Word!

Luke 24:25-27
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

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These two disciples have just explained to Jesus all the things they saw and experienced before Jesus had been crucified and killed. And when they are finished, Jesus doesn’t say anything about all the things they had personally seen or heard. He rebukes them for being slow in their hearts to understand and accept all that the Old Testament says about the Messiah.

They couldn’t believe that the Messiah would be one to suffer such torture and then be killed, even after he had gained such notoriety, but Jesus goes through all the Scriptures even back to Moses to explain how all of that was written clearly throughout the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. Jesus also told a story of a rich man and a poor man who both died - one went to torment, the other to Abraham. In this example Abraham tells the rich man in torment that the Word of God is enough to show people how to avoid damnation (Luke 16:29-31).

Even if we see signs and wonders, our faith is grounded in what is written. If we are slow to believe God's word, we won't understand the miraculous things we see. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17). So often I find myself wanting to see more of God's miracles, and yet today I feel the sense that even if I never saw anything I hoped to see, his word is enough.

It really drives home reading God's word on a daily basis. If I am slow to read the word, I will be slow to believe all that the word says.