TOPIC:“Making the Bible Come Alive”
by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap
TEXT:Hebrews 4:12
“For the word of God is living 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” (NIV)
Some years ago Paul S. Rees, famous missionary statesman of the 20th century, put into print a message entitled, Let's Rediscover the Bible. In the introduction of that message he told about a man in New Jersey, living on the border-line of poverty, who discovered about $5000.00 in a family Bible which he had owned for sixty years and more.
It seems that in 1874 an aunt of his had died, leaving a will in which one clause read: “To my beloved nephew, Stephen Marsh, I will and bequeath my family Bible and all it contains, with the residue of my estate after my funeral expenses and just and lawful debts are paid.” The estate, outside the Bible, amounted to only a few hundred dollars. It was soon spent.
Dr. Rees writes: “For many years Stephen Marsh existed on a small pension he drew from the government. He was not interested in the Bible. Unopened, unread, it gathered dust through the years. Why should he, Stephen Marsh, unfasten the old-fashioned clasp that held the Bible together and bore himself with reading such dry stuff as he supposed was printed on those pages?”
And Dr. Rees continues: “At long last, and quite by accident it seems, he took down the dusty volume and glanced into it. There to his amazement, was a “green back” reposing neatly between the two pages where the book fell open. He turned some more pages and found another. Then another and another! Every few pages there was a piece of currency, which, when totaled, yielded the old man approximately $5000.00.”
Dr. Rees concludes this part of his message with this statement: “A life of poverty behind him! And all the while an amazing wealth lay secretly enfolded within those sacred pages. Which thing, let us say, is a parable that describes a widespread condition in our modern life…I would say to my fellow Americans that our neglect of the Holy Scriptures is impoverishing our nation where we can least afford to be poor.”
To be sure, there needs to be a rediscovery once again of this blessed Book - the Holy Bible. All the wealth that God has given to man can be found within its pages. To put it in the words of Abraham Lincoln: “All the good from the Savior of the . . .