![]() Rather, they kill Jesus for bearing witness to God’s Kingdom, that is, for being a mártus. Even the nation’s leaders won’t listen to him. But many others still refuse to truly see. Many recognize who he is and respond to his message. They see Jesus healing people, even restoring sight to the blind 10. Crowds of people witness him saying that he’s bringing God’s Kingdom-that it’s here, right now, through him. He is the ultimate witness, or in Greek, the mártus. Jesus and his Companions Īnd now, when we turn to the story of Jesus, we find him claiming to be that Servant and witness spoken of by Isaiah 9. He will open the eyes of the blind so that they can truly see Yahweh and bear witness to the nations that their God is the King who will rescue the world 8. So Isaiah says that one day God will raise up the ultimate chief witness-a figure called the Servant. And he’s sent to uwd-to bear witness-to the Israel of his day because they’re blind, they’re corrupt, and they don’t recognize God as their King 7. Like Isaiah, he has a vision of God as the cosmic King 6. So God raises up prophets, who are like Moses, to uwd-to open their eyes to who their God really is. They fail to truly see God, so they fail as his witnesses. The Prophets as Witnesses īut as the story goes on, Israel does forget. He even writes a song as a witness, so that they would never forget how God has cared for and rescued them 5. When he comes down, he uwds-he bears witness-to the people about his experience. When Moses meets with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, he sees and experiences God face to face. So God raises up a chief witness, Moses, to uwd, or bear witness, to the people who are supposed to be the real witnesses. ![]() ![]() In fact, they start worshiping other gods 4. He calls them a kingdom of priests, or people who connect all other nations to Yahweh, the true God and King.īut there’s a big problem. Then he appoints this one nation to bear witness, or uwd, to the rest of the nations about what they experienced 3. So beginning with the story of the Exodus, the people of Israel witness Yahweh as the powerful King of the nations when he rescues them from slavery 2. Now, if we follow this idea throughout the Bible, we learn that God wants a group of witnesses-people who see and experience him-to uwd, or represent, him to the world. So that’s the basic meaning of the word witness. So that if there’s a later dispute about the land, they can bear witness about what they saw 1. So in the story of Ruth, when Boaz buys land from Naomi’s family, he calls together witnesses to see the transaction. And if this person begins to share what they’ve seen, we call this “bearing witness,” in Hebrew, uwd, and in Greek, marturéo. In Hebrew, this person is an eid and in Greek a mártus. In the Bible, a witness is basically someone who sees something important or amazing. This word actually helps us understand the entire storyline of Scripture. The word witness is used like this in the Bible too. When you hear the word witness, you might think of someone who sees something shocking or important and then shares their testimony with others.
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