May 22

The life-changing Word

“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3).

One cannot truly read the Bible without being powerfully affected by it. Spurgeon has said: “Read the Bible, and it brings you into the association of the best people that ever lived. You stand beside Moses, and learn his meekness; beside Job, and learn his patience; beside Abraham, and learn his faith; beside Daniel, and learn his courage to do right; beside Isaiah, and learn his fiery indignation against the evildoers; beside Paul, and catch something of his enthusiasm; beside Christ, and you feel His love.”An old periodical tells an interesting story of the power this Book had on a Catholic family:
“A Roman Catholic priest in Belgium rebuked a young woman and her brother for reading that ‘bad book,’ pointing to the Bible. ‘Mr. Priest,’ she replied, ‘a little while ago my brother was an idler, a gambler, a drunkard and made such a noise in the house that no one could stay in it. Since he began to read the Bible, he works with industry, goes no longer to the tavern, no longer touches cards, brings home money to his poor old mother, and our life at home is quiet and delightful. How comes it, Mr. Priest, that a bad book produces such good fruits?’”

Bishop Charles Fowler says of the Bible: “Marvelous Book! Full of divine life and power! No one can touch the hem of its garment without being healed. No one can come near enough even to stone it without being blessed. It shall rise in power and beauty, so long as there remains one sinner needing salvation or one saint hoping for Heaven.”
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I feel most strongly that the real way to test the inspiration of the Bible, or any other book, is not by criticizing its text, but by watching its influence upon human lives. In that, after all, we have definite and distinct evidence of its miraculous and supernatural character.
—Hudson Taylor.

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