Thought for the week

‘More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” - Psalm 19:10

AT THIS time of year, many churches observe a Bible Sunday. In one sense, of course, every Sunday is a Bible Sunday – when did you ever go to church and not find the Bible at the centre of things?

Yet it can be good to stop and think about what the Bible is worth.

In the ancient world, nothing was as precious as gold and nothing as sweet as honey. Yet people concluded that in the Bible they had found something to be prized more highly than gold and something sweeter than honey.

This year in Europe we are remembering the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation. Europe met a many-sided crisis in the 16th century and had to regroup, at many levels. A key resource turned out to be the Bible. It was translated into the language of ordinary people.

Thanks to the newly-invented printing press, it could be published and distributed like never before. A fresh encounter with the Bible helped Europe to resolve its crisis.

It is stating the obvious to say that, 500 years later, Europe is once again meeting a profound and many-sided crisis. Marking Bible Sunday reminds us that we have a resource at our disposal that has proved its worth in such times. Might it be that in our crisis we will rediscover that it is more precious than gold and sweeter than honey?

Kenneth Ross, Parish minister, Netherlorn