A Clear View                           by Carl McMurray

 

           You can always tell if you are riding in a car with a deer hunter, especially around dawn or dusk. He will be the one who has difficulty conversing at these times of day because he is busy scanning the edges of timber and field. He can’t help it. It is unconscious, but it is a fact. I recall the first time I idly put my binoculars on a pile of stalks and weeds in the middle of a picked cornfield and that brown pile focused clearly into an antlered buck staring intently back at me. Corn rows have never looked the same to me since.

Getting a clear and focused view about things is sometimes not a little surprising when we suddenly see something we didn’t realize was there. The word of God is like that. Too many people think the scriptures are boring and irrelevant to their lives because they’ve never really focused in. The Bible encourages us to look clearly at the facts however, and get the real picture of what is present. Nowhere is that more plain than where Luke describes the beginning of his writings in Luke 1:1-4. Notice 4 key terms that state the clear focus of his writing and the confidence we can place in them.

In verse two he mentions that the ones who started this movement he writes of were “eye witnesses.” They were not idle gossips, talebearers, or rumor mongers. This word is a term from the law courts. It has to do with a person who testifies to what he has seen with his own eyes. So Luke starts with the testimony of those who actually walked and talked with Jesus. This is quite a contrast with the modern scholars (so ­called) of the last century who have taken it upon themselves to critique the words of Christ. They are 1800 years too late.

In verse three Luke says that not only did he take the testimony of eyewitnesses, but then he investigated himself He writes that he investigated everything, he investigated carefully, and, he investigated from the beginning. Luke’s credibility increases as we see his intention to present the truth about which he writes.

He also says that his presentation is in consecutive order. Luke not only troubles himself to research the facts about which he writes, he determines to present them in an orderly fashion. Our God is not a God of confusion. He wants men to examine His revelation and come to an accurate knowledge of truth. The gospel is not a fathomless mystery. It is a presentation of evidence to be examined and believed.

Lastly in verse four Luke refers to the things he writes as exact truth. The next time someone questions the Bible’s accuracy or derides the need to specifically follow God’s word, this is the passage to remember. It is not myth. It is not principles of generic good. The word of God is “exact truth” and it addresses the real needs of God’s creation in a clear, understandable way.