glory to the Father, Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
\nPraise Him, all ye peoples.
\nFor his loving kindness
\nHas been bestowed upon us,
\nAnd the truth of the Lord endures for eternity.<\/p>\n
\nAs it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
\nWorld without end. Amen. <\/p>\n