“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
2/ The Bible…why is it called BIBLE and not any other name? The word ‘bible’ is derived from the Greek word, ‘biblia’ which means ‘book’, in turn ‘biblia’ is derived from the word ‘byblos’, the name of a plant….the papyrus.
In Ancient Greece there was the port, harbour called ‘Byblos’ for the simple reason that from that harbour used to pass a good number of ‘papyrus’ on their way to the Aegean Sea. For this reason this harbour took the name of ‘Byblos’ which means ‘papyrus’ in Greek.
The Papyrus grows along the shores of the River Nile, Egypt. It might grow up to a height of three metres. The stalk is so strong that from it, after being dried and fixed together, they used make sandals, besides baskets, ropes, mats and as a material to write on.
Because of the fact that the first Sacred Writings, were written on this ‘papyrus’ material, ‘byblos’ in Greek, so they became commonly known as ‘Byblios’, ‘Biblia’, Bibbia in Italian, Bibbja in Maltese and Bible in English.
There still exist a 4th century papyrus page with the Gospel according to St.John,written in Coptic. This language, derived from Egyptian was still in use up tothe 17th century. It was then replaced as the vernacular language by the Egyptian Arab. Many attempts were made to revive the Coptic language, but nowadays it is spoken by about 300.
Why do we study the Bible ? What is it’s importance ? The more we study, read, understand the Bible, the more we realize how great, immense is God’s love for all humanity. We realize how often God intervenes in man’s History, defends us, and that He is always our provider, besides guiding us and caring for us as a good father cares for his children.
One more important aspect is that God has always kept His word….unlike man, who has so often gone back on his promises. We realise that God is the Source of everything.
If all we read and learn from the Holy Book, helps us to increase our knowledge of God, His omnipotence, His power and His love towards us and then realize that the Bible is a collection of Love letters sent to us by our Father in Heaven, by God.
All that was foretold and promised in the Old Testament was fulfilled in the New Testament through Jesus Christ. This is the reason why we read, we study the Bible; the more facts, figures, knowledge we have of the Word of God, the more we will be convinced that we should apply it, make our Terms of Reference, for our life. It should be our Magna Carta.
We arrive at a point when we programme our life on Christ’s life, we will be experiencing Christ. St.Paul, “Not I live, but Christ lives in me.” /3
Blog site: www.wordofgodalmighty.blogspot.com
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