In 2012 we shall encourage more of us to read the Bible more regularly. At the Carols on the Hill event, we gave away the book of Luke. We have spent years seeking to learn different memory verses and each week I am encouraging us to grow as a result of reading God’s word.
Why?
Christians have always been keen to share the Bible and promote literacy with others. Described as “God’s love letter to men and women”, the Bible conveys to us God’s heart, mind and ways.
Bible translators are working in hundreds of language groups around the world. For these people, this will be the first time their language has been reduced to writing. Many side benefits accrue. Stories of culture can be preserved. Health and agricultural education can be delivered. These by-products from having the Word of God written have always flowed onto communities and brought great benefit.
Our own Western culture takes for granted the enormous blessings of having the Bible. Our problem is not that we don’t have it written but that we so often take it for granted and fail to respond to God’s word by prayer and obedience.
My own experience has been that the more I read the Bible, the more comforted and the more uncomfortable I become. Like a double edged sword, it will challenge me and show me up, yet bring me much joy and peace.
It was wonderful last week to see Pedare Christian College giving away Bibles to all those who won awards in at the senior school thanksgiving service. There is no greater book nor greater gift that can be given to men and women and boys and girls than the Bible. The knowledge of God and His love shown through Jesus is that which will simultaneously draw us to God and send out in service of others. Theodore Roosevelt was surely right when he said that a “thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education”.
So, are you reading the word of God regularly so that you develop a thorough knowledge of the Bible? At a time when people give lots of things away, when was the last time you gave the Bible to someone to read?