"On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel,
took his seat
on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them.
The people kept crying out,
'The voice of a god and not of a man!'
And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give
God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died"
(Acts 12:22-23).
We all too easily forget that Scripture doesn't just point to
special moments when God revealed himself in history.
Scripture itself IS revelation. Josephus also speaks of Herod's death in Caesarea, but he doesn't mention an angel of the Lord, nor
the cause and effect relationship with
Herod's blasphemy.
No doubt, Josephus would have known about the worms,
but Luke's special knowledge
about an angel of the Lord and the connection of Herod's death
with his pride was supernatural revelation.
Luke knows what God revealed to him.
We don't study the Bible just to discover historical facts,
we study the Bible to discover the mind of God.
We are not interested only in what happened on an historical timeline.
We want to, in fact we must, know the meaning of history
from God's perspective
in order to discover our own purpose and meaning
in the 21st century!
"So we have the prophetic word made more sure,
to which you do well to pay attention as to a
lamp shining in a dark place,
until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
But know this first of all, that
no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by
an act of human will,
but men moved by
the Holy Spirit spoke from God"
(2 Pet 1:19-21).
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