Articles
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF GOD’S WORD
One of the challenges suggested for this new year is to read the Bible every day. It is not
a new challenge, but one that should be ever in front of us as we strive to live our lives more
faithfully for the Lord. Some may ask how reading the Bible each day can make such a
difference. In his book “Deliver Me”, Richard Exley shared the following story of Pitcairn’s
Island as it is preserved in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Following the famous mutiny on the ship Bounty, Fletcher Christian and his men put
Captain Bly and his loyal crew adrift. The Bounty then sailed for Pitcairn’s Island, where the
crew wrecked their ship and set about to build a new life. Though they had landed on a virtual
paradise, they soon created a “hell on earth.”
One of the sailors discovered a way to make alcohol from a native plant. Soon
drunkenness and violence abounded. In a short time, all of the native men were dead and all but
one of the white men —Alexander Smith. He was left alone with a harem of native women and a
crowd of mixed race children.
Several years passed; the children grew up and married, and more children came, and the
community seemed to prosper. Many years later the Topez (a U.S. Navy ship) landed on the
island. They found a seemingly perfect civilization. There was no illiteracy, no crime, no disease,
no mental illness. The island was 100 percent Christian. The Britannica states that nowhere on
earth were life and property more safe than on Pitcairn’s Island.
What happened? What changed a “hell on earth” into a seemingly perfect civilization?
One day while going through some of the trunks that had been salvaged from the Bounty,
Alexander Smith had found a Bible. As he read it, faith was kindled in his heart (Romans 10:17).
Then he began reading it to the others, and faith was born in their hearts as well. By putting their
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ the entire population of the island found salvation. By reading and
applying the principles of Scripture, their entire society was transformed!
If, by just reading God’s Word, such change can take place on an island, then why can’t
the same thing take place in your life by just spending a little time each day reading the Bible? If
you haven’t started reading the Bible everyday, why not? Try it for one month and see how the
power of God’s Word can transform your life into something wonderful! ~P.Mowrer
