By Daniel out of the Lion's Den ~
My mother claims that when she was four years old, she floated down a staircase. Astonished by this feat, she ran to the neighborhood children to tell them about her amazing achievement. Some were skeptical, and demanded that she repeat the event in their presence. The crowd gathered in her house as she climbed to the top of the stairs. She stood there trying as hard as she could to launch into the super-human glide that she was certain occurred just minutes beforehand. But nothing happened. As the naysayers began to dispersed, she exclaimed, “You have to eat a lot of carrots!”
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.” This biblical axiom is scattered through the Old and New Testaments. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s actually not a bad rule. Certainly, in modern courts of law, when more than one witness independently corroborate a story, the story is given credence and becomes believable. In the Bible, this rule is the premise for excommunication, defrocking, and capital punishment. Yet, this foundation for establishing truth is trampled underfoot in almost every occasion related to the most important circumstances in all of scripture – the interactions between the God and man.
No other person heard the voice that told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, then not to kill him, or the argument he had with God about finding a righteous man in Sodom & Gomorrah, or any of the other messages that Abraham received from God or angels. That’s rather damning for the founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam…
No other person heard or saw the burning bush where the voice of God commissioned Moses to become the deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt. No other person heard or saw God deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. No other person saw God pass by Moses while he hid behind a rock.
No other person heard God tell Noah to build an ark. No other person actually saw a whale swallow - then subsequently vomit out - Jonah. No other person heard God tell Solomon to ask for anything he desired. Certainly, anytime a prophet communicated with God, it was a one-on-one conversation. Even the angelic messages to Mary and Joseph were delivered individually to each. No one else saw or heard the conversation between Paul and glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus.
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.”This observation is not confined to biblical accounts. I can think of no account ever provided by preachers, evangelists, missionaries, apostles, and overly zealous Christians when a message from God was delivered and witnessed by more than one person.
No other person heard God tell Oral Roberts that he would die if he didn’t raise 13 million dollars. Whenever Jimmy Swaggart, Ken Copeland, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell or Ernest Angley started a sentence with, “God told me…” then it’s a safe bet that no other person heard this conversation. This observation can even be extended to the angel Gabriel delivering the Quran to Mohammed, the angel Moroni giving golden plates to Joseph Smith, or when Mother Mary appeared to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France in 1858. There was no other person present during these events.
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses…” You would have at least thought that something as incredulous as God writing the Ten Commandments in stone with his finger would have been important enough to do in front of a crowd. None of these people are to be believed. I don’t even believe my own mother. If two or three of those neighborhood children would have witnessed my mother float down that staircase, what might have been…
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.” This biblical axiom is scattered through the Old and New Testaments. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s actually not a bad rule. Certainly, in modern courts of law, when more than one witness independently corroborate a story, the story is given credence and becomes believable. In the Bible, this rule is the premise for excommunication, defrocking, and capital punishment. Yet, this foundation for establishing truth is trampled underfoot in almost every occasion related to the most important circumstances in all of scripture – the interactions between the God and man.
No other person heard the voice that told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, then not to kill him, or the argument he had with God about finding a righteous man in Sodom & Gomorrah, or any of the other messages that Abraham received from God or angels. That’s rather damning for the founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam…
No other person heard or saw the burning bush where the voice of God commissioned Moses to become the deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt. No other person heard or saw God deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. No other person saw God pass by Moses while he hid behind a rock.
No other person heard God tell Noah to build an ark. No other person actually saw a whale swallow - then subsequently vomit out - Jonah. No other person heard God tell Solomon to ask for anything he desired. Certainly, anytime a prophet communicated with God, it was a one-on-one conversation. Even the angelic messages to Mary and Joseph were delivered individually to each. No one else saw or heard the conversation between Paul and glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus.
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.”This observation is not confined to biblical accounts. I can think of no account ever provided by preachers, evangelists, missionaries, apostles, and overly zealous Christians when a message from God was delivered and witnessed by more than one person.
No other person heard God tell Oral Roberts that he would die if he didn’t raise 13 million dollars. Whenever Jimmy Swaggart, Ken Copeland, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell or Ernest Angley started a sentence with, “God told me…” then it’s a safe bet that no other person heard this conversation. This observation can even be extended to the angel Gabriel delivering the Quran to Mohammed, the angel Moroni giving golden plates to Joseph Smith, or when Mother Mary appeared to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France in 1858. There was no other person present during these events.
“At the mouth of two or three witnesses…” You would have at least thought that something as incredulous as God writing the Ten Commandments in stone with his finger would have been important enough to do in front of a crowd. None of these people are to be believed. I don’t even believe my own mother. If two or three of those neighborhood children would have witnessed my mother float down that staircase, what might have been…
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