When I was a child most Bibles looked alike and most were the King James translation. The Bible was easily recognizable- a black leather cover stamped with the words Holy Bible wrapped around gold edged, incredibly thin paper pages. It was a revered possession in my childhood home. In a similar way that there are rules for handling the American flag out of respect for what it stands for, my daddy had Bible handling rules. You didn't set the Bible down on the floor. You didn't stack other objects on top of the Bible. I wonder what my daddy would think of my journaling Bible that I write, draw and color in! The truth is, I'm a lot less concerned with how carefully we physically treat our Bibles, and a lot more concerned about how we treat the Bible as the Word of God. Sadly, we live in an age when, even in the church, we think that what we think about what the Bible means is exalted above finding out what God Himself says it means. We think we can ignore the parts that make us uncomfortable or that go against the current cultural mindset. We have lost our reverence for God's Word in a much more serious way than setting a cup of coffee on it's cover - we have lost our reverence for its words, for embracing it as God breathed truth, for honoring it as our plumb line for living.
When we reverence the Bible for what it is, when we welcome it and receive it into our mind and heart as the very Word of God, it can do its effective, supernatural work in our lives.
And we also [especially] thank God continually for this, that when you received the message of God [which you heard] from us, you welcomed it not as the word of [mere] men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, which is effectually at work in you who believe [exercising its superhuman power in those who adhere to and trust in and rely on it].
1 Thessalonians 2:13
God wants His Word to speak to us, to be a living and active powerful word in our lives. He wants His Word to enlighten us and show us the truth about, not only Who God is, but who we are. His Word can show us the truth about ourselves.
For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes ofthe heart.
Hebrews 4:12
I fear that there is a loss of reverence for God's Word in our day. However, even history confirms to us that in spite of the fact that evil men have tried to dismiss or even to destroy God's Word, it has continued to stand. In spite of the rise and fall of evil empires, the attempts of demonic dictators to stamp it out, the twisting it and misusing it and abusing it by the wicked, even our own efforts to reason away the parts that make us uncomfortable and our attempts to embrace the parts we like and ignore the parts we don't...God's Word will stand forever. The issue isn't will God's Word survive, the issue is will we survive if we keep disregarding it.
still following,
Thank you for sharing one of my all-time favorite verses today. It's one of the first verses I memorized after accepting Christ. Great thoughts on it, too.
ReplyDeleteI don't have 14 bibles but I do have quite a few of them. I think at least 7. I had a few more but I have lost them over the years. I have at least 4 different versions...I like to read some verses in different versions. The translated words are often just a little bit different and that makes the verse more meaningful to me. It gives me a chance to dig a little deeper.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first became Christian and heard that some people had many bibles I didn't get why you would need many. I now have 5 I think. I have a small new testament one for my purse, one I doodle/write in when I'm studying, one that is written with certain amounts to read per day with a devotional at the front, a really old KJV I got for free when I first became Christian and a free bible I got from sigining up online. I get it now.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said is really true too of course. Although I still think it's a good idea to treat the physical bible carefully it is more important what you do with the word of God than the book itself. Great post.