Witness from Ephesus

Note: This was written in answer to "How can we know the Bible was true?" The answer the story illustrates is that if when the New Testament was written and circulated, it had not been true, there would have been witnesses around who would utterly discredit the testimony of Paul and the other authors.

This was not the case. Still living witnesses of Jesus' life and the early ministry of the Church rather supported the words of Paul and Peter. These apostles even appealed to this argument as proof of their authority. God chose certain men to deliver to us the specific words He wanted in the Bible. Many at the time were witnesses to the same events, and believed the same theology.

“There,” said Paul. “All done.” He reached for the manuscripts his secretary handed him. “Lord Jesus,” they prayed, “use these simple words to speak truth to the people of Corinth. Help them to be impresssed by your love for them. Cleanse them from the sins they keep doing. I pray, Lord, for my messenger. Help him to reach Corinth safely. Let him minister to Your saints there.”

The messenger left early the next morning with the blessings of the church at Ephesus. The letter to the Corinthians remained unsealed. He opened it and began to read to pass the weary hours of his journey.

“Paul, called to be an apostle…” he read. Once, he had visited Ananias in Damascus. The man who witnessed the transformation of Saur from Tarsus, Ananias held Paul (who had changed his name from Saul) as a specially called apostle of Christ. The messenger read on.

Later in the day, he again stopped to remember. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified…” Jesus the Messiah, in Greek translated “Christ,” had been crucified. The messenger was one of over 500 witnesses who had seen the marks from the nails in Jesus’ hands. Truly the sight had been moving. His own life had been changed forever.

The further the messenger went from Ephesus, the faster he read. “For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” Paul didn’t take a breath most days without the purpose of glorifying God. In the devastating moments when he did reveal pride or impatience, Paul was in tears over the price his Lord paid. The eternal image of Christ’s wounded hands always returned to break his heart.

“And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.” Joseph of Arimathea died two weeks before the messenger set out. A great memorial had been made for him. The Pharisees remembered what he had done for God. Christians remembered what God did for him. Then he was buried in his tomb.

The prophet, Isaiah, spoke of Messiah being buried with the rich at His death. Joseph’s tomb had been Jesus’ resting place. Yet now Joseph himself resided there – alone. He became an eternal witness to the truth of the prophet and of the resurrection.

Only four days from Ephesus, with most of his trip still to go, the messenger finished reading Paul’s letter. The greetings at the end were like a list of beloved friends. He remembered the party they had thrown when Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus came to them. Their news excited Paul. Nights were spent in fellowship and study of the Scriptures for weeks afterward. Would such a party be given for him?

As the trip progressed, the messenger read the letter over and over until some parts were burned into his mind and written on his heart. Sometimes he would read passages out loud to those who traveled with him. “Paul writes truth,” reported an elderly woman. “My son in Corinth mentioned many of those things.”

“Ma’am, do you think people will still believe him in a hundred years?”

“Why not,” she chuckled. “I believe it – and I would know. If we who know accept it, so should our children and grandchildren. Paul is a messenger of God. He wrote the truth. How else will they know the truth?”

To God be all glory. Read more!

The Fingerpaint Life

The boy he had a cross-shaped stamp
Filled with ink inside.
He used his cross-stamp everyday,
And cared for it with pride.



He would stamp everything he did,
With the symbol his stamp produced.
Until one day his precious stamp,
His precious stamp, it…
Broke.

The ink, ran over the paper,
The stamp was useless now.
He had to send his message still,
But with all this mess, well, how?

The boy sat still, and staring.
At the problem before him.
And slowly his hand moved forward,
With a deep-joy, kind of grin.

His fingers touched the spilt blue ink
And began to swirl around.
Before he knew it, what lay there?
On the page he found…

A cross, a cross, so beautiful,
With swirls springing from the mess.
It was the same, but meant so much more,
Than what he’d called before, “success.”

And what- near the end of each swirl of blue,
What was that he now saw?
His very own fine fingerprints,
He then sat back in awe

With hands held up he saw his fingerTIPS,
Blue from the art he had made.
This gift he was about to give,
Was on himself displayed.

He’d never done something like this before,
The note he wrote that day,
Was the first note he ever wrote to God,
It said, “God, I just wanted to say…”

“To say, ‘Thank You.’” Yes.
That’s all it really said,
And where he’d usually stamp his stamp,
Was a fingerprint cross instead.

He sent the note to Jesus,
He sent it that same day,
And when he washed his hands that night,
The blue began to fade.

He decided then that, to remember,
He would paint frequently.
Not with brushes, or with stamps,
But with his fingers, personally.

Read more!