The Book Mark

    If you Bible falls open, what is the passage that is visible? While in college, one of my professors made the statement that a preacher's Greek New Testament should fall open at Romans 5:12. Mine doesn't as I have not spent that much time with the Greek language as I should have. Maybe the smart preachers have that happen to them. To do an in depth study of a word or a phrase can be very rewarding and this same professors spent a sabbatical studying Ephesians 2:8-9. In other words, he spent about a year studying just those two verses. I have my “preaching” Bible that was given to me by Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia in 1978. I happened to notice today that it fell open at John, chapter three. John 3:7 says, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

         My last messages as a preacher, so to speak, were from that chapter. We had begun to go through the Gospel of John as I wanted to make it the book of the Bible where I last preached should I pass on before I got to the end. A pandemic has interrupted the series as we were just getting into chapter four and making the comparison between the interview with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well. The Gospel of John has been referred to as the “Gospel of Belief” due to the number of times that the word “believe” occurs in the book. Even the final passage gives this as the purpose of the book. “These are written that ye might believe...” (20:31) For me, this is one of the important sections of the Bible that speak specifically about salvation and eternal life and heaven. In that regard, it is to me one of the passages that I probably would preach on time and time again until all had heard the message. The world is not over populated with believers as many say that there are only about 30 percent who are actually Christian. That leaves about 70 percent that need to hear the message of salvation. We can spend a lot of time debating about various forms of theology or future events or how to take communion while at the same time people are falling into eternity without Christ doomed to an existence of eternal suffering instead of eternal blessing. You may have a ribbon book mark in your Bible. To what passage will it lead you? The Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus that he must be born again. May that be the same message that we proclaim to others in the days ahead. Praise God today for His Word.