Billions of Bibles have been published and distributed around the world. Millions of people regard it as the inspired Word of God. It's been one of history's most influential books. But can you-and should you-believe it?
On March 16, 1985, journalist Terry Anderson was kidnapped from the streets
of Beirut, Lebanon. As a political pawn he was held hostage for 2,454 days-almost
seven years. During this excruciating ordeal Mr. Anderson showed remarkable
courage, although frequently stretched to near his breaking point.
On the first day of his confinement his abductors hustled him at gunpoint
from his car into theirs, then took him to a half-built apartment building.
There they blindfolded him and chained him to a cot.
During his first 24 days in chains, bound and restrained like an animal,
he struggled to find a way to maintain his sanity. Realizing the need to
summon courage and strength from somewhere, he asked his captors for a
Bible.
In his memoirs Mr. Anderson related the result of that request: "The
next day, late in the afternoon, the English- speaking guard came in and
threw a heavy object on the bed. I reached for it, felt the smooth covers
of a book. The guard came around to the head of the bed. 'Good?' 'Yes,
very good, thank you.'
"I cautiously pulled my blindfold up a bit, until I could see the book...A
Bible, the Revised Standard Version. I caressed it gently ... I read the
title page, the publishing and copyright information, the notes of the
editors, slowly, carefully. Then: Genesis. 'In the beginning ...'" (Terry
Anderson, Den of Lions, 1993, pp. 14-15).
How often in crises have men and women turned to the Bible for help? The
value of the Word of God is acknowledged at such moments of unease, uncertainty
and apprehension.
