I think my father was conned into buying a set of encyclopaedias from ‘a door to door’ salesman. He had just become a father and he wanted his children to get a good start in life by being better educated. So into our home came a set of Arthur Mee’s, Childrens Encyclopaedias, they looked very impressive, expensive and out of date. I remember picking up one of the volumes and I turned to the section about space. There I read an article that told me that it would be extremely unlikely that men would be able to travel to the moon. When I read those words Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had just walked on the moon. The volumes were out of date and to me untrustworthy. I am sure that when they were first written the knowledge within those volumes would probably be as up to date and as trustworthy as could be, but the world had moved on.
It seems to me that for most people the Bible is simply a strange book, a large book, to big to be read old book, certainly an interesting book, but one that should be put in a museum. How can, a book 2,000 years old be trustworthy? The world has moved on and we know better now.
As believers in Jesus, we don’t say that. The Bible is our primary source and authority; it is God’s Word to us and we know it to be utterly trustworthy. It is a true Word from God, that can never be outdated, always relevant in which God speaks to our world and ourselves each and every day.
Has modern man become immune to the Bible? Is this because people don’t see the Bible; this 2,000 year old book to have any relevance to their lives? It seems so. It also doesn’t help that many churches have lost confidence in the Bible when it comes to telling the Good News of Jesus, they prefer a ten minute motivational pep talk, films, drama, dance and even puppets to God’s Word. We have evangelistic courses, evangelistic films, evangelistic discussions, and evangelistic café rather than God’s Word preached from the Bible. If churches aren’t believing that the Bible is trustworthy and relevant why should the unbelieving world think otherwise.
The Bible and the preaching of the Bible is the normal and usual way that God brings people, through the work of the Holy Spirit to eternal life in Jesus.
It is time not only to tell the unbelieving world that God exists, but that He has a book that is trustworthy with His very own words; that they must read and hear and believe it to have to have eternity with Jesus.
