How can I pass on to you that the Bible is the only set of words actually given to us by God? These are the only words we have been able to find from such a source. The Bible is alive--the words live. The way we know this is that God said that in the beginning was The Word and The Word was with God and The Word WAS God, without Him was not anything made that was made (First chapter of the gospel of John). Therefore, words created every single physically alive thing in our world. Isn't that bizarre? By the same token life is given to us again and again through words. These are the only words that live in the here and now and create life. All nobility, every desire to be strong enough to have the right attitude, to love the unlovable, to have faith in oneself in the face of hatred and scorn lies between these relatively few pages. It is so hard to believe that this could be true, but it is. The Jews have preserved these words for us, and we should never forget the price they have paid to be the ones who have done this.
There are several stories in the Bible that are astounding and deserve attention. Now that you will attempt to read the bible, I wanted to tell you about some stories that are great examples of astounding miracles. These were very blatant manifestations of God on earth. These stories have, from childhood, always given me the greatest longing to see and know God in a tangible way.
You can look up and read for yourself the following stories: the story of Daniel in the lion's den--found in the book of Daniel (imagine that!) chapter 6 (however, the story begins before 6), the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego--three friends of Daniel who survived being thrown into a fiery furnace, and merely walked around and then stepped out unharmed--in the book of Daniel, chapter 3; the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal--he made a deal with them that if their god would send fire from heaven instead of his God, then it would prove that theirs was the true god. He had no doubt in his mind that his God was true. The prophets danced around, and cut themselves and cried out to Baal and there was no answer. Elijah built an altar and had it covered with water--drenched--and then called upon the God of the Bible. Fire shot down from heaven and consumed not only the altar but trenches of water that surrounded it and the stones the altar was made of and the dust beneath. After this the people fell down and worshipped Elijah's God. I KINGS CHAPTER 18, vs 20-40
This becomes more meaningful when you discover that the people of Baal used to throw their children into a fiery death--the mouth of a huge face--and then would hear the child laughing as it went in--the laughing being merely caused by the effect of the flames on their lungs and vocal cords. This historic information comes from outside the Bible--and is the result of archeology, etc.
And the story of Elijah is more powerful when you realize that many people today are saying that it is very cool to be "pagan" again, because the people of the time of Baal were the perfect embodiment of pagan.
These stories are so much more exciting than most of what we experience in our everyday lives. They tempt me to step out into that world that is considered "mythical" and leave the world we live in behind.
We feel more comfortable believing that our world is not ordered in the way of the Old Testament, but I do believe that we deceive ourselves, and at the same time our world seems to be going back to looking more like the Old Testament.
