Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant – the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34:28
As a college student, I majored in journalism with a minor in English. You could surmise I enjoy the written word so much I wanted to make a living at a job that required a lot of writing. I dreamed of one day writing a novel or even a regular column in a magazine. And although neither of those has happened (yet!) my eventual career path in public relations saw me using those skills in abundance.
The degradation of the written and spoken word these days drives people like me a bit batty. Not only do people rarely speak face to face but they also don’t write much. Text messaging has broken all the basic rules of the written word with shortcuts such as “lol” and “brb.” But I suppose it’s just another step in the evolution of God’s gift to us of language and the written word.
Write them (the Commands) on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,” Deuteronomy 11:20
There are currently around 6,000 different languages spoken around the world. It’s been estimated that it would have taken at least 100,000 years for a single language to have diversified that much. That would take us back to the middle of the Stone Age according to BBC Science Focus magazine. But archeologists have found languages written in Mesopotamia dating back to the 8th millennium BC. God has been at work helping us communicate with each other for a very long time!
When we think about Moses writing the Bible about 1500 years before Jesus’ birth, we should sit in awe at the beauty of it all. The poetry, symbolism, logic, history and storytelling have guided millions upon millions of believers. I’ve marveled with my Bible study ladies at the sophistication level of the apostle’s letters to the churches. Their ability to use the written word to educate, admonish and encourage people for thousands of years must be the envy of any author.
God has always provided what we, as humans, need to survive and thrive in this world. His gift of language and the written word has catapulted us ahead of all the biological life on Earth. I thank Him not only for the Bible but for all the poetry, novels, history books, songs, letters, phone calls, conversations and yes, text messages that have been made possible because of His love for us.
emboldened.net 