One of the greatest and often unperceived miracles sits as this hardbound, 1300-page book on my table. With the barely readable, now faded golden letters titling it that reads “The Holy Bible.” Its external tattered state might be a symbol of its age, but not of its truth, now perpetually living on in the life of any humble soul that would honestly seek it. Its simple words of eternal origin and of an omniscient God, yet bring sound clarity in the lowest and simplest of minds. The history of its uncorrupted preservation by which it has been handed down, evidenced by the One to whom it undoubtedly points, evidenced through the encounter with this radical power of transformation that flows out, evidenced by the countless witnesses before us whose life is just -so full of life. Walking to the nearest synagogue, finding the Rabbi, getting him to agree to read the Scriptures to you, all steps needed just to hear the truth. What determination and resolve a devout Jew must have possessed. All this is accessible now to us at an instant, if we so choose to. This must have been sweet music to the Jew’s ears. As we go further back in history, the time before the Scriptures even existed on earth. Oh, what people like Job, Joseph or Abraham would have given to have God’s Word so readily accessible to them. Desperately poring upon its pages to renew hope, find strength, or just find God in it. It may confound you as it does me, as to how well-versed the Jewish nation was with God’s Word and yet had this gatekeeper to go through and how unversed God’s people can be even with full and easy access. The Scrolls once not allowed to venture beyond the boundaries of the Synagogue in which it rested, the Bible now either too shameful or tedious to bear to church from its dusty resting place. A time in which knowing the Word would make you just a regular Jew or believer, times in which knowing the Word would grant you a pulpit and a mic.

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:21). Futility has today hidden our minds from revelations of the truth. All this knowledge and information floating around and we hastily conclude that God is in the past. As if we, as a generation, have taken a bite of the forbidden fruit and our eyes have been opened to the truth and our minds enlightened with knowledge. Finally we are as our own gods. Futile reasoning arising out of ever so fickle minds lead us farther away everyday from life and its source. It becomes a gatekeeper to this life-giving truth, with its flaming swords that prevent entry. Theologians, Bible historians, scholars, atheists and everyone who seeks it in futility of mind and reasoning, will be slayed at the gate. Yet the humble one who seeks the truth for whom [Jesus Christ] it reveals and what [eternal life] it gives will pass on to the other side.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. – Matthew 11:15 NASB1995