How Thick is Your Dust?

Ezra 7:10

For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.

We have an abundance of God’s Word available to us. But my question is: what are we doing with it? Is your Bible just another book on the shelf, collecting dust with the others?

I once heard a story about a persecuted church in China. The church was very poor, and among them they only owned one Bible. The pastor kept the Bible in his house, and each week he would give each member of his congregation a stone with a scripture verse written on it. That stone would be kept in the person’s pocket all week, as they went about their daily lives. Each time they felt it in their pocket, they would take it out and read it. They would think about it, meditate on it, and talk about it. They would ‘chew’ on this one verse over and over, kind of like a cow chews its food more than once.

For the whole week, all they had was that one scripture. They didn’t have a whole Bible like we do. They didn’t have 30 Bible translations in their own language, or thousands of good Christian books. They only had one scripture verse each, for a whole week. At the end of the week, they would come back to the congregation and share what they had learned. Then the stone would be given back to the pastor, and he would pass it onto someone else in the congregation.

I can tell you truthfully that those people probably appreciated having that one scripture more than we would appreciate owning one whole Bible. We often take for granted what we really have.