What a Treasure!
Pastor Joe McKeever shared about an experience his friend, Ralph Bethea, had while distributing Bibles in Russia after the fall of communism.
Bethea visited an older, Russian gentleman who talked of abandoning communism and returning to his mother’s faith. However, he had no Bible. So, Bethea gave him one and he clutched it to his chest like a long-lost treasure. The Russian invited his neighbors over and read his new Bible to them. Among the listeners was a former KGB agent, whom Bethea helped come to Christ. When Bethea ran out of Bibles, the former KGB agent said, “I know where there are 40,000 Bibles.”
Together, Bethea and this former KGB agent located the Bibles, then purchased them at auction for $1,000. Russians anxiously gathered around as Bethea opened the first box. Bethea picked up a Bible with writing on it and handed it to the former KGB agent. He took one look at it and started weeping. It was his mother’s Bible, confiscated decades earlier.
The Bible is a treasure, taken for granted by many, but deeply appreciated by others. At the conclusion of my first mission trip to Brazil, I prayerfully observed as several made decisions for Christ during the invitation time of our last worship service. As the music played and the Spirit moved, a young Brazilian woman approached me from her nearby seat. She asked if she could look at my English Bible. She sat down and gently took my Bible in her hands. She held it as if she were holding a delicate piece of fine china.
She carefully studied each page, taking her time. I thought she might read the entire Bible! Then she took out her phone and snapped pictures of different passages. Oblivious to anything else going on around her, she focused solely on God’s Word.
I helped guide her phone’s camera to the passages that speak specifically to God’s perfect plan of salvation. She asked questions in broken English, and I answered as best I could. Finally, I asked if I could send her an English Bible, and she was thrilled! Several days after I returned home, I purchased a Bible and mailed it to her in Brazil. Nearly a month later, she emailed: “The Bible arrived . . . Thank you for the gift!”
How do we see God’s Word? As a gift? A treasure? Do we long for God’s Word more than thousands of coins of gold and silver? (Psalm 119:72)
Scripture affirms its eternal value within its pages. Here are a few examples:
God’s Word is our food for spiritual growth. (Jeremiah 15:16, Matthew 4:4)
God’s Word is spiritual nourishment for new believers. (I Peter 2:2)
God’s Word is life. (Deuteronomy 32:46-47, Psalm 119:50)
God’s Word provides comfort. (Psalm 119:50)
God’s Word is our strength. (Psalm 119:28)
God’s Word is guidance. (Psalm 119:105)
God’s Word protects from temptation and sin. (Psalm 119:11)
God’s Word gives hope. (Psalm 130:5)
God’s Word revives our spiritual life. (Psalm 19:7)
God’s Word is powerful and transforms lives. (Hebrews 4:12)
Seminary professor Donald Whitney wrote, “No spiritual discipline is more important than the intake of God’s Word. Nothing can substitute for it. There is simply no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture.” (Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 28).
If suddenly we found ourselves without access to the Bible, how many Scripture passages would we remember? On November 28, 1965, Captain Howard Rutledge was forced to eject from his jet over Vietnam. He was captured and spent 2,634 days in captivity. He endured brutal treatment and solitary confinement. He survived by relying on the hymns he sang as a youth and the Scriptures he had hidden in his heart and mind.
Rutledge wrote, “I spent my first eighteen years in a Southern Baptist Sunday School, and I was amazed at how much I could recall. Regrettably, I had not seen the importance of memorizing verses from the Bible. I never dreamed that thinking about one memorized verse could make the whole day bearable. How often I wished I had really worked to hide God’s Word in my heart.”
As the old saying goes, “A Bible falling apart usually belongs to a life that isn’t.”
What does the Bible mean to you? How much time are you spending in the incredible gift of God’s Word?
Lord, help us to “long for Your precepts!”
Psalm 119:40