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Show Is'- B r7MTS& I lnlmliooAl Undo tjf, .i - : j! UiJIl SvA,r Snhi l.rm, Hfll By DR. KENNETH J, FOREMAN H cmlPTURE: Psalms 119:97-10S; Luke i M- John 20:30-31: II Timothy 3:14-17. DEVOTIONAL READING: Psalms 119:137-144. flll-Time Best Seller Lesson for October 3, 1948 IF ALL the Bibles sold in one year by one manufacturer, the American Amer-ican Bible society, were piled on nn nf one another, flat not end- wise-that pile of Bibles and testa- itfyy ments would be 20 t-' A -miles high. In 1947 x ; I that firm put out ,Y the astonishing ' total of 9.310.439 4 V Bibles, testaments S-jt , or portions. During . .-J the first 125 years ' Y& , 1 of the society's ex- l mi& -I tstence, 305.579,217 Dr. Foreman copies of Scripture were printed and sold by them, this would make one shelf 870 miles long. The Bible is the best selling book In the world. No other book is in its class. Not to know the Bible is not to know the most widely read book In the world-The American Bible society publishes it in only 167 languages, but parts of It have been translated Into as many as 1,000 languages and dialects. Many Authors SUCH popularity must be deserved. de-served. There are many reasons why the Bible continues to be, year after year, the all-time best seller. But one of the reasons is its im-pressive im-pressive variety. It is not one, book, it is a library of books. What- ever your mood, whatever your 1 need, there is a page in the Bible, somewhere, for you. A Christian will try seriously to appreciate the whole Bible and not merely one or two parts of it. Yet there is such variety tn it that invariably some persons per-sons arc attracted by one feature fea-ture of it while another feature fea-ture makes stronger appeal to others. Our studies these next three months will be in "The Literature , of .the Bible" and each week we shall be noticing a different feature. ' This week we give a thought to the tremendous variety of the Bible, along with its underlying unity. Many Types T OOKING through the Bible you find all varieties- of literary types; you find poetry and prose; stones, essays, sermons, biographies, biogra-phies, dramas; rhapsodies, love songs, ' funeral dirges and battle hymns. Here are pages as prosaic as a telephone book and here are pages more exciting than any fiction. Here are simple, straightforward ideas that a child can understand as soon as he understands the words and here are mysteries so profound pro-found that the world's mightiest and boldest minds shrink back in awe. The Bible is not like a piece of music played on one single instrument, instru-ment, like a tune on a piccolo; it is more like an immense symphony the more often we listen to it, the more we hear in it. Many Times ONE knows exactly how long A it took for the Bible to be written. writ-ten. Let us suppose that the earliest ear-liest parts came from the pen Cor stylus) of Moses, and the latest part from about 100 years after Christ (John and the Revelation). If Moses flourished around 1200 C, that would mean that the Bible was completed 13 centuries aiter it was begun. In 13 centuries much can happen, hap-pen, and much did. There is hardly ony circumstance or crisis, there is scarcely any time, however hum-arum hum-arum or thrilling, which does not Mve its match in the Bible. Its writers were inspired men; they sw God. But they also knew the mes in which they lived, and thus can speak to ours. ne Theme pOR all the 'vast variety of the Bible, there is in it a deep and jofty unity. It is bound together y its mighty purpose, which throbbed in the heart's blood oi yery man who wrote a line of it. That purpose is to make God real to man, and to bring man to God. ne writers cf the Bible may have oad their lighter moments, but they not write these pages then. They wrote under the lrre-sjstable lrre-sjstable Impulse, born of the v SpIrlt to make P,a,n 10 other men what God had repealed re-pealed to them. So a you come to the Bible, re-member re-member its purpose Is not to make yoti admire or revere It as a book; great purpose Is to be trans Parent, a window through which shall see God. CkMli'ht b2 lattnUonl Ceuacl Pw,J.'l?u'siiu:'t-B co bihiU ct 4i Ft,t 4,"'lmioatioa- Relew J |