Once while visiting the United States, a group of believers from the persecuted church in North Korea spent some time with a pastor’s family in the Pacific Northwest. On Sunday they attended church in the morning, and then joined Pastor Hogan (not his real name) and another group for lunch, while his family returned home. When the North Korean visitors arrived back at the pastor’s house, his teenaged son was sitting on the couch reading his Bible. When the guests entered the roon, he rose to be polite. As he did, he reached back and lightly tossed his Bible on the cushions behind him.
The visitors began to weep.
Pastor Hogan was at a loss, and anxiously asked his guests what was wrong. They answered his question with one of their own. “How can he treat the Word of God in such a manner?”
To many of us in the West, the emotional reverence of these men for a book, even a very special book, may seem too dramatic, but there is an irresistible sense of grandeur that comes when the Bible is viewed as something possessing the awe and the nobility of God himself. The Bible is no mere historical document. True, it is a written record of God’s dealings with men and His revelation of Himself and His will, and it is the best-selling book of all time.
But it is so much more.
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
