Mining the Scriptures

“You are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29

Over the centuries since Christ lived on the earth the church has studied the stories of Jesus to try to determine and understand who He was and is. Scholars across the ages have examined everything they could about Jesus in an effort to unlock the secrets and meaning of his life.

One method of discovering who Jesus really was and is comes from examining the statements that Jesus made about himself. Think of these statements of Jesus:

1. “I am” (John 8:58, Exodus 3:14)
2. “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41, Exodus 16:4)
3. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (John 3:14, Numbers 21:4-8)
4. “Moses spoke about me” (Are You the Prophet?)
5. “Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” and “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” and “You will find rest for your souls” (What Jesus Was Saying in Matthew 11:28-30)
6. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 and the Gospels, Ezekiel and Daniel 7 and 8)
7. See also (Mount Sinai & The Mount of Transfiguration)

There are many more examples to be found throughout the gospel, but these are just some to look at. Where does Jesus get these statements that He makes about himself? We have a tendency as westerners to think that Jesus was making up these new statements about His nature and characteristics. However, a closer look at what Jesus says reveals something much more profound. Jesus continually draws these statements out of His Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible. Often, He changes a story to make His point , “I am the One that the Old Testament Scriptures pointed to; I am the promised Messiah.”

These gems are found scattered throughout the New Testament in Jesus’ sayings. They are just waiting to be discovered by the reader who knows where to find them in the Old Testament. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know our Hebrew Testament very well, so we don’t realize what passage that Jesus is referring to or drawing from. We’ve got to do the hard work of digging through the Scriptures to find out what Jesus was saying about Himself. The deeper we dig, the deeper the story gets. The nuggets are there in the pages of the Bible, just waiting for us to find them. Don’t wait for your pastor to find them for you. Get started for yourself! You will find that the Bible is one big story, all intricately woven together by the master story teller himself, just waiting for you to discover it. Start digging! Start mining the scriptures for those nuggets! He hides them so that we will seek! It is our job to dig them out.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; To search out a matter is the glory of Kings.” – Proverbs 25:2