I love the Scriptures. I love God’s Word. Every chapter, paragraph, sentence, phrase, word and letter of the Book is life to me. If I could, I would spend each waking moment completely immersed in it. Truly, the Scriptures are perfection. So, because I love the Word and hold it in such high esteem, I handle it with great care.

Each year on Yom Kipur—the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on Israel’s annual calendar—it is the responsibility of the lone Kohen Gadol (high priest) to take the lives of innocent animals and, with their shed blood, make atonement for himself and all the people of Israel. And for that brief moment, he and the people for whom he stands as mediator before God, are clean—their sins covered by the blood.

The word of truth—that sweet, sweet, powerful sound—lies dormant and useless before us. We sit. And listen. And hear. We revel in the sound it makes, and it stirs us up… inside. Though we invite it in and absorb its perfection, it ultimately does nothing but serve as fodder for our minds’ feeble and fruitless activities. The word is rendered wholly weak and inert… unless and until the time we begin to put the word into action.