Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries! Happiest they of human race, To whom God has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch, and force the way: And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever. … Worshipping God and the Lamb in the temple: God, for his benefaction in creating all things, and the Lamb, for his benefaction in redeeming us with his blood.

Sir Isac Newton (1643-1727)

Islam is one of the fastest growing religions on earth with over a billion followers, yet ministry among Muslims is by far the most neglected mission field. Some reports claim that as little as one percent of the world missionary force is working among them. Over 80 percent of all Muslims have never heard the Gospel.
The Christian church has never seriously attempted to reach the hundreds of millions who are Muslims. The great missionary Samuel Zwemer stated, "One might suppose that the church thought the Great Commission did not apply to Muslims."
This is easily demonstrated by looking at some statistics concerning missions. Only one percent of the church’s entire missionary force is ministering to Muslims. This means that there is about one Christian missionary for every one million Muslims. The church has more missionaries working among Alaska’s 400,000 residents than in the entire Muslim world!

"You ask me what Bible I take as the standard of my faith—the Hebrew, the Samaritan, the old English translation, or what? I answer, the Bible containing the Sermon on the Mount—any Bible that I can … understand. The New Testament I have repeatedly read in the original Greek, in the Latin, in the Geneva Protestant, in Sacy’s Catholic French translations, in Luther’s German translation, in the common English Protestant, and in the Douay Catholic translations.
I take any one of them for my standard of faith."

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.

George Washington (1732–1799)

"I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China, I don't know who it was.  It must have been a man, a well-educated man.  I don't know what happened.  Perhaps he died.  Perhaps he wasn't willing, and God looked down and saw Gladys Aylward and God said - "Well, she's willing."

Gladys Aylward (1902-1970)

"I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages - villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world."
"Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, beloved mortals."

Robert Moffit (1795-1883)

The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men.—It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter.—It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting.

John Locke (1632-17044)

"I yesterday received your very welcome letter.  It is but the second that I have received, after having written at least two hundred."

Robert Morrison (1782-1834)

"It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China.  With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home." 

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)

Her name, Pandita Ramabai, though unfamiliar to many today, is etched in glory. Her father was a Brahmin priest who, at age 44, married a 9-year-old girl. Wanting to educate her, he took her to a remote forest in southern India, built a house, and, having removed all distractions, taught her all he knew. Here in 1858, Pandita was born. Her father determined to give her, too, an education; and by the time she was 12, Pandita had memorized 18,000 Sanskrit verses and had become fluent in various languages.
But the little family encountered mounting debts, then hunger. Pandita’s father “held me tightly in his arms, and stroking my head and cheeks, told me he loved me, how he had taught me to do right, and never to depart from the way of righteousness.”
Then he died of starvation, followed by her mother. Pandita set off across India, sleeping in the open, suffering from cold, eating berries. She began doubting her father’s idols; and finally in Calcutta, she learned of Jesus Christ.
Educated women were novelties in India, and Pandita began lecturing here and there, seeking to raise the standard of life for women. Traveling to England and America, she embraced Christ and was baptized. She studied mathematics and medicine in Western universities; and she sought financial support for a home for child-widows in India. In the late 1880s she returned to India and opened the Mukti (Salvation) Mission. It was thronged by hundreds of desperate girls. She and her workers dug wells, planted trees, tilled the land, and preached the gospel. Hundreds were converted. Thousands were rescued from starvation. She established schools to educate her girls. Then a church was built with these lines inscribed on the foundation: Praise the Lord. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of Hosts. That Rock was Christ. September 20, 1899.
Her last years were spent translating the Bible into Marathi. She had almost completed the task when she fell ill. She prayed for ten more days in which to complete her work; and ten days later, on April 5, 1922, she died, having just finished the last page.

On this Day, Morgan, R. J. (1998). Thomas Nelson Publishers

If I had a thousand pounds China should have it- if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)

There is no book like the Bible for excellent wisdom and use.
Every morning read seriously and reverently a portion of the Holy Scriptures, and acquaint yourselves with the history and doctrine thereof; it is a Book full of light and wisdom, and will make you wise unto eternal life.

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676)

“God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

Martin Luther (1483 –1546)

"God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word can not reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books which confine instead of spread that the public treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, and multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine."

Johannes Gutenberg, 1455

William Carey, the “father of modern missions,” wanted to translate the Bible into as many Indian languages as possible. He established a large printshop in Serampore where translation work was continually being done. Carey spent hours each day translating Scripture, while his insane wife ranted and raved.
Carey was away from Serampore on March 11, 1832. His associate, William Ward, was working late. Suddenly Ward smelled smoke. He leaped up to discover clouds belching from the printing room. He screamed for help, and workers passed water from the nearby river until 2 a.m., but everything was destroyed.
On March 12, 1812 missionary Joshua Marshman entered a Calcutta classroom where Carey was teaching. “I can think of no easy way to break the news,” he said. “The printshop burned to the ground last night.” Carey was stunned. Gone were his massive polyglot dictionary, two grammar books, and whole versions of the Bible. Gone were sets of type for 14 eastern languages, 1,200 reams of paper, 55,000 printed sheets, and 30 pages of his Bengal dictionary. Gone was his complete library. “The work of years—gone in a moment,” he whispered.
He took little time to mourn. “The loss is heavy,” he wrote, “but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value. We are not discouraged; indeed the work is already begun again in every language. We are cast down but not in despair.”
When news of the fire reached England, it catapulted Carey to instant fame. Thousands of pounds were raised for the work, and volunteers offered to come help. The enterprise was rebuilt and enlarged. By 1832, complete Bibles, New Testaments, or separate books of Scripture had issued from the printing press in 44 languages and dialects.
The secret of Carey’s success is found in his resiliency. “There are grave difficulties on every hand,” he once wrote, “and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward.”
We often suffer, but we are never crushed. Even when we don’t know what to do, we never give up. In times of trouble, God is with us, and when we are knocked down, we get up again.2 Corinthians 4:8-9

On this Day: 365 amazing and inspiring stories about saints, martyrs & heroes.
Morgan, R. J. (1997). Thomas Nelson Publishers

As the title set over the head of Christ crucified, was the same in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, so are the Scriptures the same, whether in the original, or other language into which they are faithfully translated. Yet, as the waters are most pure, and sweet in the fountain, so are all writings, Divine and human, in their original tongues.

John Robinson (1575-1625)

All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

Noah Webster (1758-1843)

When parents grow exasperated with their children, they often need to remember that God frames us all differently, giving each child a unique perspective and personality. George Borrow was born on July 5, 1803, during the age of Napoleon, and George’s soldier-father expected a disciplined and eager son. Instead, George was moody and introspective with a penchant for running away. He was bored with the conventional and intrigued by the odd. He hated school but possessed an insatiable curiosity about herbalists, fortune-tellers, snakes, and dwarfs. He picked up languages with remarkable ease yet adopted a gypsy life, eventually becoming a tinker with cart and pony, selling pots and pans.
One evening while sleeping under the stars, George was awakened by a muffled voice saying, “Cut the rope, this is his pony.” By the faint glow of smoking embers, George saw two figures stealing his rig. He leaped on them, and for two hours the men fought and wrestled. Finally, one of the thieves smashed George’s head with a rock, and the rogues threw his body into the underbrush.
The next morning, two traveling Welsh evangelists saw a pair of feet sticking from a thicket. They dragged George to a clearing and attended his cuts with a damp cloth. The men gave him some bread and a book before going their way. George sat in the grass for hours, devouring both the bread and the book, a Bible—the Bread of Life. His brilliant mind soon discovered the Lord.
In coming years, George learned dozens of languages and became a Bible translator. His autobiography, telling his adventures as a colporteur for the British and Foreign Bible Society, is full of breathtaking perils, narrow escapes, imprisonments, and gypsy-like journeys, especially in Spain. This odd man and his remarkable ministry captured the imagination of England and greatly advanced the cause of European Bible distribution

On this Day: 365 Stories about Saints, Martyrs, Heroes
Morgan, R. J. (1998). Thomas Nelson Publishers

Robert Morrison was the first Protestant missionary to China, sent out by the London Missionary Society in 1807. Arriving in Canton, he moved into a cellar and was rarely seen in public, pouring himself into a study of the language. He made such good progress that he was hired by the East India Company as an interpreter and spent the next 25 years thus employed. This arrangement allowed him the opportunity of translating the Bible, tracts, hymnbooks, and prayer books from English into Chinese. He prepared an Anglo-Chinese dictionary and a Chinese grammar book.
During his lifetime, Morrison saw but three or four conversions, but his work paved the way for all the missionaries who followed.
He found Isaiah 43:2 as a young man on a voyage from Newcastle to London. He was on his way to school, and the seas were rough. Morrison suffered a bout of seasickness, but he nonetheless managed his daily intake of Scripture. He wrote his father:
I was happily surprised, when lying sick in the state room, by hearing a number of persons sing psalms in the cabin; and every night when the weather would permit, we had prayers and reading of Scriptures. The passage was very rough, in some parts of it; one night they let the ship drive, and another night pitched away her bowsprit, which last occurrence was very serious, as it endangered the loss of our masts.
I mention these circumstances to excite thankfulness to God, who brought us safely through. I pleaded the promise, in its literal sense, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,” and blessed by God, it was fulfilled.
It was a promise he was to claim many times to come.

Isaiah 43:1–7
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

From this verse : 365 scriptures that changed the world
Morgan, R. J. (1998). Thomas Nelson Publishers

On August 19, 1991, Communist hardliners in Moscow, angry with their loss of Eastern Europe, seized control of the Soviet government while Mikhail Gorbachev was in the Crimea. Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament were trapped in the parliament building as thousands of brave citizens gathered outside, forming a human barricade. Tanks and troops ringed the building, and the world held its breath.
Here’s what the newspapers didn’t report. According to Barbara Von Der Heydt in her book Candles Behind the Wall, when news of the coup broke, Iven Kharlanov and Anatoly Rudenko of the Bible Society in Moscow discussed how to persuade the troops not to fire on protesters. They called Bible societies around the world asking prayer, then plotted a bold scheme.
Just as the storming of parliament appeared imminent, they showed up with a truck loaded with New Testaments. Christians went from soldier to soldier and from tank to tank, handing out the Scripture and quoting Exodus 20:13. One woman, Shirinai Dossova, walked over to one of the tanks and knocked loudly on its side with her knuckles. She continued until the baffled driver opened the hatch and appeared. “It says in this book that you shouldn’t kill,” she said, thrusting a Bible at him. “Are you going to kill us?”
The young soldier looked confused. He took the Bible, saying, “We’re not intending to kill anybody.”
Almost all the soldiers accepted the proffered Testaments. Some tucked them in their pockets while others began reading at once. Many had always wanted a Bible but had never seen one. And with each Bible came the question, “You’re not really going to kill us, are you? This book says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ”
The coup collapsed, the Communist empire crashed to the ground—and historians are still pondering why the expected attack on the parliament building never materialized.

From this verse : 365 scriptures that changed the world
Morgan, R. J. (1998). Thomas Nelson Publishers

Despite the invention of printing in the mid-15th century, there was still no printed version of the Bible in English at the beginning of the 16th century . This lack disturbed William Tyndale, who was keenly aware of the resistance of scholars and church officials to translating scripture - to whom he declared:
“If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more scripture than thou dost.”

Patrick Henry, once interrupted while engaged in Bible reading, held up his Bible and said: "The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed, and it has been my misfortune that I have never found time to read it with the proper attention and feeling till lately. I trust in the mercy of Heaven that it is not yet too late."

Patrick Henry (1736-1799)

Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution centre for Bibles in many languages.

Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

Charles Spurgeon was once asked, "How do you defend the Bible?" "Very easy" he responded. "The same way I defend a lion. I simply let it out of its cage."

In 1792, a little peasant girl in Llanfilhangel, Wales, named Mary Jones, became intrigued with the Bible and longed to read from its pages. As her parents were too poor to afford one, she went to a neighbor’s house and borrowed a New Testament. Her eyes fell on three words: Search the Scriptures.
Mary determined to purchase a Bible of her own, and for the next several years, she toiled with her hands sacrificing many other things in order to earn enough money to purchase her own copy of the Scriptures. Times were very difficult, pennies were hard to come by, and Bibles were rare. But in the spring of 1800, Mary walked 25 miles barefooted to a place called Bala, carrying her hard-earned money. She arrived there late in the day and found lodging with the local Methodist minister, but she could hardly sleep for the excitement of having a Bible of her own.
Early next morning, she proceeded to the house of Rev. Thomas Charles, who was reported to have Bibles for sale. Imagine her sorrow to learn that his stock of Bibles was exhausted. Her inconsolable grief so moved Thomas Charles that he said, “My dear child, I see that you must have a Bible. It is impossible to refuse you.” Finding a copy that had been promised to another, he gave it to her.
But that’s not the end of the story. Rev. Charles, deeply moved by that scene, developed a burning determination to do everything in his power to make the Bible available to any who desired it, to the millions in Christendom not having one.
He laid plans, garnered support, expended energy, and in 1894 the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed, the “granddaddy” of all the world’s Bible societies.

From this verse : 365 scriptures that changed the world.
Morgan, R. J. (1998). Thomas Nelson Publishers

The Books of Scripture illustrate and expound each other; as in the mariner’s compass, the needle’s extremity, though it seems to point purposely to the north, doth yet at the same time discover both east and west, as distant as they are from it and each other, so do some texts of Scripture guide us to the intelligence of others, for which they are widely distant in the Bible.

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676)