Just a thought …

Once again we come to a new book over on the devotional page. We are finishing Exodus and going back over to the New Testament, taking up where we left off, the Gospel of Mark. As we study through it, we should keep in mind one early Church historians insight on it. The earliest piece of external, direct evidence comes to us from the bishop of Hierapolis (in modern day Turkey) Papias, who lived about 60-130 AD. He wrote, “… Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said and done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had followed him, but later on, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.”

Assuming that this non-biblical but ancient statement is true, then we are reading what the burley fisherman Peter saw and remembered of his more than three years of walking with the Savior. What makes this testimony more weighty is that it was written so close in time to the actual events it is describing. Of course, we believe that the Holy Spirit has carefully left all of Scripture for us as a completely accurate and reliable record. Press on fellow pilgrims …

Pastor Ed