Words

             One man has done a lot of research and come up with the following statement: “There are 788,258 words in the King James Bible. Of these, 14,565 are unique.” Words are those things by which we convey meaning to what we want to communicate to others. Most people in the world today have a vocabulary of different words in order to speak to someone else of their own experiences. As a youngster, I went to school to learn “words.” That is, teachers sought to expand our vocabulary from the words, “yes, no, mine” etc. I remember my first reading book in first grade where I met Dick, Jane, Spot and a few other characters. At that age, I was captured by reading. At one point, my teacher taped my book shut so I could not peak ahead to find out what was going on with my new fictional characters. I also learned that some words were not acceptable, one of which was the word, “ain't.” It was one of the worst things ever, if you used the word “ain't” anywhere on school property. I do find now that it is in the dictionary and while it's use is being classed as uneducated, it is a term that has been used in many English speaking cultures since the 1700's. God has spoken to us by using the very words that we have learned over our formative years in school. Even if you had no formal education, you could learn about God by the same list of words by which you spoke to other human beings. Jonah 1:1-2 says, “Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.'”

          The words, “Lord” and “God” are used some 11,000 times in the Bible. Of course, the Bible is the Book about God and so you would expect Him to be the main character of His Book. God chose ordinary men to convey His message to us. In so doing, we now have in our possession the Book which gives us hope and peace and love in the midst of a wicked world. It has always been that way as we can see by the account of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is not new to just our generation. The result of sin and degradation was always present and we should learn by the examples that we find in the Scriptures. God used a simple “fisherman” named “John” to convey to us the way of salvation. John, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, simply wrote, “Ye must be born again.” Paul, in answering the question of salvation to the Philippian Jailer, simply said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ....” Simple men through simple words have given us hope for eternal life. It is not that we don't understand the message. The problem is that we reject the message that God has given to us. Are we excited enough about God's Word to be reading His message to us? Praise God today that we can read His Bible and have hope for all of the tomorrows.