Freelance writer and Speaker
When I buy a new gadget I’m not good at reading the manual, but the bible is the most important manual I can ever read. It shows me how to live and how to die; it guides on my earthly journey and helps me with every decision I make. The bible is God’s love letter to me.
‘Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.’ Psalm 119:105
Is it going out of practise? Are we reading the Bible less because it is so readily available to us in the Western World? Do we hunger and thirst for it? In some cases I fear the answer is ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
There are many reasons we need to read and study it more. It has been handed down through the centuries, many have given their lives to share it with the unconverted and many have given their lives translating it into people’s mother tongues.
But the top reason is that God has given it to us. It is God-breathed. We need it like a drowning man. Without it’s teaching, guiding, comfort and instruction we will spiritually drown.
It has been researched that there are 257 phrases used today in the English language which have been taken from the King James Version of the Bible. ‘At our wit’s end,’ ‘escape by the skin of your teeth,’ ‘eat, drink and be merry,’ ‘all things to all men,’ .I could go on , 253 still to go. At a recent church quiz each team was given 20 phrases and had to choose whether they came from Shakespeare or the Bible. Oh dear, I’ll only say that our team didn’t come top!
The first written words in the English language were created by the religious orders when the country converted to Christianity in the 6th century. The Bible is still the top of the best-selling list, though sadly some surveys choose not to include it in their lists.
One book, over 1,200 years in the making, many authors, poetry and prose, the best book that this world affords – the Bible, the God-breathed and inspired word of God. Nevertheless we don’t worship the book, we worship the author – God.
Containing 66 books, we read of God’s love, the history of the Israelites as well as the life of Jesus, wisdom literature, prophecies, apocalyptic writings along with psalms, lamentations, poetry of the deep longings of the heart. We learn of the life of Jesus and His disciples and the doings of the early church
It’s amazing how up to date the Bible and Christianity is. Our system of numbering the years is fixed by the date of the birth of Jesus – BC, AD. Many of our modern festivals are rooted in the Christianity. Valentine’s Day is a saint’s day, Pancake Day was a time of using up luxury food before Lent, Halloween had it’s roots in All Hallows Eve and Christmas Eve was All Saint’s Day or Hallowmas.