It’s also not an error that the gospel writers sometimes order their events differently. The authors make no claim to include all the events of Jesus’ life or to put those events in strict chronological order. In fact, each writer wrote with a slightly different purpose in mind and deliberately arranged the material to that end. Matthew, for example, wrote for a Jewish audience, so he emphasizes the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. Mark, on the other hand, wrote for a non-Jewish audience and deliberately leaves out many of those details. 

Theologians call it inerrancy. The idea that the Bible is completely without error in everything it says. Whether it speaks of geographical, historical, or theological details, it is completely trustworthy.
Now, some folks have a problem with the idea of the Bible’s inerrancy. They think they’ve spotted errors in Scripture. And very often, it’s because they’ve not understood some important, commonsense clarifications of what an “error” actually is.
Firstly, it’s not an error if it’s not in the original documents. Especially where numbers are concerned, there are some errors in every Hebrew and Greek copy of the Bible. Unlike the original writers of Scripture, the copyists weren’t guided into “all truth” by the Holy Spirit. Copy out the forty chapters of Exodus, and chances are you’ll have introduced one or two errors into the text. (Hopefully it wouldn’t be a major blunder, like the 1631 edition of the King James Bible that commanded its readers, “Thou shalt commit adultery.”) Thankfully, comparing the truly vast number of surviving copies of Scripture enable textual critics to reconstruct with tremendous accuracy what the original documents said before they were copied. Inerrancy relates to what the biblical authors actually wrote, and we’re able to discern what that was even though all we have are copies of what they wrote.
Second, It’s not an error if we misunderstand the author’s intention. When you open up a newspaper, you’ll see many different kinds of writing. Appearing alongside factual reports of world events, there may be celebrity gossip, infographics, stock market gains and losses, football statistics, book reviews, cartoons, and weather forecasts. Instinctively, few of us read a cartoon in the same way we read a war correspondent. In the same way, biblical authors write in a number of different genres, and they expect us to read each one accordingly. If we read a war correspondent as if he were a cartoonist and wonder why his writing isn’t funny at all, the mistake will be ours rather than his.
Also, biblical authors sometimes use metaphors and similes that aren’t intended to be taken literally. When the newspaper’s sporting correspondent informs us that a particular player is currently “on fire,” we shouldn’t become alarmed and call the fire department.
Read More

Spending an hour with Sam and Sadie was a privilege that few people get to enjoy. To be in the presence of a relative stranger who stepped up and spoke up for Jesus to a late loved one is most likely not a common experience. At the end of my visit I got a photograph taken. As I crouched on the floor in front of Sam’s chair he laid his hand on my shoulder. Afterwards, reflecting with no small amount of emotion on the meeting, I realised that his hand has been there right throughout my life. The moment that he reached out with Jesus to my Dad his impact and importance to my own story was sealed. 

Leading another person to faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour is one of the greatest privileges that a Christian can enjoy. More often than not this kind of moment represents the maturing of many hours of prayer, of consistent witness and unconditional friendship, of feelings of inadequacy and fear in bearing testimony. To be present or instrumental in such a step of faith being taken leaves an indelible mark on both parties involved.
Seeing the long term impact of such a step, however, is often obscured from our view. Friends move from our city or our circle, the current of life carries us downstream from one another and, while we rejoice in the moment of salvation, we seldom see the momentum that such faith in Jesus brings to families and communities.
My father came to faith in a classroom in Newtownards Technical College in the late 1950s. As a 17 year old he had enjoyed little gospel privilege in his background, and had never before heard a clear explanation of what becoming a Christian meant. His geography and economics teacher, Sam Doherty, had established a Scripture Union in the college and on one fateful afternoon, standing beside one of the desks, he led my Dad to Jesus. Apart from on one occasion that I know of, my Dad never spent any time with Sam once he finished college.
That was approximately twenty years before my birth, but my Dad’s story resonated through my childhood, as did the almost legendary name of Sam Doherty. At the age of 62 my Dad died after a brief battle with cancer. I was 26 years old. At my Dad’s funeral service Sam Doherty’s name was mentioned with gratitude for his clear and courageous witness, the name of a relative stranger making it in to a brief eulogy.
For me, that was it. The only times I heard Sam Doherty’s name in the intervening years was with reference to his significant ministry with CEF – such mentions always tugging a little on my heart at how he had been used by God in my Dad’s story.
Then, in November of last year, I got to spend an hour with Sam and his wife Sadie in their home. The emotional and spiritual impact of that meeting with two people in their 90s is hard to sufficiently quantify, but there are three abiding impressions which could be useful for me and for others as we think about sharing our faith.
Immediate Faithfulness and Ultimate Usefulness go Hand in Hand
Sam Doherty came to faith from a background of resolute commitment to an evolutionary explanation for the universe. Hot on the heels of his own conversion he was advised by the man who led him to Jesus that he now had a job to do for Jesus. Sam taught in Newtownards Technical College, cycling in from his home 7 miles away, and then cycling a further 8 miles to Comber one day per week. In his own words, the teaching came second to his witness for the Lord.
Read More
Related Posts:

When Jesus calls to us, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden,” he gives us himself. When we come to the altar, we receive Jesus himself, for the Eucharist is nothing less than the real presence of Christ. He replaces the burdens loaded upon us throughout the week with a burden that is meek and lowly in heart.

Humans are like donkeys. The Bible’s word for “donkey” is, literally, “burden-bearer” (hypo-zugion). Like donkeys, you and I are “burden-bearers.”
Our burdens are numerous. Some seem random: a freak accident, a horrible sickness, a loved one’s sudden death. Others people place upon us, like the scribes and Pharisees who, Jesus says, “bind heavy burdens (phortia) and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders” (Matt. 23:4). Often we are scribes and Pharisees to ourselves, for not infrequently our burdens are self-imposed: We are stubborn, making our own lives unbearable at times.
It is with good reason, then, that Jesus treats us like donkeys. “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (11:28). These are what the Anglican Prayer Book calls “comfortable words,” leading people into Eucharistic celebration.
Our God is a gracious God, who cares for donkeys—including actual donkeys. “Six days thou shalt do thy work,” God commands the Israelites in the Book of Exodus, “and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass (hypozygion) may rest” (Exod. 23:12). It is not just people who get Sabbath rest; donkeys get to share in it as well.
We are in need of Sabbath rest. Our burdens make us long for it. That is why we go to Mass week after week. For it is there, at the altar, that Jesus gives us rest.
But does he truly? Jesus himself seems to question it, when he says, “Take my yoke (zygon) upon you. . . . My yoke (zygos) is easy, and my burden (phortion) is light” (Matt. 11: 29–30). The yoke may be easy and the burden light, but for all that, we are burden-bearers still, far removed from enjoying comfortable rest. It is small comfort if the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is merely one of quantitative weight—his burden just a little less oppressive than what we suffer elsewhere. Less burdensome, perhaps, but hardly the rest for which we long and which he says he’ll give.
It is true: Once a donkey, always a donkey. No matter what, we are burden-bearers world without end, even in the eternal Sabbath rest. But the difference between the burdens imposed by scribes and Pharisees and the burden placed by Jesus is not just one of degree, but of kind.
Read More
Related Posts: