January 2

Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand forever.”

     My favorite sections of any library are history and religion. What about you? Imagine if one Saturday morning you showed up at the library only to find your favorite books reduced to a pile of ashes.

     Centuries ago, that is what happened when thousands of books at the Library of Alexandria caught fire. Alexandria was a place to do research in the ancient world. Then, on a fateful day in 47 B.C., Julius Caesar set fire to his ships in the Alexandrian harbor to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. The fire soon spread to the docks and the naval arsenal, ultimately destroying 400,000 of the library’s precious scrolls.

     Such a tragedy shows just how perishable written materials can be. This makes the preservation of the Bible such a marvel. The Word of God has survived book-burnings, riots, revolutions, persecutions and catastrophes. Yet scholars tell us that manuscripts have been accurately preserved through millennia of copying.

     There is no other book of antiquity that is able to address the smallest to greatest problems of the modern era like the Bible. It is the greatest resource to the questions of life that has ever been written. Truly, mankind is blessed to have such a document at its disposal.

     God inspired the writing of Scripture (II Timothy 3:16) and has promised to preserve it through the centuries. So, the next time you open your Bible, take a moment to reflect on how precious it is, and thank God for keeping it safe for you.

There never was found, in any age of the world, either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible.
      Francis Bacon