The Bible Coming To Life

Growing up in a typical suburban Christian household, we went to Sunday school as kids, watched all the Veggie Tale videos, played the bible memorization games to win prizes, and read scripture together as a family. In my early college-age years as I pursued a passion in ministry, the bible continued to be my rock and my place for wisdom and guidance. God’s voice becoming manifested into text; nothing better. Of course, I read all of the stories and knew them like the back of my hand. Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac, David defeating Goliath, Jesus calming a storm and giving the Beatitudes, the disciples watching their teacher carry a cross up a stone street, Paul being imprisoned; and the stories go on.

It’s in our nature to create images in our heads. The way God designed us allows us to paint incredible tapestries to go along with what we read. I had always pictured those stories in the bible, and had imagined what it looked like. But when I finally traveled to Israel and was able to stand on the ground where in the place where those stories happened; it was unlike anything I could have ever imagined. To stand on Temple Mount where Abraham almost sacrificed his son, to be on the same grass where Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount, and to walk the same path Jesus did while he carried the cross to Calvary…the saying “The Bible Came to Life” became something I finally understood to its full extent. As a believer of Jesus, of the bible, and of God the creator, seeing those places first-hand gave me my faith in an entirely new and different way.

Simeon Kumar