Morning Moments

Have you ever noticed how funny people are about the Bible?  I was back in my hometown recently chatting with a couple of "old" buddies and one was talking about a church he attended where the pastor didn't read from "the Bible" he just had some kind of little pad in his hand.  I thought how narrow minded and ignorant we really are about the Bible.

In the first place, many Americans are so ignorant as to think the Bible came to us in 1611 by a bunch of British Scholars appointed and approved by the King.  I worked for a guy once who buried a copy of the KJV at the Pulpit in the chapel of the school and would not allow anyone to use any other version, but when he read devotions, he often read from the Amplified Bible, until I showed him that IT was also a TRANSLATION.

People are funny!  Are we so ignorant as to believe that all the Old Testament saints possessed a copy of the Old Testament scroll in their homes?  Are we so ignorant as to believe that even before the third century that all Christians had a copy of the New Testament manuscripts in their possession?

I love using the iPad!  I am a techy.  I explain to people that I have the same Bible they have, regardless of the translation, but I have them all in one place and don't have to carry a load of books.  We are just funny people and it seems that some of us older folks like to make issues out of things that aren't issues at all.

I think about the people who would scream and split a church over the "communion table" but don't have a clue what the Bible teaches about many important doctrines.  Our little name plates on pews that have been donated or stain glass windows that have the donors name underneath them and a thousand other silly things that are so important to us as morals decay, children drop out of church, more entertainment is demanded, less Bible is actually explained, etc.

Doesn't all of this seem a little trivial?  Have we really lost sight of the fact that our calling is unto Jesus and our commission is from Him?  He calls us all and He commissions us all, but He gifts us differently so that we all might be equipped to do the work of ministry.

Every man in every congregation of Christians should be a follower of a Paul and a leader of a Timothy.  We must teach faithful men that they might in turn teach other faithful men - not so that we might merely know more Bible, but that we might ALL follow JESUS, the Living Word, about WHOM the Written Word reveals the TRUTH.

It doesn't matter what color your Bible is or even what version it is (within reason), for some translations seek to communicate the thoughts of the human author and others seek to translate word for word which is sometimes extremely difficult.  BUT you can be sure of one thing - GOD WANTS US TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE and even the first translators into the English language had that desire when they translated back them.  If I handed you a 1611 translation of the KJV you probably could not read it anyway.  So get over the issue of the iPads, the Kindles, or whatever and realize that whether we like it or not, people are reading less printed books and more published books ON THESE TECHNOLOGICAL THINGS!  Besides, it is a much greater challenge to the preacher because there are many good inexpensive Bible programs that the student in the pew can check the preacher's preaching out with:)

BLESSINGS!