When my website crashed, I learned quite a few lessons through the process of trying to get storiesofourboys.com back up. I am going to tell you all about it.

For eleven whole days, storiesofourboys.com was wiped off the face of the internet.

It started on January nineteenth. I woke up to error messages. I had no idea why. After twelve hours of trying to figure it out, I investigated my older wordpress.com version of Stories of Our Boys. Would you believe it? They said my bill was not paid for my domain.

Huh. Who knew?

I did pay the bill, but then I saw some odd activity on my bank account, and I reported it a couple of days before the website crashed. My thought was that for sure the bank will fix this little charge, and all will be well.

Ha! The bank fixed it all right. Turns out it was the fee for my website domain, and WordPress did not appreciate me taking their money away with a bank claim.

Oopsie daisies…my bad.

So WordPress snatched the old rug right out from under me.

Dear WordPress, a little note would have been nice. But I do see how this was also my fault. I should have investigated my bank claim further instead of jumping to conclusions.

The first day of the website crash, I was a miserable mess.

Then after that day of grief I was okay. I knew that if they wanted to help me, they could in fact help , and there would somehow be a way to fix this. Alan kept reminding me that if there were a crime, they would pull up my website like it was nothing.

I found that oddly reassuring.

Sure enough, eleven days later, Bluehost gave me a rescue, and restore my whole website to all of it’s January twelfth glory.

While I was snug in my bed, not thinking about my website at all, a nice person from Bluehost Escalated Support team restored a back-up of my site.

When I awoke this morning, I opened my email, and there was a message from Bluehost letting me know I am back online. Hurray!!

I do believe this calls for a celebration. For quite a few days, I worried ten years of work was down the drain, never to be seen again.

Last night my son Daniel said if I get my website back up, we have to celebrate with a soda and a red velvet cake. I agreed to it, so I guess I owe everyone a little party!

There are a few glitches left, mostly in the form of image loading. I will have to work on that, but at least my website is back!

Here are thirteen lessons I learned from this whole crashed website debacle:

(And honestly I probably learned more than just this.)

1. Make less hasty decisions. Stop and think things through. Don’t claim fraud on a bank charge unless you thoroughly look at it from every angle.

2. I need to take a computer science class, many computer science classes. There is so much more I need to know about website maintenance.

3. Sometimes $19 can get you in a lot of trouble.

4. SSL means secure sockets layer.

5. DNS means domain name system. (It is a little embarrassing that I did not know that before, but I never sat down and thought about it! I never needed to.)

6. You can call up the company you purchased your domain name from to get help when your domain is pointing to the wrong place, and they will fix it for you. Many thanks to mine! Wild West Domains customer support was excellent.

7. Bluehost is helpful. They are my friend.

I am only back up and running thanks to Bluehost. My computer has some back-up elements, but I do not even know where to upload them to. See? I need to go back to school.

All links to Bluehost on this page are now affiliate links because I now wholeheartedly believe in this company and endorse them. If you want to build a website, I do recommend Bluehost.

8. WordPress will swiftly punish you if you put a claim on their charge.

They do not play, nor do they send you a bill and give you an option to pay a different way to fix it as quickly as possible. I had no idea. It took many back and forths before they sent me a link to let me pay with a new method to reinstate my account.

9. WordPress uses automated computers to answer their email support. It worked only okay, so I’m just sharing this information.

10. Did I mention I am going to enroll in computer science 101? I have been building and maintaining my websites since 2013, and there is still too much I do not know that I would like to know.

11. Keep asking for help with the proper channels, and don’t give up.

Bluehost and I had several chats, knocking out one problem at a time. I am so thankful we did not give up.

12. Stay calm and kind during a work crisis. It makes it easier for others to help you.

This may be the first time in my life I was able to stay calm in any kind of crisis. It made a huge difference though. I was able to think more clearly and feel more like a grown-up. Each person I talked to at Bluehost and the domain place thanked me for my patience and kindness. It went a long way.

13. Eventually, God truly will fix your problem in your sleep. God is a refuge to us for real.

It reminds me of that time I prayed about the neighbor who I was avoiding, and God up and moved her across town! Prayer works, y’all. Prayer works.

This concludes my Ted Talk on what happened to me last week. Anyone want to go enroll in community college with me for some computer classes? I think it will be fun!

Thank you for your patience while I get everything all fixed back up. This was embarrassing to go through. I kept thinking about all the people checking my website and thinking I had hung up my blogging hat.

I’m still here, y’all! Thank you for sticking with me! Sorry for the weird problems. I hope you can learn from my mistakes!

If you have any tips for me on the topic of website care, feel free to share below in the comments!

The post So happy to be back! 13 Lessons from When My Website Crashed appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Starting a new school in a new land is harder than I anticipated, but I felt like day 2 actually went very well for all the boys.

School started back yesterday. 

This was an exciting event that I’d finished in high gloss and framed in my mind as a victorious day ushering in a new era for me.

Without a single pre-schooler following me around I will have a spotless house, serve gourmet dinners, volunteer at their school, and run wild and free through grassy meadows.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

High expectations. I love to do that to myself.

Three years ago, my heart began to give me trouble, so I saw a cardiologist, and she told me not to exercise until we’d figured out what was going on with my heart.

We’ve never fully figured out what is causing my v-tach episodes, but they gave me back my freedom to exercise. Phew!

That lasted for about 6 months, and then my general practitioner took away my exercise again. “Only exercise in water. Otherwise, your joints are going to get worse and worse.”

Limitations. I hate them. Who doesn’t?

Anyway, am I not too young for such physical limitations and too old to have silly, unrealistic expectations?

For two years, I did not exercise. Occasionally, I’d rebel, suffer the pain of it, and reform. Meanwhile, my weight packed on at lightning speed.

I’ve come to see myself as this overweight, tired lady with a ticking-time-bomb heart and deflated dreams.

Lovely, eh? That’s disgruntled, disappointed, low self-esteem at its best.

But this hope of having a whole 6.5 hours/day to accomplish things alone drove me.

“I can lose the weight.”

“I can walk so much and do so many weight-bearing exercises (with small weights) that I can’t possibly mess it up with chocolate chip cookies.”

“Alan will love how clean the house is, and he will be impressed with me.”

“My blog will thrive again because I will have so much time to pour into it.”

“The sky’s the limit! I can do anything I want!”

“I’ll finally go get that MRI I was supposed to get a month ago and show the cardiologist how good my heart is doing.”

Some of these thoughts are healthy, I think. You gotta have drive to get through life, ya know?

And yet, you know what is inevitable with hopes of this sort? Disappointment. Problems. Unmet expectations.

Back to school day one wasn’t even over before Daniel developed strep throat. So guess who isn’t at home slaying all these accomplishments today? Me.

Daniel said, “No, I just want to sit in here with you, on the sofa.”

For 5 hours, I basically just sat with Daniel and cuddled on the couch. We watched Ninjago and Peter Rabbit and looked at old family photos of vacations at Legoland and the beach.

I still enjoyed it, but normally I would’ve cherished it so much more because I wouldn’t have had all these unmet goals in my head.

So no, today I did not impress my husband or anyone else for that matter. I have no idea what we will be eating for dinner. I actually fell asleep in Daniel’s bed around 1pm and woke up to see a giant block tower with farm fences built beside the bed and Daniel downstairs playing the x-box.

If I don’t get strep throat myself, it’s a miracle. Plus, I’m playing chauffeur tonight, which I rather despise, so I’m dreading that.

But God knew this all along, didn’t he? He knew my freedom would have a brief interlude. He knew I’d make grand plans that would fill me with disappointment when they came crashing down in front of me.

It’s actually serving as a good reminder to me, though it doesn’t feel like anything “good,” because I so desperately wanted to be wonderfully productive this week.

The thing is life isn’t about accomplishments, exercise, to do lists, or gourmet meals. Life is about love and people. That’s what life is about.

Yes, you heard it. I am DEFINING life right here on my little, low-traffic blog!!  And I dare you to argue with me. Ha! Because this time I’m right. (Maybe just this once, okay?)

Life is about love and people, so when you look at it this way, perhaps I am a smashing, unexpectedly amazing success after all because that is exactly what this day was about. Love and Daniel, and he is a person.

Just look at your life through that lens when it feels like you don’t have an accomplishment to your name. What’s success anyway, if it isn’t about love?

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.    1 Corinthians 13: 1-3

You might think, “No, April. Love and God.”

Well, yes, but if you love God then you must love people. You SHOULD love God most of all, but you should display that by loving his people. How can any of us love God, who we can’t see, if we don’t love people, who are right in front of us?

After all that’s what the Bible teaches:

Thus I am reminded to be content, no more like empowered, to show love and maybe only achieve 1 or 2 things from my list, or maybe none at all. I can work on this list any day at all, but Daniel needs me TODAY.

I hope you’re having a good day too, loving God and people. I’ll bet you’re way more of a smashing success than you think you are!

The post Disappointments and Limitations: Starting a New School in a New State appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

***This post is part of the series The Real Army Wives of Fort Hood. A new chapter appears each Monday….Okay, well I aim for Monday anyway! Enjoy! Click here for last week’s post.***

I am telling this particular story from my own faulty memory. Facts are as recalled, not necessarily completely accurate.

While most of us were digging in to the second half of the year-long deployment, Sarah was preparing to welcome her husband Zack home from the war. Then they were planning to immediately exit the Army and move down to San Antonio, where they were from.

Bless her. Sarah was dealing with all of these enormous life changes, and none of us had a clue as to how to relate. Sarah had a large support network that included not only our group but many other in-town friends, as well as sisters she was close to, her parents down in San Antonio, and our Sunday School class.

Have I mentioned that somewhere along the way Sarah started going to church with me too? Cloe and Sarah both went to First Baptist Killeen with me. In fact, that’s where we met Kayla.

Sarah, 2003, hanging in my living room. Kitty was in the background, and judging by the pumpkin on the porch, it was October.

First Baptist was a traditional church in downtown Killeen. It’s still a church, but they moved to another campus years later.  Traditional Baptist churches have an hour of Sunday school, followed by an hour-long service of singing and preaching. It’s all I’ve ever known, but I know that many denominations do church differently.

Well, that first hour of Sunday school was balm to our souls that year!

Not only did we get together and listen to a lesson. It was ever SO much more than that! We had a class of around 40 people, half of which were spouses of deployed soldiers. Our class teachers were Jerry and Wanda Lewis. They were ever so much more than teachers! They were our parents away from home.

Jerry and Wanda made it about more than listening to a lesson. We all sat in a gigantic circle. Then we all went around and said our names because there were always new faces amongst us. Usually we’d tell our names and answer a random question, like “Which is better, cake or pie?”

There was a prayer request time too. Many teachers hesitate to have one because people talk too long, with too many details, and it takes away from their amount of time to lecture, but it was part of what made this class great.

We were sharing our burdens with each other every Sunday morning.

Ashley, me, and Wanda (I wish I had a photo with Jerry in it too!)

The lessons were good too, full of sound teaching, but it was the LOVE I remember the most. Having a whole group of people who want to know your name and whether you think football is more interesting than baseball–a whole group of people who will listen when you say that your husband was in a convoy attack and you are praying for the safety of the troops with renewed gusto.

Jerry and Wanda, along with my friends Theresa and Ashley (who were also in this class) didn’t make it only a Sunday morning thing either. They designated Theresa and Ashley to put together gatherings once a month, you know, game nights, progressive dinners, and such. They’d open their homes to us, and we’d just gather.

Wanda also made a regular habit of calling those of us she felt needed it and checking in on us. Talk about making you feel special!

Greg, Ashley, and Suzanne at Wanda’s house playing Bunco: You can see how much fun we had. ****All names of current service members and their families are changed in all of my posts.****

In this way, we weren’t just talking about how God cares for each one of us. We are actually being his ears and arms and heart to each other. This is true fellowship. It’s how the church should function.

Classes like this are how souls are saved.

Sarah was one of those souls. She had grown up Catholic, and she already believed in God. But there were so many questions she wasn’t sure about. When you go through classes and get baptized on the Church’s timeline, it can be easy for their schedule to not match your own heart and head. Maybe you heard all of the lessons, but it never translated to a salvation experience in your heart. That’s how it was for Sarah.

In Jerry and Wanda’s class and in examining the scriptures for herself, Sarah came to a saving knowledge of Jesus. She believed and prayed for Jesus to save her and be the Lord of her life.

I remember her telling us about getting saved. We were sitting in my living room when she told us, and I recall that she said she’d talked to Wanda about it. I was just so pleased and excited for her.

Is there anything more encouraging to your own faith than when you see someone else’s blossom? What a blessing!

Katherine and Sarah at our Christmas dinner at my house

Sometimes it takes a hard time to bring us to a place of faith. We were certainly in the trial of deployment, but Sarah had even more than hard times driving her to her knees. She had a group of encouraging friends walking down the paths of life beside her. It’s easier to find faith, hope, and love when you’re surrounded by that kind of positivity.

You may wonder how Sarah is doing now and if I ever hear from her. I’m sad to tell you that while I figure she’s doing well, we aren’t really in touch. I can’t find her on Facebook anymore, and I haven’t seen her since 2006, right after we’d both had babies just months apart.

I do know that there were many hard times ahead for Sarah, as Zack left her and the baby soon after he returned from the war. However, Sarah went on to have two more children and was always a grounded, mature person with a strong close-knit family there in Texas. I can guarantee you Sarah persevered and is raising a beautiful family.

Sarah, if you read this, email me– or call me. My number never changed!

*****

I know that this topic of belief and faith in God and finding salvation in Jesus can leave many people with questions, so I want to end by saying that if you have any questions, feel free to comment below or email me: storiesofourboys@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

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A rare snow day in Georgia! Caleb wisely decided to get out there before it all melted, which it all did, by 8:30 am.

I’ve been enjoying reading in the Old Testament lately. This morning I was reading about how Joseph died and the next Pharaoh didn’t know Joseph, but he certainly noticed the ever-growing size of their population of Hebrews.

“Immigrants.” It’s a problem as old as the ages, and yet we have all either had ancestors who were immigrants or have been immigrants ourselves. Immigrants– Outsiders– people who are different than the rest.

Pharaoh decided to do away with them slowly by killing off the baby boys, as they were born, so he called in the two midwives–see women have always had more power than we realized–and asked them to kill all the boy Hebrew babies.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that story, but what about Exodus 1:20-21, where it mentions what God did for the midwives as a result of their faithfulness in not killing the babies.

“Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives…And it came to pass because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.”

The King James Version says He made them houses. The New International Version says God blessed them with families of their own. The two are in agreement. The KJV just says it in the Old English way, which I sometimes misunderstand and need to read a more modern English version.

John David’s gingerbread house. I had the most fun making this with him!

But I take great comfort in this reminder from Exodus 1:20-21. When we honor God in our choices, he blesses us.

Sometimes the blessings take time, like how Joseph was sold into slavery and ended up in prison, but he worked his way out. In due time, God blessed him over-abundantly, putting him in charge of all of Egypt and reuniting him with his family.

God does bless our faithful actions.

drawing candy canes

And that makes me think of Christmas, the time of the birth of Jesus, because this gift blesses our faithfulness with the hope of salvation.

So I’ll try not to stress too terribly much about the gifts and the money because that’s not what this is about, is it?

It’s about God blessing us–the whole world– with faith, hope, and love, a baby born on Christmas day to save the world from punishment. There is now no condemnation for those who believe.

Merry Christmas!

The post God Blesses the Faithful appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

***Ad disclosure: This post contains links to Crystal Paine e-courses. I do earn a profit when you sign up for these courses.***

I can be a serious stress ball. If there’s a problem, it’s a “crisis.” When things go wrong, I feel like it’s all my fault. Self-chastisement is my specialty.

Getting the kids off to school in the morning is my #1 flip-out trigger. If you don’t believe that I am capable of total lunacy, you have clearly not seen me on a morning when someone’s shoes are missing, someone wouldn’t get out of bed on time, someone doesn’t have a clean Batman shirt, and another someone is taking 45 minutes to eat their ever-loving cereal!!!

Just ask Alan, Jennings, my parents, Alan’s parents, or any of my old roommates. They’ve all seen it.

Can I change the core of who I am? Eh…..

Can you re-program yourself to have a calmer head in tense situations? Hmmmmm

So many times I’ve said:

“I promise I will do better.”

“I will try really hard to not flip out again.”

But once the chaos tornado of life starts to swoop me up into a stress ball, I go right back to my old patterns.

Are you with me? Do any of you struggle with this, or even with something else, that no matter how hard you try to “do better”, you don’t?

What does the Bible say about this?

The Bible says that God is the one who can help us with our sin problems, things like anger, self-control, impurity, slander, jealousy, and the list goes on and on and on.

How? How can He help us???

James, the brother of Jesus, said it really well in the book of James, chapter 4, 6 through 8:

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

That inner voice of self-condemnation that follows you around saying,

“Look what a failure you are because you did not lay out your kids’ clothes last night.”

“You are awful for not being more on top of this. Get your act together.”

and

“You are such a mess. Why didn’t you teach your kids better? Why are you so disorganized?”

That is not from God!! That is from the enemy of God. We all have both good and bad warring within us. I think Paul put it best when he said:

18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. 20And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.…   Romans 7:18-20

So how do we increase our good and decrease our inner stress ball???

By combatting our lack of faith by drawing near to God. Flipping out is really just a sign that we are lacking faith in that moment.

Seek him in the morning, during the day, and again at night.

How do we seek him?

The first step is to open the Bible, and read about Him. Pray about what you read. Ask for understanding.

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

Once you have sought him enough that he is even in the front of your mind in the heat of the stress-ball moments, you can PRAY through your frustration for help with this, in the middle of your unraveling.

We’re not just talking about praying for your aunt’s injured toe. Pray about your problem!! Pray for calm when things are hard. Seek his help in combatting your explosive reactions to stress specifically.

I have seen it work. God is faithful. He will help you.

And when you forget–because you will sometimes forget, pick yourself up. Seek him. Try again.

We don’t have to solve these problems on our own. Our God is more than big enough to help us. Give him a chance to help you.

Do you have a stress-ball strategy that helps you that you’d like to share with us? We’d love to read those in the comment section below. Thank you so much for sharing!

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The post How To Overcome Your Stress Ball Ways appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Destination: Nazareth

These photos of Nazareth depict the shop where Joseph worked as a stone carver (carpenter). We also see the Church of the Annunciation, which features artworks of Mary and Jesus from all over the world.

This was one of the most exciting places to visit in Israel because we learned more about the family of Jesus and where they came from. I mean Nazareth is famous to all church-goers!

***Disclosure: All ads on this site are affiliate links, to help April buy nice things…***

We have 4 posts left in this Israel series: Nazareth, Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, and What to Wear When Touring Israel.

Today let’s see the photos of Nazareth!!

Alan was able to join me for one last day of touring. We could not have been more excited to hop on that bus and head to Nazareth. This part of the town where the churches are located was a largely Muslim area. There is another part of Nazareth where the Jews live.

My day was off to an uplifting start.

Our first stop was a gift shop, where the store manager instructed his employee to give me a special discount for having such pretty blue eyes. Yes, flattery does work on me. I thoroughly enjoyed the compliment, but I didn’t actually buy anything.

I usually count my photos as my best souvenirs.

The Church of the Annunciation, also in Nazareth, had these beautiful murals of Mary with Jesus. Countries from all over the world each sent one.

from France

Why was Nazareth important?

Nazareth is where Jesus lived with his parents after they returned from hiding from King Herod in Egypt. It is also where Mary received the news that she would bear a son, the child of God, who would be called Emmanuel.

Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”       John 1:46

Did you know that Jesus visited Nazareth twice in his ministry, and was unwelcome both times?

In fact, once they tried to stone him there, but he got away.

“And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples followed him. 2And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. 4But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. 5And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6And he marveled because of their unbelief.”          ~Mark 6:1-6

The importance of the church of the Annunciation is that it is where Gabriel visited Mary.

“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth,”              Luke 1:26

Y’all, this area is extremely hilly, mountainous, and most of all BUMPY!

My Fitbit gave me credit for like 200 flights of stairs. No, I didn’t climb anywhere near that many, but apparently if you ride on an extremely rough road at a slow enough speed, the Fitbit believes you are mountain climbing.

The Sermon on the Mount mountain was not actually in Nazareth. We saw it during the van ride.

You can imagine my dismay when my camera could not handle the strong Israeli outlets.

My real camera was my photography tool of choice. I was extra careful to charge it before we left the hotel. The powerful outlet charged it super-fast, but what it actually did was fry my battery.

My camera battery died as soon as we reached the churches at the top of the hill. This may sound overly dramatic, but I totally wanted to cry over the fact that the rest of these photos are iPhone 5 quality, indoors. Sad, sad, sadness!!!

More Nazareth Photos:

I do not recall much more to tell you about these, but this is what it looked like:

“And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

25And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. 26And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. 27And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. 28And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

Mark 1:23-28

The next place we went was Capernaum, and y’all, it was our FAVORITE.

The synagogue, referenced in the Bible, where Jesus taught and performed miracles, is still there. You can see it.

Yes, there’s a newer synagogue on top of it, which is so old, even it is from the 4th century AD, but they’ve excavated so that you can see the ruins of the entire town from the days of Jesus and his disciples.

Capernaum was the town that was the most spiritually moving to me, and I’m going to tell you all about it here.

Want to see more of my Israel trip? Here are a few of the other Israeli places I blogged about:

Jerusalem: Where Jesus was Crucified

Jaffa: One of the Oldest Seaports in the World

Or you can buy my whole ebook on the trip! I included full color photos and stories from every place we saw.

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The post 40 Photos of Nazareth: Where Joseph, Mary, and Jesus lived appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

If someone asked you why you believe the Bible, would you know what to tell them??

How do you know the Bible is reliable? Why do you believe it?

This is important, y’all. Faith is paramount, but people need some reasons behind that faith. These days most people are not educated about the Bible. I’m going to do the best I can to re-tell the excellent illustration that Pastor Craig Bowers used to show just how reliable the Bible is.

Jar illustration

This jar illustration shows how many separate ancient manuscripts exist of the Bible as opposed to the works of Julius Caesar, Plato, or Aristotle. And yet, which one do naysayers question?

Do you see those first few jars on the left? Those represent how many ancient writings we have found from Julius Caesar, Plato, or Aristotle. We have 10 remaining copies of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars. That’s the 1st jar.

Plato had a handful of letters that remained. That’s the 2nd jar.

Aristotle has 49 copies remaining, and the oldest one of those was copied 1400 years after Aristotle died. 

Does anyone question these tiny jars of writings? No.

You see the 1 jar to the left of the Bible that is full of packing peanuts? That one represents Homer’s works. Most of these were recorded ages after Homer was long gone. But no one questions the validity of these documents. These are great stories. No problem.

Do you see those stacks and stacks of Sam’s size jars of packing peanuts to the right of the Bible?? Those represent how many ancient copies have been found of the Bible, in miraculous agreement with each other. There are over 24,000 copies. Over 24,000!!!

Over 5,000 ancient “Greek manuscripts from the New Testament alone still exist today.” (source 2, page 18)

The Dead Sea Scrolls were written between 200 BC and 68 AD and are the same as the manuscripts we have today.

By 200 AD, the Bible was already translated into 7 different languages.

500 AD–13 languages

900–17 languages

1400–28 languages

And remember, this is all long before the invention of the printing press in 1440.

The Bible itself was written by eye-witness accounts, eye-witness accounts who had other witnesses to hold them accountable for telling the truth.

This was so real to these apostles that 10 out of 12 of them died a martyr’s death for this cause. What were they killed for? Simply for preaching the gospel. Jesus saves. Trust in Jesus. They never hurt a soul. In fact, they healed many people.

The Bible doesn’t have a leg to stand on, it has at least 24,000 legs to stand on. The evidence is overwhelming. 

And that’s not all!! There are countless other writings and archaeological finds from antiquity that support the stories in the Bible. There are stories of the flood, stories of the Exodus, and the list goes on and on.

People don’t disbelieve the Bible because the evidence isn’t there. The evidence is everywhere. People disbelieve because either they are ignorant or because their hearts are hardened to the truth.

As believers, it is also our responsibility to know WHY we believe. I hope you found reassurance in these facts today.

13This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ 14In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.…    Matthew 13:13-14

For God so loved the world he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.  John 3:16

Sources:

1.) Sermon notes from Craig Bowers, Jan. 15, 2017. You can follow him on this recently launched YouTube channel.

2.) Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Time Lines, 2015, pages 10-11, 48-49

3.) 25 Fascinating Facts About the Dead Sea Scrolls 

4.) The Holy Bible, NIV

5.) The Holy Bible, KJV

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