Pastor Khankham committed the worship service to the Lord in prayer. After an uplifting praise and worship session, ordained elder Khamgoupau dedicated the offerings to the Lord. JH Ginmung made an announcement regarding offerings for the Christmas feast. Thereafter, Pastor Lamkhanthang welcomed the first timers to the church.
The speaker, Rev. Kumam Suresh Singh read out Colosians 3:16 and urge the congregation to let the Word of God dwell richly in their hearts. He then expounded on the reliability of the New Testament and as compared to other literatures. Some of the important points highlighted by him are as follows:-
- Over 5000 partial or whole manuscripts of the New Testament books today.
- Nearly 100 papyri manuscripts found, many dating between 2nd and 4th centuries.
- Nearly 300 uncial manuscripts date from the 4th to 10th century .
- Minuscules (small) or cursives made appearance by the 10th century.
- Nearly 2000 Lectionaries ( manuscripts of weekly or special scripture reading lessons with selected portion of scripture in church services) in cursives and about 300 in uncials/square letters
- 115 papyri, the earliest manuscripts - all written on reeds called papyrus (all before 200 AD)
- Papyrus 46 or P46 is a papyrus Bible manuscripts from about 125-150 CE. It contains most of Paul’s epistles
- Earliest papyri manuscripts called P52 contains few verses from John 18. Scholars date this manuscript ca. 125 AD
- Quotation of Scriptures by the early church fathers
- Copy of 1 Corinthians in the archives of the Roman church and copies of other New Testament writings as well by AD 95.
The evidence for the original text of the New Testament is provided mainly by-
- Early manuscripts of the New testament in its original language (Greek)
- Early translations or versions of the New Testament in other languages from the readings of which we can often infer the underlying Greek
- Quotations from the New Testament in the works of ancient authors
- Lectionaries in which passages of scripture were arranged for systematic reading in church services
The speaker also touch upon errors that crept in while copying the manuscripts, misprints in some editions, major English translations, philosophies of translation and the New Testament Text Families namely, Alexandrian, Caesarean, Byzantine, Western (primarily Rome). In view of the inevitable accumulation of errors over so many centuries, it may be thought that the original texts of the New Testament documents have been corrupted beyond restoration. However, there is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament. He illustrated this by comparing it with Caesar’s Gallic War, Roman History of Livy, Histories of Tacitus, The History of Herodotus and the History of Thucydides.
Frederick Kenyon, the greatest authority in the field of New Testament textual criticisms wrote as under:
“It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen Scriptures, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God”.
Responding to whether the Paite Bible is reliable or inspired, the speaker explained that only autograph (original written by the author) is inspired. However, it is a translation of carefully preserved copies and is absolutely reliable. The Paite Bible agrees on every article of Christian belief and practice.
Led by the worship team, the congregation sang the last hymn and ordained elder Kamsuanthang closed the service with a benediction.
