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When we think of the Bible, it makes sense that we think of it as being one big book. After all, that’s how we buy it, right? Well, the truth is, that the Bible is made up of 66 books, and the time it took to write all those books spanned thousands of years. So, while we look at the book as a whole and think, It’s all so old, we have to remember that the people of Jesus’ time didn’t even have what we call the New Testament! In other words, it’s closer to us today than we may think! Remembering that the Bible is made up of so many different books written at so many different times throughout history can help us appreciate Scripture differently. The readers of the Bible in both the time of Jesus and Paul—the apostle who wrote this verse in a letter to the Romans—were reading what they already considered ancient documents. Yet still, they saw the value that those words had in their lives at that time. Like Paul said, the Scripture they were reading served as encouragement to them. It gave them real, lasting hope. And you know what? The same can be true for us today.

No matter how old we may perceive the text to be, the God who inspired it is still active and alive in our world today. That makes the Scriptures we read active and alive in our world today, too!