The Power of God’s Word

Every word of God is pure… —Proverbs 30:5

Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4). I believe Jesus included the genealogies in Scripture when He made that statement. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable…” (2 Tim. 3:16) and those genealogies are just as inspired and powerful as John 3:16 or Psalm 23.

This is illustrated in a recent letter I received from David Snyder, the President of BIMI. He relates the incident from Missionary David Edens who serve in Niger, West Africa:

A Muslim teacher heard the reading of the New Testament as it was playing on a computer in the home of a fellow Nigerian. He confiscated the memory card with the mp3 audio file of the New Testament and took it home to listen to it. He later returned the memory card and said, “We (Muslims) have been so very wrong for years and years and have wasted our lives! We have not had the truth until now!” He went on to say the one thing that really verified to him that the Bible is the Word of God was the genealogies!  He said the Islamic writings only tell stories and call names, but none of them list genealogies or give details like the Bible does.

What a great testimony of the power of God’s Word in every verse of Scripture.  Even the genealogies of the Bible are “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).

So we never need to apologize for those lists of names we can hardly pronounce.  Just read them and let God’s Word do it’s work.  His Word will not return to Him void (Isa. 55:11).