The Bible or The Scriptures, is first of all, the revelled Word of God. It is a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors dictated by God Himself showing us the road to Eternal Life. It is the History of God’s plan for His people which takes us from Creation right through to God’s final Revelation or destiny for those of us who choose to follow Him.
As we daily read scripture and become more familiar with it, we begin to understand the eagerness and anticipation with which the Jews awaited the coming of their Messiah, and we, get to see how the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and How the Old Testament is reviled in the New. In spite of all this, God has not and will not enforce His will on us, instead, He has laid out very clearly what exactly will happen to us if we choose to follow His way, or if we choose not to. He has given us a free will, the choice is ours to take up His Word or to ignore it. To live our lives His way or ours.
If we choose to take up God’s will, there are some rules, which He covers with His Love, Mercy and Grace to help us keep them which are imposable to keep otherwise, for that reason He needs to come first in our lives. To do this we need to become familiar with His Word “The Bible”, It is the only book that can give us the answer to every question or situation in which we find ourselves.
The Bible is made-up of two books known as the Old and New Testament. 39 in the Old and 27 in the New, The first five books in the Old Testament are known as the Pentitude, they are Genesis , Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books are attributed to Moses to whom God spoke directly on several occasions through his life.
When we get to truly appreciate the fact that God Himself is speaking to us through every chapter and verse in the Bible, we will begin to understand what a treasure we are holding in our hands and what a privilege we have been given, Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe is speaking to each of us personalty. He wants us not only to understand His Word, but to take it on board, cherish it, and use it for what it was intended to be, our lifeline to His Kingdom and subsequently to spend our eternal life with Him.
Today Bibles are freely available, but originally the first writings were done on Papyrus, which is a tall plant that grows in the Middle East. The flower and leaves are cut off and the stem is split down one side, when the stem is sliced the plant exudes a sticky sap which was used as a glue to stick other stems to it both length and width wise. When the required size was achieved the whole piece was left out in the sun to dry. When completely dry they were rolled up and ready for use, and able to be written on both sides. This was quite an arduous and time-consuming task and consequently made Papyrus scrolls quite expensive, so only very important documents were recorded. Such as Royalty, military or Temple records.
I don’t know anything about the Royalty or Military records, but I understand the Sanhedrin who were responsible for the temple records, (being the brains and major authority of the Jewish religion, along with the Pharisees and Sadducee.) Used Papyrus when writing out their documents. All rules, regulations and decisions came through these men. Most Scrolls were 10, 15, or 20 feet long, but I’ve been told that there were two documents 30 feet long, these are the book of Isaiah and the book of Acts.
It amasses me when I think how God, not only gave His Word to the Prophets and the writers of the day in the Old Testament, but how He watched over it and made sure it was passed down through the centuries of wars, plagues, famine and fires, and also when persecution came monks took up the tremendous task of transcribing The Word from papyrus on to early paper, and all this happened without contamination of The Word. That should tell us something about the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Some of those Bibles can still be viewed in the old castles and palaces in England and Europe. In fact The Bible in print as we know it today has only been around for about four hundred years, that’s the time since the reformation and the appearance of the printing press. Not very long really! yet we take it so casually, without (in some cases) giving it the respect it deserves as the written Word of God and the one and only road to Everlasting Life.
The Bible has never been more available, in more languages or in more countries than it is today, yet there seems to be less people following its teachings than ever before in history, I wonder why? Is Satan more active today?, Are we so comfortable and secure in our little ivory towers away from reality that we don”t recognise or understand our dependence on God or His will for us? Heaven forbid such arrogance.
Before leaving this world Christ gave this word to His Disciples, “Therefore go and make Disciples of all nations, Baptising them in the name of The Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching therm to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matt. 28:19-20. This is more relevant today than ever before in the history of the world, and it’s up to us to show Christ in whatever way we can to all the lost souls of our country and or the wider world
Thank you all for reading my thoughts on “The Bible” and spreading the Good News of God’s Word through our town. God bless our work for Him.
Phaline.
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