Saturday, May 02, 2009

The Book of books

Here's what showed up this week on the NY Times Best Seller list:
1. LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin
2. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell
3. COLUMBINE, by Dave Cullen
4. ALWAYS LOOKING UP, by Michael J. Fox
5. THE GIRLS FROM AMES, by Jeffrey Zaslow
Perhaps these are all good and worthwhile books, but none is familiar to me. Chances are very good in 50 years, they will be more or less unknown. In a 100 years, they will be antiques.

There's another book that isn't on the list. It's the best seller every week of every year. It is not listed because it would always be number one.

That book is the Bible. There have also been more Bibles printed than any other book; I've seen estimates ranging from 2.5 to about 6 billion since the invention of the printing press. It has been translated into over 2,000 languages, and more language versions are appearing every year.

At first it was copied letter by letter onto parchment or papyrus scrolls by scribes who went far beyond careful to insure there were not copying errors. The text we use today has an incredibly small number of differences from copies made almost 2,000 years ago.

The Bible is not just one book; it's 66 different books written over a span of around 1500 years. We believe the Bible was written by people inspired by God.

And what it really is is a love letter from God to man. When you look at it as a whole, what you see is this incomprehensible love of God for humanity. The story line throughout all these books is this: He made us, but we have often turned away from him, still he keeps pursuing us with a love that will not quit. That story continues even today. Here is a very small sample from the book of Jeremiah (29:11):

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This book of books; this Bible will open doorways for you, as it has me, into a life of connectedness with the God of the universe. All we have to do is read it and let these timeless truths change our hearts.

No comments:

Post a Comment