One of the questions that have always agitated my mind about the authority of the Bible is: Did the various writers know they were writing the Scriptures when they were writing?
This is because if you look at the New Testament especially the epistles, they are just letters—letters written by a pastor to his former congregation. Or even the gospels; take Luke for example. It was a letter written by an historian to somebody whose identity is not even known. How come we have exalted such letters to such a glorified state we have placed them today? What makes Paul letter to Philemon for example different from a letter I write to my congregation in the Seychelles?
But then I discovered one thing: They didn’t know, but God knew! And thank God they didn’t know. Otherwise we would have seen them on the pages of those letters. Do you know that most of the books of the Bible did not even come with the names of their authors? That is to tell you something straightaway: It is not about them; it is all about HIM!
Had they known they were writing the Scripture they would have put lot of flesh in it—their own carnality. Had they known they were writing books that would go round the whole world; they would have at least left their imprints on them. They would have dressed it very well. They would have dated it. They would have embellished it. Thank God they didn’t know!
One of the amazing ways by which God works is that He hid His intention at the onset. The Psalmist understand this very well: Ps 10:1
Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Why does God hide Himself as it were? So that we can trust Him through the process; so that we can rely on Him and not depend on the arm of flesh.
At the beginning of the travail of Joseph, he thought it was his brothers that were behind his ordeal. He thought he was suffering from injustice. He thought he was suffering for nothing. Gen 40:15
15 For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon."
But at the end of the story, he knew better. Gen 45:4-5, 7
4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come close to me." When they had done so, he said, "I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
They didn’t know they were writing for God. They didn’t know they were being used by God. They didn’t know they were commissioned by God to do what they did. Like Esther, they didn’t know they were in the kingdom for such a time as theirs. They didn’t know there was a higher calling!
And I think that is how God deal with us most of the time. That is why the apostle Paul said in Rom 8:28
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. NASU
Maybe right now you are on assignment for God! Maybe what you are passing through right now has a higher purpose! Maybe it is for something bigger than you! Maybe history is in the making! Maybe it is not really about you! Maybe you are just a pawn in the hand of the Master! I think it is most likely so!
