Ben Fourie

“… and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” 2 Timothy 3:15

We all believe that the Holy Scripture is the true well from which we draw our knowledge of God. The word Bible comes from the original Greek word biblion meaning papyrus, which evolved into paper, and finally to meaning a scroll or a book. The word library comes from the Latin word liber meaning a book. The word library literally means a collection of books, and the word Bible actually comes from the Greek version of library, a Bibliotheca or collection of books. Like in any good library, you will find many different kinds of books in the Bible, even beautiful love stories. However, all of them have a single purpose and that is to enrich our knowledge of God, salvation and faith.

Paging through the Bible, you will find books relating the history of God’s involvement with His chosen people and His church. We find books of prophecy in which God used people to relay His message to the chosen. We will also find books like Proverbs – that we call books of wisdom – as well as some very beautiful poetry. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are also records of history – but what a history. It is the history of how God sent His Son to bring salvation to us all and how His church was founded. There are also the slightly strange apocalyptic books like Revelation and Daniel. Lastly, we find books of pure poetry like Job, the Psalms, and Song of Songs.

Poetry is not restricted to these books. In many other books, the authors made use of verse and rhythm in order to convey something of the many faces of God. God is so great in His all-encompassing power – that we struggle to explain Him with words. Language that is different from that which we use in our daily lives helps us to understand a bit more about Him. In the next few weeks, we will look at some of the songs and poetry in the Bible.

Prayer: Dear Lord, you are so great, you are the Unseen and we struggle to describe you in our totally insufficient language. Help us to use the beautiful poetry in your Word to learn something of who You really are. Amen