A practical reason why the Bible is essential for every Christian …

Lend me your imagination for a moment.

Imagine we live in the same city. Also imagine I was expecting a close friend who lived far away to come for a visit. However, his flight would arrive at the local airport at a time I was scheduled to be in an important meeting, one I couldn’t get out of or reschedule, so I ask if you would be willing to pick up my friend at the airport for me.

“Sure!” you say, because you’re kind and helpful like that. “Just tell me what he looks like so I can identify him,” you add,

I take a few minutes to give you a detailed description of my friend, right down to what he’ll be wearing when he exits the plane.

You have no problem identifying him at the airport because my words painted an accurate description of him.

The Bible does that in a deep and broad way in helping us identify God and understand “what He looks like.” Kind of like this story by Wayne Hudson in “Many A Tear Has to Fall”:

It was 1898 and Ben had left the East eight years ago to head out West in hopes of making his fortune. Well he wasn’t rich, but he had accumulated over 300 acres of good land and built a comfortable farm house on it. He raised wheat, corn, and all of his vegetables. He had managed to build his herd of cattle to over 200 head. Having accomplished all of this in only eight years, he decided that it was now time.

The ad that he placed in the New York newspaper said, “Wanted: A good woman willing to be a pen pal. Marriage is a possibility for the right woman.” Before long, he began receiving letters from Molly. Their correspondence soon turned into love for each other. Now, here he stood in the Kansas City train station waiting to finally meet her.

When the train arrived, there were a lot of women getting off. Suddenly, he yelled, “Molly — over here!”

She looked his way, walked over to him, smiled and held out her hand. He took it for a moment, then let it go. She said, “How did you know who I was?”

He then reached into the back pocket of his overalls and said, “From these here letters.”

“But there are no pictures in them.”

He dropped his head a bit and said, “Oh yes there are! There are lots of pictures in your words.” You see, he had spent hours reading every word — looking for every little clue that would tell him who Molly really was. He had fallen in love with her words — words that had painted her portrait.

Hudson added at the end of the story: “God’s precious word paints a vivid portrait of who he is. We as his bride should fall in love with his word so that we can then fall in love with its author.”

Not only does scripture paint a beautiful portrait for us of who God is and what He is like, it includes a wonderful portrait of the life of Jesus, and, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God …” Colossians 1:15a.

If you really want to know God, then the Bible must be central to your life because He reveals Himself to us primarily through it. If you spend little to no time studying the Bible, you won’t even have a scribbling of His character. But when you commit yourself to a lifetime of Bible study, your picture of God grows from a basic outline to an insightful picture and on to a grand portrait.

What kind of picture do you have of God? What is the source you have drawn that picture from? How can you go on to paint a more marvelous portrait of God?

Scotty