So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, and as Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them. Jeremiah 36:32
I had just got the document as I wanted it on my computer, and was about to send it off when... it disappeared. Oh the horror of a blank screen instead of those carefully thought out words! After spending a lot of time trying to recover it (“Oh, it’ll still be there somewhere on your hard drive” my nerdy friends assured me) I had no choice but to type it out again from scratch.
If you use a computer I’m sure you will have had a similar experience. (I once heard a professional theologian describe how, after he had completed the first draft of his new book on hundreds of sheets of paper, his little girl found them and decided they would make very good confetti...)
Words are amazing things, and virtually indestructible if those who utter or write them are serious about them. And if that applies to words in general, it certainly applies to the word of God.
I don’t think the prophet Jeremiah had a computer. But a point was reached in his long ministry when God told him to commit his message to writing, so with the help of his faithful scribe Baruch he did just that, he dictating, Baruch writing on a scroll. It wasn’t the whole Bible, of course. But a significant chunk of it.
Jeremiah is under a kind of house arrest, so the job of reading the scroll to the people falls to Baruch. This creates quite a stir, not least among some of the officials of King Jehoiakim. They are so struck by what they hear that a reading to the king is arranged, done by an official called Jehudi. All credit to those sympathetic officials who insisted that the king should hear God’s word.
But it was no use: “It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment, with a fire burning in the brazier in front of him. Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the brazier, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire” (Jeremiah 36:22-23).
So that was that, then.
Actually, no, it wasn’t. Read on to the end of Jeremiah 36 and you find that Jeremiah and Baruch simply go through the same procedure all over again - only this time adding still more words, some of which have a message especially disagreeable to the hard-hearted, cynical king (verses 30-31).
Sorry, King Jehoiakim, but God’s word can’t be got rid of as easily as that!
This dramatic story - of the inspired prophet, the faithful secretary, the humble officials and the godless king - contains a very simple message: God’s word, ultimately, cannot be silenced. It has life and power. As the Writer to the Hebrews says: “For the word of the Lord is alive and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
I suspect that all of us who are Christians will be able to look back on times when God’s word spoke directly and powerfully to us in a way that changed our lives. And how grateful we are today.
So... what?
Let’s make up our minds to take the Bible deeply seriously. Have we become a little casual about reading it, or about hearing it taught and preached? Shame on us if we have - there are Christians dotted around the world who own just a few scattered pages of God’s word, if that, while we have enough copies of different translations to bend our book shelves.
What else? Let’s be thankful for those who, under God, put his word down in writing. Just imagine if we had no Gospels, no Psalms, no Letters...
Let’s be thankful for those who devote their lives to the study of the Bible, learning to read its original languages, and thus throwing new light on it to make its meaning clear for the rest of us.
Let’s be thankful for Bible translators and publishers - there was a time, remember, when you simply wouldn’t have been able to read it if different people hadn’t risked their lives to put it into our mother-tongues. And there are still organisations, like Wycliffe Bible Translators and Bible Society, who work constantly to make the Bible available to people throughout the world. How many hundreds and thousands of Bibles have received the Jehoiakim treatment over the centuries? Yet still we have it today.
Let’s be thankful for those who faithfully preach it to us Sunday by Sunday and week by week, and for those who lead study groups and teach children and young people.
And this too: let’s pray that God will use each of us day by day to make his truth known through casual conversations.
God’s word changes people! So let’s respect it, get to know it, obey it - and pass on its message to others.
Lord God, thank you for your word - the written word of the Bible, pointing to the living word of your son Jesus. Teach me to value and cherish it, to understand and believe it, and to communicate its truth to others. Amen.
I had just got the document as I wanted it on my computer, and was about to send it off when... it disappeared. Oh the horror of a blank screen instead of those carefully thought out words! After spending a lot of time trying to recover it (“Oh, it’ll still be there somewhere on your hard drive” my nerdy friends assured me) I had no choice but to type it out again from scratch.
If you use a computer I’m sure you will have had a similar experience. (I once heard a professional theologian describe how, after he had completed the first draft of his new book on hundreds of sheets of paper, his little girl found them and decided they would make very good confetti...)
Words are amazing things, and virtually indestructible if those who utter or write them are serious about them. And if that applies to words in general, it certainly applies to the word of God.
I don’t think the prophet Jeremiah had a computer. But a point was reached in his long ministry when God told him to commit his message to writing, so with the help of his faithful scribe Baruch he did just that, he dictating, Baruch writing on a scroll. It wasn’t the whole Bible, of course. But a significant chunk of it.
Jeremiah is under a kind of house arrest, so the job of reading the scroll to the people falls to Baruch. This creates quite a stir, not least among some of the officials of King Jehoiakim. They are so struck by what they hear that a reading to the king is arranged, done by an official called Jehudi. All credit to those sympathetic officials who insisted that the king should hear God’s word.
But it was no use: “It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter apartment, with a fire burning in the brazier in front of him. Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the brazier, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire” (Jeremiah 36:22-23).
So that was that, then.
Actually, no, it wasn’t. Read on to the end of Jeremiah 36 and you find that Jeremiah and Baruch simply go through the same procedure all over again - only this time adding still more words, some of which have a message especially disagreeable to the hard-hearted, cynical king (verses 30-31).
Sorry, King Jehoiakim, but God’s word can’t be got rid of as easily as that!
This dramatic story - of the inspired prophet, the faithful secretary, the humble officials and the godless king - contains a very simple message: God’s word, ultimately, cannot be silenced. It has life and power. As the Writer to the Hebrews says: “For the word of the Lord is alive and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
I suspect that all of us who are Christians will be able to look back on times when God’s word spoke directly and powerfully to us in a way that changed our lives. And how grateful we are today.
So... what?
Let’s make up our minds to take the Bible deeply seriously. Have we become a little casual about reading it, or about hearing it taught and preached? Shame on us if we have - there are Christians dotted around the world who own just a few scattered pages of God’s word, if that, while we have enough copies of different translations to bend our book shelves.
What else? Let’s be thankful for those who, under God, put his word down in writing. Just imagine if we had no Gospels, no Psalms, no Letters...
Let’s be thankful for those who devote their lives to the study of the Bible, learning to read its original languages, and thus throwing new light on it to make its meaning clear for the rest of us.
Let’s be thankful for Bible translators and publishers - there was a time, remember, when you simply wouldn’t have been able to read it if different people hadn’t risked their lives to put it into our mother-tongues. And there are still organisations, like Wycliffe Bible Translators and Bible Society, who work constantly to make the Bible available to people throughout the world. How many hundreds and thousands of Bibles have received the Jehoiakim treatment over the centuries? Yet still we have it today.
Let’s be thankful for those who faithfully preach it to us Sunday by Sunday and week by week, and for those who lead study groups and teach children and young people.
And this too: let’s pray that God will use each of us day by day to make his truth known through casual conversations.
God’s word changes people! So let’s respect it, get to know it, obey it - and pass on its message to others.
Lord God, thank you for your word - the written word of the Bible, pointing to the living word of your son Jesus. Teach me to value and cherish it, to understand and believe it, and to communicate its truth to others. Amen.
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