The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14
At some point today, you almost certainly will encounter a TV commercial, or post, a video, or a glossy ad promising to make you look and feel younger, set you free financially, whisk you away to paradise — maybe even transform your entire life.
Yet it doesn’t take a long look around to realize that while those bold claims promise so much, they almost always lead to more misery than happiness. The world we inhabit is full of unfulfilled desires, unmet expectations, broken relationships, hollow pursuits, fleeting pleasures, pain, sorrow, anxiety, depression, despair, fear, and discouragement.
The good news is that we can experience everlasting joy, life-changing awe, otherworldly wisdom, death-defying courage, never-ending peace, and indescribable love.
The journey toward that genuine fulfillment requires that we dive deeply into the Word of the One who guarantees all of this reward and more when we hear and obey Him. It’s time to realize that our life here on earth — and for all of eternity — depends on listening and responding to God’s Word.
As we study God’s Word with intention, its truth opens the door for you and me to experience intimacy in a love relationship with God Himself. This is only possible, though, because God has graciously preserved and passed along His Word over the course of history through people who have loved God and His children enough to translate it for us to read.
It all started with the human authors of the Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit, often paying a great price to record and spread God’s Word. Beyond these writers, every time someone has translated the original Scriptures into another language (again, often at great cost), they have provided an eternally life-changing gift to the people who speak that language, for the door has been opened to experience intimacy with God.
For example, around AD 400 a man named Jerome translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, making it available for more people to read and study. Almost a thousand years later, a man named John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English. Wycliffe was accused of heresy and suffered persecution for his commitment to making the Bible available in the language of the “common people.”
Fast-forward a little over a century, and William Tyndale improved on Wycliffe’s efforts by making an English translation not only from the Latin but also from the original Hebrew and Greek. Tyndale intended to translate the entire Bible, but he never finished the Old Testament. He was burned alive in 1536 for his translation work. His associate, John Rogers, finished the task that Tyndale had started, after which Rogers was also burned alive.
When you and I look at a Bible in our language, we see the labors of people who sacrificed their lives for it. At the center of it all, we see Jesus, who came as the Word made flesh (John 1:14) and shed His blood for our salvation. Then we see those who followed Him, including many who also shed their blood so that we might have God’s Word.
I emphasize this history for two reasons. First, we must never underestimate the treasure we possess in the Word of God. It is a tragedy that in countries that have had Bibles for many years — and countless people with multiple copies in their possession — so many Christians leave them to gather dust on shelves or serve as coasters on coffee tables. This is not the purpose for which our brothers and sisters in Christ before us died, and it’s certainly not the reason for which Jesus gave His life.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, you and I have an open invitation from God, whenever we want, to experience intimacy with Him through His Word. Let’s shout, “Yes!” to that invitation every morning and evening, meditating on and memorizing God’s Word, applying it to our lives, praying according to it, and sharing it with others.
There are over seven thousand languages in the world, but because the Bible has not yet been translated into many of these languages, millions upon millions of people are unable to read God’s Word. Multitudes of others have access to only parts of Scripture. This is a sobering reality, but here’s the good news: We have the opportunity in our generation to translate the Bible into every one of these remaining languages.
Due to a variety of factors, including technological advancements and unprecedented cooperation and collaboration among Bible translation workers (for one example, visit illumiNations.bible),
- it is possible that almost every person on earth will have a copy of God’s Word in their own language within the next several decades.
Do you realize the time in which we are living? After two thousand years of Christian history, during which many people gave their lives for spreading God’s Word to different language groups, you and I could be the generation of God’s people to actually complete this task.
So let’s do this in our own lives. Let’s meditate on and memorize God’s Word; apply it to every layer of our lives; pray it with bold faith that God will give us what we ask; and then let’s share God’s Word with the people right around us and around the world.
Let’s love every nation, tribe, and ethnic group enough to pray passionately for this cause, give sacrificially, and lay down our lives so that people from every language in the world can experience intimacy in a love relationship with God through His Word.
God, please help me to play my part, no matter what it costs me, to spread Your Word in my neighborhood and to every nation. Amen.
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Written for Devotionals Daily by David Platt, author of How to Read the Bible.
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Your Turn
Do you get into the Word every day! We’re invited into this immense privilege to read the Bible, know it, love it, and share it with those around us. Let’s embrace it and rejoice over the Word of God! ~ Devotionals Daily