Can This Book Help You to Succeed?
NO ONE on earth can be sure how many books have been produced throughout human history. Indeed, a wise man once said: “To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion to them is wearisome to the flesh.” (Eccl. 12:12) How true!
Yet there is one book that is unlike all others. In common renditions, it has 66 individual books. Its chapters number 1,189. And, in many translations, it contains 31,102 verses.
If you were to read and meditate on just one of these verses a day, it would take you over 85 years to complete this book. That exceeds normal life expectancy today. In fact, the very book we have in mind says of humans: “In themselves the days of our years are seventy years; and if because of special mightiness they are eighty years, yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things; for it must quickly pass by, and away we fly.”—Ps. 90:10.
This book is the Bible. And proper study of it would require more than a normal human lifetime.
HELD IN HIGH ESTEEM
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, once said: “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man.” Truly, the Bible is held in high esteem by millions. For example, author Henry van Dyke stated:
“Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life. The wicked and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother’s voice. It has woven itself into our dearest dreams; so that Love, Friendship, Sympathy, Devotion, Memory, Hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured speech. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own.”
Because of their religious views, some persons may be moved to make glowing statements about the Bible. Saying something good about it may seem to be ‘the right thing to do.’ Many, however, apparently have been very serious about pursuing knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. For instance, John Quincy Adams said: “I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.”
What would happen if you were to read through the Bible once each year? Suppose you did this not hurriedly but allowing time for meditation. Would there be an improvement in the quality of your life? You would be entitled to think so if British statesman W. E. Gladstone was right. He said: “The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.”
In essence, then, you have a right to ask: Would increased Bible knowledge really benefit me? Can I expect this book, customarily associated with Christianity, to help me to succeed in life?