Using Our Guide Aright

March 2024

The Regiomontanus almanac, spanning the years 1475-1506, served as an indispensable tool for explorers, offering precise astronomical data crucial for navigation. predicting star positions, comet sightings, and solar/lunar eclipses, it enabled ships to chart courses across the Seven Seas. Its absence often led to navigational errors, jeopardizing voyages, and lives. Conversely, armed with this almanac, countless explorers, including Christopher Columbus, ventured beyond known routes into uncharted waters, shaping history.

Columbus, utilizing the almanac on his first three voyages to the New World, encountered setbacks on his fourth due to ship damage. stranded in Jamaica, he used the almanac to predict a lunar eclipse that the almanac predicted on Leap Day 1504, convincing the locals of his divine connection. By leveraging their belief in God’s wrath, he secured provisions until rescue could arrive.

While the almanac guided explorers through physical realms, as missionaries, our certain guide is the inspired Word of God. It not only directs our journey through treacherous ways among the unreached nations, but also instructs our missionary activity upon arrival. Psalm 32:8 says: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”

To spread the Gospel effectively, we must venture beyond familiar paths, yet always with integrity and truthfulness. May we ever be as committed to using our Guide aright as we are in going with the Gospel light!

Plodding together,

 

 

 

GFF General Director