God's Word

Had a GREAT little vacation at the lake with Lora's parents and yesterday we started a new series that I hope and pray will be challenging and encouraging people to get into their Bibles.  I felt like yesterday was a little dry because I was covering a lot of stuff on where the Bible came from, who it was written and how we can trust it - good for some, not for others.  One thing I did find interesting in preparing was that the Bible has been translated into ten times the number of languages as it's next closest book and of all things that book is.....Pinnochio?!  Yep.  I thought that was weird.  And we've all heard the Bible is the best-seller of all time and that's true (somewhere between 5 and 6 BILLION) but never would have guessed what was second.....Mao Zedong's writings?!  Yep.

Look, God's Word, the Bible is simply an amazing work of literature apart from the religious aspect of it.  Once you add that in, there's seriously no good reason an educated or uneducated person should ever dismiss the Bible without studying it.  People who think they're so smart are often the ones who say we can't trust the Bible because it's been translated so many different times.  In a sense, they're right - over 2,400 times or about 10 times more than any other book.  But they're foolish to think that too.  Why?  Because it hasn't been translated from translations that were translated from earlier translations.  Instead it's been translated from the original languages (Hebrew or Greek) and perhaps compared to a Latin version (that was translated from Hebrew and Greek).  Like good reporting and good research, if you want to get to the truth, go to the source.

What about all the contradictions?  That's a question you'll hear too.  But let me just say that different perspectives or accounts aren't necessarily contradictions.  For instance if two people witnessed a car accident and one person said the car crashed into something and another person said the car exploded and burned up - they wouldn't have to be a contradiction.  The car could have crashed AND then exploded.  Both can be true.

Anyhow, enough.  let me just challenge you to read your Bible this week.  You can join us as we at Discovery use YouVersion and go through Psalm 119 and/or the reading plan they have built in.  And let me just say how cool it was to look at the home page of YouVersion earlier today and see all but one of the most recent posts coming from Discovery people!