Article May 28, 2012 ISSUE

The Bible – a series of encounters with God

More than a history book, the Bible contains the revelation of spiritual laws applicable today.

Alessandra P. Colombini

First published in the Portuguese edition of The Herald of Christian Science, O Arauto da Ciência Cristã.

When adults think of childhood, they generally associate it with happiness, play, dreams, and an absence of worry. But that’s not the whole picture. A less rosy side of childhood is fear—fear of the unknown, fear of things a child can’t understand (and there are lots of those).

This was my usual state of mind as a young girl until I got to know the Bible and, with it, the power of God, the power of good. In the Bible I met characters who, on a regular basis, overcame fear. For example, I learned about Moses and Elijah. Moses fled Egypt in fear, after killing an Egyptian; but he had the courage to return in order to demand that Pharaoh free his people, the Hebrews, from slavery (see Exodus 2 and 3). The prophet Elijah fled in fear of Queen Jezebel, who had vowed to kill him. But, soon after, he again took up his mission as a prophet among kings and students (see I Kings 19).