Milk `n' Meat

Reading: Psalm 119:145-160

"My eyes stay open through the watches of the night" (Psa 119:148)

The Bible is both "milk" and "meat." For beginners it is milk, and for the grown-ups and the mature it is meat (Heb 5:12-14). Chewing of meat takes longer time than drinking milk. As we grow in our Christian life, we must allot more and more time for Bible meditation. We will come across several Bible difficulties and tough questions. Bible Dictionaries explain the cultural background against which each book of the Bible was written.

If only we know how much time the Bible translators take to translate a single portion of the Scripture, we will not consider Bible meditation as an extra-curricular activity! What a privilege to have the entire Bible in our mother tongue, that too in so many versions! There are still over 1000 languages without a single line of the Scripture translated into them. This generation is enviably blessed with abundance of Study Bibles and study aids. I could not afford to buy a single Study Bible during the first eight years (1962-1970) of my spiritual life as a student in the College. Oh, how I prayed for one with my campus prayermates!

God granted the desire of my heart in 1970 when my father-in-law presented me a Dake's Annotated Reference Bible when I got engaged to Lilian. It took Finnis Jennings Dake (1902-1987) about 100,000 hours during a span of 43 years to produce this Study Bible. Today, I own dozens of Study Bibles. I handle them with reverence because, as a Bible teacher, I can understand what it would take for the authors of Study Bibles to complete such works. It's good to buy Study Bibles but do we set aside time to study them?

New versions of the Bible are a stupendous asset to people like us who have not studied Hebrew and Greek. No one translation is absolutely perfect or totally faulty. Each has its strengths and defects. Don't be dominated by sentimentality and get closed to other versions. Take time to read your daily portions in one or two other versions. You will be thrilled at the fresh insights and understanding you receive! Let the King James Version addicts who are averse to other translations remember that the KJV is not "the first version of the English Bible" but a revision of dozen versions. Several Indian vernacular editions of the Bible are also being updated and they are welcome.

For most of us Sunday is the only holiday. Sunday afternoons after a siesta may be set aside for rigorous study of the Scriptures through study aids. Try and see!

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Bible Meditation: NextAug 20