Nothing compares with divine help for getting the Bible into people’s hands
Bible League International aims to equip every person who wants a Bible with one. The Chicago-based ministry has helped millions worldwide by providing Bibles, planting churches, funding translations, and training and equipping local believers. But sometimes getting God’s Word into people’s hands—even believers’—requires divine assistance.
Though some 350 million people worldwide don’t have a translation in their own language, 500 million Christians don’t own a copy of the Scriptures. “To me that is a travesty—that a child of God would not even have access to God’s Word,” says Bible League Regional Field Director Jim Thompson. “Surely the Father would want every one of His children to have a Bible.”
Thompson is assured of this because he’s seen God work miraculously to accomplish this during some of his overseas trips.
Several years ago Thompson was carrying a suitcase of Bibles into a nation that viewed such material as outsider propaganda. He waited for his turn to place his luggage on a conveyor belt that would pass his Bibles under an X-ray machine where screeners stood by to find the Bibles they had been trained to intercept.
As Thompson waited, wondering how he’d get the books through without detection, a buzzer sounded. Personnel rushed to search a woman in front of him. Because of the commotion, screeners never noticed the contents of his suitcase. It passed through untouched.
“God brought a distraction,” Thompson says. “It was fantastic, as clear a miracle as you could see. I’ve seen others happen many times over the years.”
