Several years ago I was getting ready to leave the West 7th
church building. I momentarily placed my Thompson Chain-Reference Bible on top
of my car while I did something with a car seat in the back seat, and then away
I drove. At some point that day I realized when I drove off, my Bible was still
on top of my car. It was heartbreaking for me because it was my favorite Bible.
However, I made the remark to someone that maybe whoever found it when it fell
off the top of my car was in more need of it than I was. Is it possible a lost
Bible could do more good than one that never disappears?
My good friend Richard Riehn from EEM told a story a while
back about a member of the church from Budapest, Hungary named Ivan Martos who
was on a train bound for Vienna. As the train neared the Austrian border, an
official asked him to unpack his bag. The first item removed from the bag was
his personal Bible. The officer became enraged that man in the position of Ivan
had a Bible, so he flung it out the window of the moving train. Ivan knew he’d
never see his Bible again.
Fast forward two years later. Ivan received a package with a
name and return address he didn’t recognize. Inside the package was his Bible
and a note of apology. It turns out the letter was from an individual who said
some of the kids from their village had found his Bible while they were playing
by the railroad tracks. They took it back to the village and one of their
grandmothers realized what it was. The people from the village took time to
make copies of the Bible, and this took about two years. About thirty of the
people obeyed the gospel, baptizing each other. Now they were a secret group of
believers who met for worship and followed Jesus. They had found Ivan’s
information inside the Bible, so the person writing him mailed it back to him
after that lengthy period of time they took to make copies.
Wow! What a story about God’s Word teaching us that there
are people out there who are hungry for the Truth. There are people here in
Columbia, TN who are hungry, and we need to find them. I’m not suggesting that
we need to lose our Bibles, but I am suggesting we need to find the people who
need the Truth. The Bible alone is powerful. Remember what Paul said: “I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16).
Brotherly,
Jeremy T. Butt
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