Speaker: Bonnie Sala | Series: Reset | All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16 NIV

 

What is so special about the Bible? For 2,000 years people have claimed to be changed by reading it!

B. Phillips, a scholar at Cambridge University in the 1920s, began to study the Bible as literature. “Although I did my utmost to preserve an emotional detachment,” he said, “I found again and again that the material under my hands was strangely alive; it spoke to my condition in the most uncanny way.” [1]

Is it possible, that an old book written in a different world still “speaks” to people today?  In Zimbabwe, Gaylord Kambarami gave a man a copy of the New Testament. The man planned to use the pages for cigarette papers but was asked to read them first. Years later, the two men happened to meet again, and the smoker excitedly told Kambarami, “I smoked Matthew. I smoked Mark. Then I smoked Luke. But when I got to John 3, verse 16, I couldn’t smoke any more. My life was changed from that moment!”[2]  The man devoted his life to sharing this book with others.

Of itself, the Bible says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).

What has your experience been with this life changing book?

Resource reading: Hebrews 4:1-13

[1] Taylor, Justin, and Justin Taylor. “The New Testament, the Ring of Truth, and the Difference with Mythological Legends.” The Gospel Coalition, April 28, 2015. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-new-testament-the-ring-of-truth-and-the-difference-with-mythological-legends/.

 

[2] Engelke, Matthew. “A Problem of Presence.” Content UC Press. UC Press, January 1, 2007. https://content.ucpress.edu/pages/10678/10678.ch01.pdf.