“Christ died for our sins… and… rose again… and… He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once…” (1 Cor. 15:3-6).
This mass-sighting of our risen Savior reminds me of a story I heard recently regarding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. There were over 500 people in Ford’s Theater the night in which the president was slain, and one of them later talked about what he saw that day on television. Samuel J. Seymour was 5 years old that night in 1865, and in 1956 he appeared on the television game show “I’ve Got a Secret” That means he testified to what he witnessed that fateful night for 91 years.
And that means that some of the 500 witnesses who saw the risen Christ told their story to the members of their generation for the better part of the next century. Imagine the impact they had in the lives of countless others during those many years.
Now how ‘bout you? Do you testify to the Lord’s resurrection? The testimony of those 500 brethren now lies silent in the grave. If you don’t witness that “Jesus our Lord…was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:24,25), then the story of His saving grace will go unheard among the members of your generation. Imagine how many people you can reach in your life if you just start now.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.