‘Search The Scriptures’

‘Search the Scriptures’

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

John 5:39

The extraordinary nature of the Person of Christ, and the remarkable nature of His ministry brought Him into conflict with the religious establishment of the day.  Because Christ had healed the man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day, and told him to take up his bed and walk, He had violated some of the man-made, and deeply revered rules of the ardently religious purveyors of tradition.  They challenged Christ about His healing of the man and His instructions to him.  Thus began a face to face confrontation in which they rejected Christ and His claims.  In the midst of that controversy, Christ challenges them by saying, ‘search the Scriptures.’  Other translations put it, ‘You search the Scriptures.’  Here is what is manifestly clear from all else we know about the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day.  They were ardent and intense students of the Scriptures.  They were steeped in the Old Testament; in the Law, the Prophets and in the Psalms.  It was about these Scriptures that Christ was speaking when He challenged them.  Over the next days we will, as God enables us, look carefully at the message which Christ was sending about His place in the Old Testament and where these scholars could find Him.  So also, we may search the Scriptures and find Him there.

Our most Holy and Wise God,
we rejoice in Your Word as one that finds great treasure.
We praise You that You reveal Christ unto us in the Scriptures,
from the beginning to the end.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning