In a small house church in China, two families stood before the congregation for the weekly Bible ceremony service.
This congregation possessed only two Bibles. One was reserved for the pastor’s daily preparation to feed the congregation from the Scriptures. The other copy was sent home each Sunday with a different family for their use.
With tears, one family passed the Bible to the next, who received it with joy. They anticipated what the previous family had experienced—a week of constant, day-and-night reading of the sacred Scriptures.
The next seven days would be without the usual routine of work, chores, school, and recreation. The family would use every moment to take in every word possible from this prized Bible, until time would run out. The following Sunday, they would shed tears as they handed the Bible to the next family.
Can you imagine only one shared copy of God’s Word? What would it be like to go weeks without reading the Scriptures for yourself?
Most families in their first week with the Bible could make it through the book of Joshua. Think of the thrill of reading about the beginning of the world, the formation of God’s people, the era of the patriarchs, the suffering in Egypt, God’s wondrous salvation by Moses in the Exodus, provision in the wilderness, and the at-last arrival in the Promised Land!
Like me, you have several copies of the Bible around your home. You probably take your own copy with you to church.
When was the last time one of us devoured the Scriptures as our Chinese brothers and sisters?