January 10, 2025 - Good Morning! It’s Friday, January 10.
There are two kinds of people in the world - numbers people and words people. Numbers people are good at math and do sudoku puzzles. Words people like to read and write, and love crosswords. I am definitely a word person. But, for today, I offer you some very interesting numbers . . . from the Bible.
There are 1189 chapters in the Bible and Psalm 118 is smack dab in the middle - 594 chapters before it, and 594 after. Interestingly, the chapter right before, Psalm 117, is the shortest in God’s Word, and the one that follows it, Psalm 119, is the longest! But back to our numbers theme - if you add 594 and 594 you get 1188. Psalm 118:8 gives us this wisdom - “It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man”.
There are 31,102 verses in the Bible, and since that’s an even number, there is no one true “center verse”. But Psalm 103:1-2 have 15,550 verses on either side of them, and they say this - “Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits”. How fitting that the center of the Bible should be a proclamation of praise.
So, what are we to make of all these numbers? We must first consider that when the Bible was originally written, it did not contain chapters and verses. It wasn’t until the year 1560 that a Bible - the Geneva Bible - was published containing the divisions that we know today. This little numerical experiment does, however, remind us that putting our trust in God and giving Him praise should always be at the very center of our faith.
That’s all I’m going to write about numbers. Now I can go finish the New York Times crossword!
Meet you back here on Monday,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
