Lesson 1, March 28-April 3
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Deuteronomy 32:45-47; Genesis 49:8-12; Isaiah 53:3-7; 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, 51-55; Romans 12:2.
Memory Text: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalms 119:105
Composed of 66 books, and written over 1,500 years on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by over forty authors, the Bible is unique. There is no other book, sacred or religious, like it. And no wonder. After all, it is the Word of God.
There are over 24,600, extant, New Testament manuscripts from the first four centuries after Christ. Of Plato’s original manuscripts, there are seven, Herodotus eight, and Homer’s Iliad slightly more with 263 surviving copies. Hence, we have powerful confirming evidence of the integrity of the New Testament text.
The Bible was the first book known to be translated, the first book in the West published on the printing press, and the first book to be so widely distributed in so many languages that it can be read by 95 percent of the earth’s population today.
The Bible is also unique in its content and message, which focuses on God’s redemptive acts in history. That history is intertwined with prophecy, as it foretells the future of God’s plans and His eternal kingdom. It is the living Word of God, because the same Spirit of God through which Scripture was inspired (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) is promised to believers today to guide us into all truth as we study the Word (John 14:16, 17; John 15:26; John 16:13).
