Prof Zebulon No E24

D) The Bible (The many versions : Which one is the right one??)

Isn’t ironic how humans tend to complicate matters? When it comes to Bible versions; there are hundreds of them in hundreds of different languages. Some have left this verse out; some have left that verse out; and still even others have used different words to say basically the same thing as the other version; you know what I mean. At first glance at all this we tend to ask the question above : Which one is the right one?? The answer is simple : They are all the right one because God wrote only one version and it is not the King James or the Louis Second, etc. It is the one that He gave to his inspired authors. Peter best describes it in 2 Peter 1 :21.   “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God”.

Jesus said that : “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” Matt 5 :18.

I say all this to say that whether there be thousands of different versions of the Bible; that’s not important!! What is important is that God knows what He is doing and His word is true. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10 :13. Now that’s a promise!!

E) Israel (Israel in Egypt)

We read in the Old Testament that the Israelites lived in Egypt for four hundred years. It all started in Genesis 37 :28 when Jacob’s sons sold Joseph to a band of Ishmeelites (Arabs) for twenty pieces of silver. God had a plan for His people. The story continues, years later when a famine came to the land and Jacob told his sons to go and buy corn in the land of Egypt. From that point on, God’s plan was to have His people, the 12 tribes of Israel, live in Egypt and more precisely, in the land of Goshen. The Israelites multiplied rapidly and over the centuries, they became slaves to the Egyptian Pharaoh Exodus 1 :12-14. Then God delivered them out of Egypt with Moses and they returned to their land. The departure out of Egypt, together with the passover (Exod 12 :14) is remembered every year by the Jewish people today. Why did God do all this? A famine does not last 400 years. Why did God leave His people in Egypt all these years?

The answer was given prophetically by God to Abraham hundreds of years before in Genesis 15 :16 when God said : “ The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full ” . In order to keep the covenant that the Lord had made with Abraham, He sent His people into Egypt and kept them there to cleanse the Promised Land. The book of Joshua describes how God used Joshua to take the Promised Land and gave him the assurance that : “…as I was with Moses, so shall I be with thee; I will not fail thee nor forsake thee” Joshua 1 :5. God keeps His promises.