In the days of Communist Russia, when Christians were an oppressed minority, those who risked their lives for Jesus and the gospel often found God at work in amazing ways.

This is one of those stories.  It comes from my journal from January 5, 1992.  No one who believes in the living God will be surprised; all who believe in Him will be blessed.

Missionary Ralph Bethea was giving out Bibles in Russia. He went to one home where an old gentleman spoke of abandoning Communism and returning to the faith of his mother.  He had no Bible, so Ralph gave him one.

The old gentleman clutched it to his chest, then invited in his neighbors and read it to them for four hours.

One man in the audience was a former KGB agent.  Ralph led him to faith in Christ.

When Ralph ran out of Bibles and many people were disappointed, the ex-KGB man said, “I know where there are 40,000 Bibles.”

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“This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?” (John 6:60)

A fellow arguing for a cult religion scoffed at my statement that some doctrines are difficult and sincere Christian people differ on their interpretation.

“If it’s difficult,” he said, almost yelling with delight, “it’s because you are getting it wrong!”

I knew enough about his religion to be wary of anything he said.  The leaders of that religion grew tired of having to explain away the obvious teachings of Scripture and so they came out with their own translation.  Bible scholars scoff at what they did and Greek/Hebrew linguists assure us that no one involved in that translation–if we want to call it that–was trained and capable of such a mammoth task.

What these people did with Scripture in order to get it simple and make it say what they wanted was akin to a fellow trying to close an overstuffed suitcase by taking the scissors to anything that didn’t fit and snipping it off.  At the end, it closed easily. The only problem is that everything inside was injured.

Beware of anyone telling you there is nothing in the Bible difficult to understand.  (In the same way you want to be wary of those who say nothing in it is understandable. Both are erroneous.)

Something inside us wants doctrines to be simple.

Those people will reject doctrines that are difficult to get their minds around.

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So, you’re reading the Bible through in a year?  Or, like a few people I’ve known, you read it through every year for the umpteenth time.

Fine. But after you have done it two or three times, that’s enough. Don’t ever do it again.

Just my suggestion.

Reading the entire Bible in a year is like seeing Europe in a week: You will notice a lot of things you don’t see from ground level, but it’s no way to get to know a country.

After a few flyovers–two days in Genesis and one day in Romans, for instance–land the plane and get out and make yourself at home in Ephesians or Second Timothy.  Move in with the locals and live with them a few weeks.

That’s the only way to learn a country. It’s the only way to really learn a book of the Bible.

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One of our Louisiana state legislators, who shall go unnamed here, had a bright idea a few weeks ago. Since our state, like all the others, has an official state bird (the brown pelican), an official flower (the Louisiana iris), an official fossil (the petrified palmwood, whatever that is) and so forth, why not have an official book and make it the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Great idea, huh?

He must have thought so.

The (presumably) well-intentioned lawmaker introduced the bill to make this official and promptly announced it to the world. Most everyone seemed to react in surprise and some with a good deal of negativity.  “This is the last thing we need,” many felt.

And they were right.

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Critics of the Scriptures want to have it both ways.

If they find an inconsistency in Scriptures–the numbers seem not to agree, or a story is told in two or more different ways–it proves the Bible is man-made, filled with errors, and not to be trusted.  If they could find no inconsistencies, however, this would prove the church had removed all the troublesome aspects of the Bible in order to claim it to be inspired of God.

Either it is or it is not.

When one is determined not to believe a thing, nothing gets in his way. He can always find a reason not to believe.

Take the matter of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar of Jericho.  His account is told in three of the gospels, but he is named in only one (Mark 10:46).

This is my favorite story in all the Bible.

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One: I wonder if the Lord ever wants to put beside particular scriptures the Facebook line: “Just saying.”

I sometimes wonder when to take a teaching literally and when the statement in Scripture was intended to be less than a command, or even simply a side remark.

Sometimes the Apostle Paul will say, “I do not have a word from the Lord on this, however….” and give us his thoughts. (An instance is I Corinthians 7:25.) Christians are of two minds about this. Some say, “It’s as plain as it’s possible to get. What follows is not to be taken as a command. How much clearer could Paul make it than he did?”  Others respond, “Yes, but we have all these epistles of Paul which we take as Scripture, whether it jives with anything the Lord Jesus actually said or not. So, if it came from Paul’s heart (and pen), it’s scripture.”

So hard to know.

We would be in bad trouble without the Holy Spirit to help us with this. (We make a big enough mess even with His guidance!)

Two: I wonder whether some statements were intended just for the apostles but not for us.

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