Is it possible to have too many Bibles?
Posted by Mark Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:04:00 GMT
My pastor closed his message on Sunday by reading a passage from “The Heavenly Man”, a book about Chinese pastor and teacher Brother Yun. He asked the question of us, “How many Bibles do you have at home?” and I guessed about a dozen. At least. Then he questioned if maybe we have TOO MANY Bibles – too much access to God’s Word that we often take it for granted. The other day when explaining what I do to someone I just met, they replied “Isn’t there already a ton of other Bible websites out there?!”. Most of us in First World do have easy access to God’s Word including right here at eBible.com. Listen to the story of Brother Yun for a refreshing and encouraging perspective:
Brother Yun was 16 at the time. The family did not have a Bible, and it had been many years since Yun’s mother had heard any teaching about Jesus. Yun began to ask his mother who Jesus truly was. She would reply, “Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for us, taking all our sins and sicknesses. He recorded all his teachings in the Bible.” Yun would ask if there were any way he could learn of the teachings of Jesus for himself. His mother would say, “No. All his words are gone. There is nothing left of his teaching.” Imagine a family hungering and thirsting for some knowledge of the words of God, and no way to find out what they were!
Yun’s mother took him on a long walk to see a man in another village who she remembered had a Bible. The man was too afraid to show Yun his Bible, but he told him, “The Bible is a heavenly book. If you want one, you’ll need to pray to the God of heaven. Only He can provide you a heavenly book. God is faithful. He always answers those who seek Him with all of their heart.”
Yun decided to fast and pray for a Bible, and for the next 100 days ate only one bowl of steamed rice every day. He cried out to the Lord for a Bible. His parents thought he was losing his mind. One morning, there was a knock at the door. Two men had brought a Bible to Yun.
Three months before, an evangelist in another town had been instructed by the Lord in a vision to give his Bible to Brother Yun. Although he did not know this young boy, the Lord had showed him the village and house where Yun lived in a vision. It had taken him three months to decide to obey the Lord.
Yun began to devour the Word of God. Even though he could hardly read, every day, he would painstakingly look up one character at a time as he advanced through the Bible. When he had finished reading in this way through the whole Bible, he started memorizing one chapter per day. In 28 days, he had memorized the gospel of Matthew, and then started on the book of Acts.
We pray that each of us and each one of our user’s would develop the same passion and hunger for reading, studying and memorizing God’s Word. Over the next few weeks we will be releasing a couple of new features to help you in the journey of reading the Holy Bible that God wrote for us to know Him and follow Him. But all the technology and bells and whistles won’t help us if we don’t see the importance of and the gift that the Bible is, and then respond by actually reading and studying it!
Wow. Great and moving story.
Thanks for sharing that, Mark.
On a related note, I think that a great addition to the site would be some type of “Bible In a Year” tool that users could use to break up the bible into daily readings.
Thanks for all you do, Will
Yes, many of us do take God’s word for granted just because we have such easy and legal, i might add, access to it. Bible in a year… I second the motion, along with an small explination of the reading to bring more revelation to the reader. How about even a small prayer to back up the whole experience?