So, when the Holy Spirit called Matthew to write what he knew of the Lord"s life on earth, those ancient prophecies, and the wonderful way in which they had come true, were still in his thoughts. This is why we find in the Gospel according to Matthew more quotations from the Old Testament than in the writings of any of the other evangelists.
"See, My Book has always spoken of the coming of My Son." This is the wonderful message which G.o.d gave to the world through Matthew"s knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Years pa.s.sed, and those who had seen Christ in His earthly life had nearly all died, while Gentile Christians everywhere were asking eagerly for the written story of His life.
Twenty years after Matthew"s Gospel was written, G.o.d called a Greek scholar, named Luke, to write what was to be a most important part of our Bible. The Jews of old hated and despised the Gentiles; we have seen how bitterly they persecuted Paul because he declared that G.o.d had sent him to preach to the heathen nations; think, therefore, how impossible it would have seemed to a Jew of this time, that a Gentile could, at G.o.d"s bidding, write two Books which should become even more precious and sacred than the Books of the Law, which the Jews rightly prized as the greatest treasure of their nation!
Those who work in heathen lands to-day tell us that the Gospel of St.
Luke is always the favourite book of the converts, and that if they can only afford to buy one Gospel they always ask for that of Luke. This is because the whole work is written from the Gentile point of view--it is the world"s history of Christ.
St. Luke wrote his Gospel as an historian, and in dedicating his work to Theophilus[2] in a kind of preface, he followed the Greek custom.
"_Many,_" he says, "_have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us_"
(Luke i. 1), but their records have disappeared, while that of Luke remains.
He was a physician, as we know (Colossians iv. 14), and besides being highly educated and gifted, he took infinite pains with his work. He collected all the information he could both from books and eye-witnesses--either from the Saviour"s Mother herself, or from some of her relations--and to him we owe many of the most beautiful and touching facts of our Lord"s life on earth.
Written last of all, we have the good news--that is, Gospel, told by St. John.
When the Saviour ascended into Heaven, John was still a young man, but he lived to be older than all the other Apostles. By the time that St.
John wrote his Gospel, Jerusalem had been destroyed and her inhabitants slain or scattered. He was able, therefore, to mention details, and give the actual names of people and places, which, if told earlier, might have endangered the lives of those of whom he wrote.
Many instances of this will be found by those who read carefully. He alone mentions the name of the Apostle who struck off the ear of the High Priest"s servant, and the story of the raising of Lazarus is given only by St. John as though it would have been dangerous to record it earlier.
So filled with love was the Apostle John that before he died his spirit became altogether one with Christ"s spirit, and the sayings of Jesus, which he had only half understood whilst his Master had walked this earth, grew quite clear to him, so that he remembered them distinctly.
Therefore, that others might understand also, G.o.d"s Spirit called John, when he was an old man, to write out those precious words of Jesus Christ"s which were always echoing in his heart, and which the other writers had not known, or had forgotten. It is in John"s Gospel that we learn most about the love of Christ.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--let us thank G.o.d for them all.
[1] The name "Bible" is derived from the Greek word "Byblus," i.e.
"Papyrus," the paper reed on which the New Testament was written.
[2] The name "Theophilus" means "G.o.d"s friend." Most people believe that he was a notable convert of those days, though unknown to history.
CHAPTER XII
SOME OTHER WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
[Ill.u.s.tration: (drop cap L) Ancient engraving of man reading scroll]
Let us now look at the rest of the books which make up the New Testament. In the days when Paul preached at Athens, the old capital of Greece, much of the ancient splendour and power of the Greek people had pa.s.sed away, for the Romans had conquered their country, and they were no longer a free nation.
Yet, although the Greeks had been forced to yield to Rome, their conquerors knew that the Grecian scholars and artists were far better educated and more highly gifted than themselves, and Greek statues and writings had therefore become the fashion throughout the Roman Empire.
Indeed, many of the Greek sculptors and authors are remembered and admired to this day. Homer, the greatest Greek poet, who lived about a thousand years B.C., is still world famous.
Homer"s best-known poem[1] is about a terrible war which took place between the Greeks and the Trojans. Its words are n.o.ble, and its descriptions very clever, but although all must admire the beauty of the lines, the poem produces a dismal and depressing effect.
The picture it gives of the old heathen religion is terrible, for Homer described the "G.o.ds" and "G.o.ddesses" in whom he believed as being far more cruel and unjust than the worst men and women of his time.
According to his ideas, Jupiter, Diana, Apollo, Mars, and the rest came down to earth and took part in the battle.
In vain did the great hero, Hector, fight his bravest; in vain did he sacrifice himself, and strive to make up for the wrong-doing of his brother; he failed utterly, for Homer tells us that he was hated by some of the "G.o.ds" for no fault of his own, and so they doomed him to destruction, and guided the hand of the man who slew him. How little those clever Greeks had been able to discover of the mercy and justice of G.o.d!
But although the men of this great nation knew nothing of our wise and loving Heavenly Father, He knew and loved them every one, and as we have seen, He called a Greek Christian author to help Him in the wonderful work of writing the Bible.
In addition to the story of our Saviour"s life this Greek author, St.
Luke, also wrote a book about a war--a war that was to become world-wide--the war against sin and the Devil, and the name of this second book is the "_Acts of the Apostles_."
In all this wonderful Bible of ours there is no Book more wonderful than the "Book of the Acts." Have you ever stopped to think what a terrible gap there would be in the history of G.o.d"s dealings with the world had the "Acts" never been written?
The Apostle Paul"s life would be almost a blank. Stephen"s victorious death would be all unknown to us. Above all, the story of our Saviour"s ascension into Heaven, and the marvellous fulfilment of His promises in the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, would have been left untold.
The Book of the Acts stands alone.
There are four Gospels--written from four different points of view, but of the four writers, Luke, the Greek, was the only one who wrote a sequel and showed the results which our Saviour"s Life, and Death, and Resurrection produced at once in the world.
The marvellous accuracy of St. Luke and his keen observation become every year more striking as fresh discoveries in the lands of which he wrote show how true he is in the tiniest detail; while his modesty is equally remarkable, for only by carefully noticing when he says "we"
and when "they" can we discover when he shared St. Paul"s dangers and trials.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VERY ANCIENT FRAGMENT OF A PAPYRUS ROLL, WITH PORTIONS OF THREE PSALMS WRITTEN IN GREEK]
"_Only Luke is with me_" (2 Timothy iv. 11) wrote the Apostle from his Roman prison. The beloved physician was faithful to his great leader to the last.
How did Luke write, and what did his two books look like when he had finished them? He wrote on papyrus--that is, on reed paper, using an ink like black paint, and a reed pen.
As far as we know no portions of the Bible-books of this date are left in the world, but in the beginning of the year 1911 a large number of very ancient fragments of Bible-books were discovered in Upper Egypt, and with these was part of a translation of Luke"s Book of the Acts--just shreds and tatters of fragile papyrus paper, the remains of what is up till now the oldest copy of the New Testament in the world.
Amongst the ancient ma.n.u.scripts kept in the British Museum are old old copies of Homer"s War poems, and here also are stored the precious fragments of the chronicles of that other great Greek writer--St. Luke.
Homer"s book belongs to the forgotten past, for the heathen religion of Greece is to-day as though it had never been.
But the writings of St. Luke are as full of blessing and power as ever, and the war he wrote about grows more wonderful every day. For Christ, the Son of G.o.d, came down from Heaven not to fight _against_ men as the false G.o.ds of the old Greeks were supposed to have done, but to fight and conquer _for_ men, to lift up the fallen, and to win for the victors a crown of deathless glory.
The Apostle Peter, in contrast to St. Luke, was only a fisherman when the Lord bade him leave his boat and his nets to preach and teach the Gospel.
His ideas were very limited when Jesus Christ first came into his life, and he knew little or nothing of the various branches of knowledge which had become a second nature to the Greek scholar; but the fisherman was to receive his education in a very different fashion from Luke, for his teacher was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
How impossible it would have seemed to Peter, in the days when he washed his nets by the Lake of Galilee, that his writings should ever form a part of the Scriptures--G.o.d"s Book, which he had learned from his childhood to love and reverence!
Yet with G.o.d all things are possible.
Not only did the Apostle Peter write a part of the Bible, but that short book known as the "First Epistle of Peter," is one of the most frequently mentioned by all the earliest Christian writers--those authors and teachers who had seen the Apostles, and had heard from their lips the story of the Saviour"s life on earth. Thus it is that Peter"s contribution to our Bible has become one of the strongest witnesses to the truth of the words written down in the Gospels. There is no possibility of a mistake; the man who wrote this Epistle could have been none other than the Apostle Peter who had been with the Lord from the beginning of His public work.
And it is very beautiful to trace throughout Peter"s writings the echoes of the great facts which he had seen, and which to the end of his days formed the background of all his thoughts.