For decades, the number of British households owning Bibles has declined. But 2020 saw a “sharp boost” in pandemic-prompted sales of the Scriptures, according to a Christian bookseller talking to the Financial Times (Peter Chapman, “The home in 50 objects #33: King James Bible,” March 5, 2021).
That’s good news. But purchasing a Bible is just step one. Pondering its message is the crucial next step. Step three is best of all—when we gratefully grasp its meaning in the way that two early followers of Jesus did. Looking back on a walk with him towards a town called Emmaus, they said: “Weren’t our hearts glowing while he was with us on the road, and when he made the scriptures so plain to us?” (Luke 24:32, J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English).
We can’t literally walk with Jesus today. But our hearts still glow with gratitude when making breakthroughs, even when modest, in our understanding of all Jesus taught. Jesus himself promised a Comforter would come—“the Spirit of truth”—which, he said, would “testify of me” (John 15:26).
