As I've written before, the internet has greatly improved my understanding of scripture. I recently shared a table that showed when the prophets lived. One of the things that I had not realized was that many times there were more than one prophet alive and prophesying at a time. For some reason I thought God would dole them out one at a time.
I am reading Micah, one of the Minor Prophets, right now. Here is a passage from today's reading.
Micah 4:1-3(NKJV)
1 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the Lord’S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow to it.
2 Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 He shall judge between many peoples, And rebuke strong nations afar off; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.£
What I found interesting here is that it is pretty much word for word what Isaiah 2:2-4 says. Take a look.
Isaiah 2:2-4(NKJV)
2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the Lord’S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it.
3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
Interesting. What I had never realized before was that Isaiah and Micah were contemporaries of each other. They lived at the same time and they were both prophets to Judah. Isaiah lived from 740 - 700 BC and Micah lived from 737 - 690 BC. Although there is no scriptural reference that I know of to back it up, it is conceivable that they may have even met or heard each other speak. Or at least read each others speeches and writings. How else to explain the word for word prophecy? (OK, the other explanation is the God supernaturally gave them bot the same exact thing to write!)
This all got me to marveling at the Miracle of the spreading of the Word of God. Think about it. When we have questions we just pick up our Bibles or open our Bible software applications and look it up. We take that for granted. But back in the days of Isaiah, Micah, and even back in the days of Jesus and the disciples, the printing press hadn't even been invented yet. Everything had to be hand written. Only the wealthy had their own copies of Scripture and back then very few people could even read!
One story I am reminded of is the guy who was from Ethiopia (I think) who was riding in his chariot while studying scripture. At some point he sees one of the Prophets, can't remember which one, and invites the Prophet up into his chariot to study and explain the Word of God. (Or something like that. I'm going by memory) The point here is that the fact that this guy had his own copy of Scripture tells us he was pretty well off.
Too me the miracle is how the Christian faith was able to spread around the world like it did in the time in history that it did. Mostly by word of mouth and personal testimony. (And there is the link to yesterday's post!)
Again the power of the personal testimony comes through. What is cool about today is that through the power of the written word and technology, we can now each share our personal testimony with countless people around the world. How cool is that?
So as you go about your lives the next few days, look for ways that you too can share your faith in your electronic world, and then you too can be part of that continuing miracle!
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