God Speaks Through His Word
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Last week I began a series on listening to God.
Of course one of the ways God speaks is through His Word. In fact all the other ways we believe God speaks must be weighed and measured against His Word.
When we talk about God’s Word we think about the Bible. If you were on a desert island it is the one book you’d want (I will admit How to Survive on a Desert Island would be a close second!).
What book is this? It’s a best seller that most people on the planet have either read or heard about and it has touched countless people with its insights and information. Its English-language version now in over 70 countries. It opens doorways and tells us a lot about ourselves and the human race and is found in almost every library on the planet. It is available in 37 foreign languages and sales are phenomenal, somewhere near the 100 million mark worldwide.*
OK, it’s the Bible, right? No! It’s... Guinness Book of World Records! But in every measurable scale GBWR is chicken feed compared to The Bible.
The Bible is translated into over 2,200 languages and dialects (Shakespeare is translated into only 50). Bible Societies are working today in over 200 countries to produce the scriptures in 500 more languages! 100 million copies of the Good News Bible have been printed in the past twenty years alone. In China alone 2.5 million Bible distributed very year. With all its “these and thous” KJV still sells 13 million copies a year! Who knows how many are sold in bookstores around the globe every second of every day. And I haven’t even mentioned how God’s Word is available in cyberspace online.
But with all its accessibility few would argue that people these days are more familiar with God’s voice than in previous generations.
There was a sweet senior saint many years ago in the Altamesa church that some took to calling “Scripture Says” because she would always preface a Bible class comment by saying, “Scripture says...”
Betty Reese became our next “Scripture Says.” When she faced a problem, a question, a blessing, she would go to the scriptures.
We need more “Scripture Says” in the church today. Why? Because in the scriptures we read about who God is, what He’s done in the world, how much He loves us and His sense of what is just and fair. We read about how to be in a relationship with Him. We learn to recognize His voice.
I’m amazed to think of the people who never had a copy of the Bible. Before Guttenberg’s printing press in 1455 and before William Tyndale died to translate the Bible into English in 1536 there were faithful people who never saw a Bible but they still fell in love with God and His Word. They listened to God.
All those martyrs fed to the lions in the Coliseum in Rome? Never read the Bible. Never held a copy in their hands, never shopped for a new study Bible at a Family Christian Bookstore! But they lived and died convicted by God’s Word. Again, they listened to God.
Why is it that in these days when we are afforded the luxury of arguing about which translation is best it seems we don’t listen to God and take what He says as seriously as those who have gone before?
More next week...
*Thanks to Peter Downey and Ben Shaw for this information in their book Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bible
Last week I began a series on listening to God.
Of course one of the ways God speaks is through His Word. In fact all the other ways we believe God speaks must be weighed and measured against His Word.
When we talk about God’s Word we think about the Bible. If you were on a desert island it is the one book you’d want (I will admit How to Survive on a Desert Island would be a close second!).
What book is this? It’s a best seller that most people on the planet have either read or heard about and it has touched countless people with its insights and information. Its English-language version now in over 70 countries. It opens doorways and tells us a lot about ourselves and the human race and is found in almost every library on the planet. It is available in 37 foreign languages and sales are phenomenal, somewhere near the 100 million mark worldwide.*
OK, it’s the Bible, right? No! It’s... Guinness Book of World Records! But in every measurable scale GBWR is chicken feed compared to The Bible.
The Bible is translated into over 2,200 languages and dialects (Shakespeare is translated into only 50). Bible Societies are working today in over 200 countries to produce the scriptures in 500 more languages! 100 million copies of the Good News Bible have been printed in the past twenty years alone. In China alone 2.5 million Bible distributed very year. With all its “these and thous” KJV still sells 13 million copies a year! Who knows how many are sold in bookstores around the globe every second of every day. And I haven’t even mentioned how God’s Word is available in cyberspace online.
But with all its accessibility few would argue that people these days are more familiar with God’s voice than in previous generations.
There was a sweet senior saint many years ago in the Altamesa church that some took to calling “Scripture Says” because she would always preface a Bible class comment by saying, “Scripture says...”
Betty Reese became our next “Scripture Says.” When she faced a problem, a question, a blessing, she would go to the scriptures.
We need more “Scripture Says” in the church today. Why? Because in the scriptures we read about who God is, what He’s done in the world, how much He loves us and His sense of what is just and fair. We read about how to be in a relationship with Him. We learn to recognize His voice.
I’m amazed to think of the people who never had a copy of the Bible. Before Guttenberg’s printing press in 1455 and before William Tyndale died to translate the Bible into English in 1536 there were faithful people who never saw a Bible but they still fell in love with God and His Word. They listened to God.
All those martyrs fed to the lions in the Coliseum in Rome? Never read the Bible. Never held a copy in their hands, never shopped for a new study Bible at a Family Christian Bookstore! But they lived and died convicted by God’s Word. Again, they listened to God.
Why is it that in these days when we are afforded the luxury of arguing about which translation is best it seems we don’t listen to God and take what He says as seriously as those who have gone before?
More next week...
*Thanks to Peter Downey and Ben Shaw for this information in their book Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bible
posted by Danny Sims | 9:59 AM 
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