Bible passage:
2 Timothy 3: 14-17 - But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Hebrews 4: 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart
Joshua 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
1 Timothy 4:13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.
What a treasure we have in our homes - the Word of God!
Many of us would find it exciting if God spoke to us amidst the thunders, or the fire, or even through a still small voice in our hearts. Yet, one of the greatest miracles of God that shows His unfailing love towards mankind is how He has continuously revealed Himself to mankind throughout eternity. Even King David or the apostle Paul wouldn't have had the comfort and the conveniences of the printed Bible, or digital Bible that we have.
There are those who do not even know that God has already answered their doubts and that the answers can be found in the Bible. There are those who know about the Bible and seek to read it, but are in families or cultures that shred Bibles to pieces. There are those who read the Bible but don't understand, and need someone to explain, and then there are those whose goal is to destroy the Bible. Shall we pray that the living Word of God would reveal Himself to every longing soul, even through the written word of God?
Prayer points:
Pray for mission organizations and missionaries who work towards translating the Bible into Indian languages. Pray for Godly wisdom, encouragement, and perseverance.
Pray for mission organizations and members who distribute Bibles (like Gideons International). Pray for evangelists who are persecuted for the distribution of Bibles.
Pray for technological advances and the use of audio Bibles (for urban settings, and for tribal settings where there is illiteracy), for children's Bible, and more of God's word to be directly available for different walks of life.
Pray against the twisting of God's word for personal gain, and that heretical interpretations of God's word won't grow roots in our country. Pray that such seduction of unbelievers won't happen.
Pray and praise God that His Word won't return to Him empty, and that it will accomplish His purpose, and that it will pierce through the division of soul and of spirit.
If you can, try memorizing 2 Timothy 3:16, 17.
Timeline on how we got our Bible:
~1500 BC - Some of the first texts of the Old Testament Hebrew Scripture were written. Parts of the Old Testament were written in stones, clay and wooden tablets, papyrus manuscripts and scrolls, and parchment made from tanned animal skins. The writings could have used an iron stylus, reed pen, pen knife for sharpening the pens and writing cases. They were copied faithfully by the Scribes. The challenge of hand-copying texts in the ancient world placed a premium on hearing, memorizing, and publicly reading documents—hence the emphasis on “hearing” the word of the Lord in the Old Testament.
~400 BC - Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) was completed (The deuterocanonical books may have been written till ~200 or 150 BC). Jewish Bible is called TaNaKh- Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings), and has 24 books which include all the 39 books of the Protestant Bible in a different order. The Catholic Old Testament has 46 books including the deuterocanonical books.
~300 to 200 BC - Greek translation (Old Testament) - Septuagint. The word Septuagint is derived from the word for 70 and is based on a legend that the Greek translation was the work of 70 translators.
~33 to ~90 AD - New Testament books were written.
~ 170 AD - Eusebius's list of Old Testament books is very similar to the Hebrew Canon (Jewish Bible) and the Protestant Bible.
367 - 397 AD Athanasius – Bishop of Alexandria in his 39th Festal letter listed 27 books of the New Testament and ~46 books of the Old Testament (as given in Catholic Bible) and further councils at Rome 382 AD, Hippo 393 AD, Carthage 397 AD ratified them.
~383 - 404 AD - St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin and called it Latin Vulgate Bible (Vulgate meaning common). He originally translated it all from Greek, but as he went on he corrected the Old Testament against the Hebrew original. St. Jerome wanted to maintain the Hebrew Canon, but St. Augustine wanted the deuterocanonical books also added.
~350 and mid-fourth century AD - Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus were written. These are the only surviving Bibles from the early Church.
4th - 8th century - Gothic Bible (Bible in East Germanic language) was written.
1382 to 1395 - Dr. John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate Bible to English. He said, "it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ's sentence". Since the church didn't want the Bible translated, the Council of Constance declared Wycliffe (on 4 May 1415) a heretic and under the ban of the Church. It was decreed that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed.
1455 AD - The Gutenberg Bible (Latin Vulgate Bible) was printed in Mainz by Johann Gutenberg and his associates, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer.
1546 AD- The Council of Trent reaffirmed the list of books officially considered canonical by the Roman Catholic Church (46 OT books) and issued an anathema on dissenters of the books affirmed in Trent.
1522 - 1535 AD - William Tyndale's Bible is the first English Bible translation that worked directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate. It was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing. William Tyndale was a leading figure of the protestant reformation. He was executed by strangulation, and he was also burned at the stake. The Bible he translated was also burned by the church.
1534 AD - The Luther Bible is a German translation by Martin Luther. New Testament was published in September 1522, and the completed Bible, containing a translation of the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha, in 1534. Luther followed the Hebrew OT while lowering the importance of the 7 Septuagint books into a separate section called the Apocrypha (not inspired, but good for instruction.)
As of September 2022 all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,617 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,248 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,589 languages.
India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (839). The first known translation of any Christian Scripture in an Indian language was done to Konkani in 1667 AD by Ignacio Arcamone, an Italian Jesuit. India’s Very First Bible Was Translated Into Tamil By A German Missionary Bartholomaus Ziengenbalg in 1714. A Gujarati translation of the Bible had been issued by the Serampore Mission Press in 1820, and William Carey had contributed to it. James Skinner and William Fyvie of the London Missionary Society continued the work. Nathan Brown, a Baptist, translated Bible into Assamese (1848). Parts of The New Testament were translated into the Tulu language of Karnataka in Kannada script in 1842 and the complete New Testament in 1847 by the Basel Missionaries in Mangalore. The Western Punjabi Persian script New Testament was published in 1912.
You can check out some interesting infographics from visualunit website on: The periodic table of the Bible, Comparisons of English Bible translations, Transmissional reliability of the New Testament.
Comments