BIBLE NEWS: The Cross vs ISIS

The world is scary today with terrorism and wars happening all over the Middle East.  ISIS has been murdering Christians left and right, and glorying in their deaths.  Why is the cross so offensive to them?  The reality is, it has always been an offense to those outside our faith.

The ISIS barbarians were actually quite right in entitling their video "A Message Written in Blood." Up and down the centuries, tyrants and their lackeys have thought that they could wipe out the followers of Jesus through acts of violence.But as Tertullian observed long ago, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. And they were furthermore right in sending their message to "the Nation of the Cross." But they should know that the cross taunts them.  

Who DOESN'T have the Bible?

We English-speakers have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to quality Bible translations. We have so many, in fact, that we can take the time to debate the relative merits of the different versions (NIV, ESV, RSV, KJV, etc.) But for many peoples, they don't even one book of the Bible in their own language. That's why it is so important to have Bible translators working to empower missionaries and local pastors to preach in their own tongues.

The need is about 340 million people speaking 2,078 languages, to be exact. These hundreds of millions of people don't even have Bible translation programs started in their languages, according to Wycliffe Bible Translators.

That's why Andrew Lancaster*, who has a degree in Bible translation and is headed to serve overseas, has a passion to see the need met.

"Why is it that there are now hundreds of English translations of the Bible, yet more than 2,000 languages of the world do not even have one word of it? English versions are produced left and right while thousands are dying without having ever had access to the Word of God," Lancaster said.

HUMOR: Jesus and the World

Not mine. Found online.

A father wanted to read a magazine, but was being pestered by his daughter. To keep her busy, he tore a sheet out of the magazine that had a picture of the world printed on it. He tore the picture into small pieces and said "Here, now go into the other room and see if you can put this picture of the world back together again."

A few minutes goes by and he daughter appears in the room and hands him the picture all correctly fitted together.

The father was surprised and ask her how she was able to fit all those little pieces of the world back together again so quickly.

"Oh.." she said, "On the other side of the paper was a picture of Jesus and once I got Jesus in the right place, then the world came out alright."

The Taliban Fears the Bible

The Bible is known to be a powerful book. It has freed prisoners, it has brought down tyrants, and it has raised up great leaders. Its enemies know this, and fear it. The Taliban in Aghanistan is now decrying local-language Bibles that are appearing in the country. They are accusing American soldiers of distributing them.

Afghanistan's Taliban have urged Afghan Muslims to resist anyone trying to convert them, after a television network aired pictures of U.S. soldiers in the country with bibles translated into local languages.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed footage on Monday of a bible studies class on a U.S. base in Afghanistan where a soldier had brought a stack of bibles translated into the Afghan languages Dari and Pashto.

This is one of the reasons why we learn and memorize scripture in Bible Quizzing. People can ban paper and electronic Bibles, but they can't stop you from bringing memorized scripture with you wherever you go.