God, being all powerful, needs a tangible representation in order for His power to be manifested. Creation is an example of His manifestation. Without creation, we could not see His power.
Mankind is His manifestation. The bible is His manifestation. If you give it some thought, you will begin to see what I mean. Without real manifestation, an idea remains just that – an idea.
Let’s take a look at the bible as an example. God was communicating with mankind throughout the bible. Modern scholars believe that the 66 books of the Bible were written by at least 39 authors over a period of 1,500 years. Have you ever thought how amazing the bible is? Have you thought about what life would be like without the written bible?
God was communicating with His people way before the first word was written. It is just as if you and I were having a verbal conversation about things we both saw and about which there was no written record. We then would tell another person about our conversation and they would tell another and the story would spread. Without a person being able to first of all experience God, there would be no expression of the manifestation of God.
Picture this, a beautiful sunset and no one around to see it. Yes, the sunset existed and manifested God’s power, but without a human being able to see it, it would go unnoticed. So now imagine if there was only one person who ever saw it. How would it be shared with the rest of the world?
Back in biblical times, originally, it was through verbal story that life was shared. So, if I was the only one who saw the sunset, the best I could do would be to try and describe it to you in as much detail as possible. I would describe the colors, the physical motion of the sun setting, and the emotion of its beauty. You will, at best, be able to experience it through my words until someday, you too will be able to experience a sunset on your own.
So why did God’s story need to be written over such a long period of time and by so many different people? First of all, God had to choose someone to write it. I guess He could have etched the bible in stone like He did the Ten Commandments and leave it here for us to read. But then, to tell the story, the characters would have to be fictional. The bible is written with real characters and real-life experiences. It’s easy to use our imaginations when reading fictional books, but we know it isn’t real. When we read non-fiction books, we not only imagine what the writer is portraying, but we are also faced with the question if we believe it or not. Our belief will be based upon whether we experienced for ourselves what the writer penned or what we believe the credibility of the writer is. All this to say that there had to be a real expression of the experience in order for the topic to be manifested.
The sunset as an idea in someone’s mind and if never expressed, will go unknown. God had to create tangible things and human beings in order that His power could be manifested, otherwise, it would have been just another idea that was unknown.
So, I find the fact that over 1,500 years (in many cases forty, fifty, and even hundreds of years in between each book), with 39 different authors, that the bible carried on the story of God. It was able to capture His constant character, maintaining a cohesive theme in the process (including a beginning, an end, and a cliff hanger). It is an amazing manifestation of our God! But even more amazing, we not only get to read the account of God’s story, we get to experience Him first hand. His bible is never finished being written.
Just a Thought…
