Bible, Inspiration of
The Bible's accurate depiction of distant cultures proves its divine inspiration.
A few years ago, a young African addressed Mr. Johnson, a missionary, in language like this: "Massa, them words you talk last night strike very much. When you preach, you read the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the forty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, and explain them, you show me how our country people stand. Me say, 'Ah, who tell massa all this? he never been in my country.' You say, 'Do not your country people live in that fashion?' I say, Yes, that true: God knows all things; he put them things in the Bible. Massa, I so sure that the Bible is God's word, for man cannot put the things in there, because he no see it. That time I live with a man that make greegree. He take me into the bush, and teach me to make greegree too. He show me a tree: he say that greegree. He take country axe, and cut some of that tree. He make a God; and he take the leaves, and that which was left, and give me to carry home. When he come home he made a fire, and all the people come and sit round the fire. Then they cook and eat. When they done eat, the man take the leaves of the greegree tree, and burn them in the fire; and then all the people stand round the fire, and clap their hands, and cry, 'Aha! aha!' Massa, when you read this verse, I can't tell you what I feel. You then begin to talk about the text, 'He feedeth on ashes,' and I was struck again; for when they done cry 'Aha! aha!' they take the ashes, and make medicine: 'they give to the people when they be sick.' You been see some greegree which look like dirt; that is the same ashes: they carry that round them neck, and they eat it sometimes. You see, massa, our countrymen feed upon ashes. For true, the Bible God's word."