The Transformational Power of ScriptureSample

Seed, sword, Spirit, life

I can’t quite remember the context, but I do recall what my young friend said about the Bible.

I had just finished my weekly mentoring session with a group of middle school boys (think middle-aged man trying not to pull a hamstring on a basketball court) when somehow the Scriptures entered the conversation. Between dribbles, one young man asked, “The Bible . . . that’s like an encyclopedia, right?”

I laughed and winced at the same time. Obviously, my friend was new to the Old and New Testaments that had been my daily bread for three decades. But how would I explain, in the few seconds we had before the school bell, what the Bible actually was? How could I unpack, in anything less than a 16-part sermon series, all the ways that God’s Word had equipped, inspired, convicted, comforted, saved, and blessed my life, my wife, my work, my daughters, my days, my nights, my mornings, my meetings, my eternity, my everything?

For the uninitiated, the Bible might seem like an encyclopedia, a dry and dusty text that people own but rarely read. But the Bible is more. So much more.

The Bible is like a seed, so small you could miss it or entirely dismiss it, yet so packed with potential it could produce, according to Jesus, “a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23).

The Bible is like a sword, the weapon that keeps you alive in this spiritual war “so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11).

The Bible is full of the Spirit, working invisibly, powerfully, and supernaturally, leading Paul to state that “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Romans 10:17).

The Bible is life itself, prompting Peter to resist the done-with-Jesus crowds and confess, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

There is no other book that is worthy of so much of your limited time in this life. You are no fool if you begin or end each day (or both!) in the God-breathed, Spirit-filled, life-changing Scriptures.

Because these Scriptures are seed, sword, Spirit, and life.