Introduction

I appreciate the ministry of the Gideons. About 20 years ago, I was an active member of their organization. I believe it’s important that we place God’s word in as many people’s hands as we can. The one thing I admired about the way the Gideons operate is that when a school or hospital or motel would tell them they could no longer place or hand out Bibles, they did not respond by demanding their rights and creating a ruckus as so many Christian organizations were doing at that time. They were always gracious and understanding of the position the administrator was in. Instead of making a big scene, they would start praying that God would re-open the door that was now shut. And many times those doors would open up again.

The best story of Gideons placing Bibles that I have run across was by a group of Texas Gideons. They were praying that God’s word might be able to go up in space on the Apollo 8 Mission since they lived near the flight center in Houston. The Chief of the Technical Branch of the Manned Spacecraft Center heard about this prayer and arranged for them to be able to present three Bibles, to the three-member crew of Apollo 8, which they took with them on their mission. On Christmas Eve in outer space, the first ten verses of Genesis 1 were read by the three members of the crew as they floated the Bible back and forth between each other.

To tie in with the Gideon presentation we heard today, I want to briefly share some thoughts from Deuteronomy 6:6-9. These verses contain the instructions from God to Moses and reveal to us the importance of God’s word. In a day when people ignore or scoff at scripture, we need to follow God’s admonition on how to honor his word.

We often get different opinions about the Bible. We ask our friends what they think of the Bible, we read what scholars write about the Bible, and we often have our own opinions about scripture. But these verses reveal to us what God thinks about his word. It seems to me that this is one opinion we need to listen to.

The first thing we see is that God wants his word to be upon our heart. It’s one thing to talk about it, and another thing to intellectually understand the Bible, but God wants us to have it in our heart — to believe it and live it. As Adam Clarke wrote in 1825, "For where else can love be? If it be not in the heart, it exists not. And if these words be not in the heart—if they are not esteemed, prized, and received as a high and most glorious privilege, what hope is there that this love shall ever reign there?"

But how do we get God’s word in our heart?

If we want people to have God’s word in their heart, we must teach it. This verse tells us to teach it to our children. One of the great tragedies of the past few decades is that the Bible has been taken out of our schools and our classrooms. Years ago my mother-in-law purchased a reprint of the McGuffey reader which she learned from as a child. As I read through those eight volumes from America’s past, I was amazed at the amount of scripture that was included in everyday classroom reading. It was presented for both its literary value and its moral teaching.

Many of our children today have no understanding of the beautiful literary qualities of the Bible, let alone all the wonderful moral lessons from scripture. The Gideon’s practice of handing out scripture at school graduation practices and baccalaureates helps to fill this void. God said we need to teach our children his words, so let’s be faithful in doing it.

It is interesting that the Hebrew word used here for teach < Mt@fn:n@A#$i> shinnanttam really means to sharpen. It is used to mean teach in the sense that we instruct sharply or incisively. We are not to be lackadaisical in our instructions. We must teach so as to sharpen our children’s understanding of God and his moral precepts.

For many people, the only time they hear words from the Bible is when they come to church. But in this verse we are instructed to talk about scripture all the time — when we sit in our house with our family and when we walk by the way at work or at social gatherings. We are to talk about God’s word when we lie down and when we rise — in other words, from morning to evening, all day long!

If more people would share the truths of God’s word more often to more people, maybe we would see a change in the lives of our family, our friends, our fellow workers, and our nation.

Not only do we need to talk about God’s word, but we need to live by it. Here, the hand indicates all the activities we are involved in throughout the day, and the eyes indicate all our thoughts and desires. We are to live God’s word in everything we do, in everything we think, and in everything we desire.

As Matthew Henry commented, "Though the words alone without the things will do us no good, yet we are in danger of losing the things if we neglect the words, by which ordinarily divine light and power are conveyed to the heart. God's words must be laid up on our heart, that our thoughts may be daily conversant with them and employed about them, and thereby the whole soul may be brought to abide and act under the influence and impression of them. This immediately follows upon the law of loving God with all your heart; for those that do so will lay up his word in their hearts both as an evidence and effect of that love and as a means to preserve and increase it. He that loves God loves his Bible."

When Moses wrote these words, they did not have book binding as we do today. The books of the Bible were written on large, cumbersome scrolls. It took 22 to 24 scrolls to hold all the words of the Old Testament alone. Since they didn’t have Bibles in a handy form as we do today, God told them to write the words on the doorposts and the gates of the house.

When my wife Lorna was growing up, her Mom would have little pieces of paper with scripture verses taped up all over the house. When Lorna was eating her breakfast, she would see some words from the Bible. When she was brushing her teeth, she would see other verses. As she was getting dressed, still more verses. Her Mom believed in placing God’s word on the doorposts.

In a way, I believe this is the ministry of the Gideons. As they place Bibles in prisons, in hospitals, in motel rooms, and in schools, they are placing God’s word on the doorposts and the gates of the city. They are not only doing a good work, but they are fulfilling God’s command here in Deuteronomy.

Let us also place God’s word in a prominent place in our house. May it be the standard of all the activities of our day and may it rule our thoughts and desires. Let us teach it to our children, and let us share it with others throughout the day. May it be in our thoughts from morning to evening. And may we help others discover the beauty and the instruction from the greatest book ever written — the Bible.

Footnotes:

This study of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 © 1997 by David Humpal. All Rights Reserved
All scriptures unless otherwise noted are from the Revised Standard Version © 1971, A. J. Holman Company

Story of the Gideons placing Bibles in space from Pastor’s Manual: quoted in Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations pg. 196 © 1979, Bible Communications, Inc.

Adam Clarke Commentary, electronic version © 1996 Biblesoft

Matthew Henry’s Commentary, electronic version © 1996 Biblesoft