Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Luke 24:25–27
After Jesus rose from the dead, He ministered comfort to two sad and discouraged disciples who were walking to a village called Emmaus. From the way they spoke, you could tell that they did not believe that Jesus would be resurrected.
They said that they were hoping that it was Jesus who was going to redeem Israel, so they were utterly discouraged when He was crucified. They were also astonished when certain women of their company, who had gone to Jesus’ tomb, told them that they could not find His body.
In today’s scripture, the two indictments that Jesus spoke to those disciples are the same ones He speaks to the body of Christ today. The first is that we are “foolish,” that is, we are suffering from ignorance and the lack of knowledge of and revelation from the Word of God. The second is that even when we do have knowledge of the Word, we are “slow of heart to believe.”
Now, our Lord Jesus is so loving that He would not just tell the disciples what their problem was without giving them the solution. So immediately, He began to expound the Scriptures.
He started at Moses, which refers to the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), before moving on to the rest of the Old Testament, which would include the major and minor prophets. He expounded to them “the things concerning Himself” in every single book, showing them pictures of Himself throughout the Scriptures. What a tremendous time of Bible study it must have been!
This tells us that the Bible is all about Jesus. Jesus is in the Old Testament concealed and in the New Testament revealed.
Jesus began to unveil to the disciples that He was the promised Seed in the Garden of Eden who would crush Satan’s head. He would have moved on to share about how each of the five Levitical offerings depicted different aspects of His one perfect work on the cross. He would have shared about the high priest and how the high priest’s garments spoke of Himself as our perfect representative before God.
Jesus would even have unveiled Himself in all the typologies embedded in the Old Testament stories. There are no insignificant details in the Bible and everything in it is there to point to Jesus.
In expounding the Scriptures to the two disciples, I believe that Jesus showed us how we are to study the Bible today. He does not want us to read the Bible to find out what to do and what not to do. He wants us to study the Bible to see Him and all the things in the Scriptures concerning Himself.
When you begin to see Jesus in every page of the Bible and to search out all the hidden gems and truths about Jesus, the Bible comes alive. Faith comes alive in your heart to strengthen your heart and to receive your breakthrough when you see your Savior and His saving grace toward His people.
Jesus’ solution for those who are “foolish” and “slow of heart to believe” is for them to study the Bible to see more of Him. At the end of the disciples’ journey, the Bible says that they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). My friend, when Jesus is unveiled in the Scriptures, our hearts will burn within us with the warmth of His love.
Whatever your need is today, whether it is physical, emotional, mental, social, or financial, your solution is found in a greater revelation of Jesus. When Jesus is unveiled in all His magnificence, the poor will experience provision, the weak will be made strong, and the sick will be healed.
I pray that you will make it your priority to read the Word and hear preaching that unveils the beauty and grace of your Savior. Your life, finances, marriage, and your entire household will be blessed beyond measure.
This devotional is taken from the book Reign in Life—90 Powerful Inspirations for Extraordinary Breakthroughs. Joseph Prince