I was watching a show called Seventh Street Theater on Hope Channel SDA Television. It’s a show which themes acting about Christian living. This week one of the themes was about contrasting your relationship with God with your marriage to your spouse. Imagine if you will that your spouse was continually being unfaithful in the way we often are to the Lord. Always doing things that are sinful and then confessing them to the Lord and seeking his forgiveness. Our relationship status with Jehovah changing all the time from faithful to unfaithful and back again. Gives you reason for pause doesn’t it.
However, in this episode of Seventh Street Theater a question was asked and it was a very good question. It went like this. If the Bible had only one verse which verse would God choose? As you would imagine the people present struggled to select a verse and the person asking the question allowed himself a wide interpretation of the term verse. The scripture he chose was in point of fact a commandment not a single verse. However it was a truly elegant answer.
So if the Bible had just one scripture which scripture would God have chosen. The writers of Seventh Street Theater felt it would be the First Commandment shown below.
Exodus 20: 1 And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. NKJV
In point of fact since we can choose a group of verses not just one verse. I think the same scripture is found in a better place in the Bible and more adroitly expressed. Matthew chapter 22 verses 36-40 includes slightly different expression of the first commandment and includes the second part of the law.
Matthew 22: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” NIV
I would agree with the folk at Seventh Street Theater about their choice of scripture but there are a few other scriptures that might be important enough to consider for the position of the only verse in the Bible. For instance Genesis chapter one verse one...
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...
Another group of verses that could be considered for the role of the only verse in Bible are found in Revelation chapter one verses ten and eleven.
Revelation 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” NKJV
One could also think on four other key scriptures, as an appendix, that could be the most important in the Bible. The first being the group of scriptures from Matthew twenty eight and called The Great Commission.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore[c] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. NKJV
A second scripture to fit in that appendix is John in chapter 3 and verse 16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ, the whoever believes on him shall not perish but will inherit eternal life.” Potentially the most important verse for soul winning in the good book.
A third group of verses for the appendix is found in the book of Romans.
Firstly, Romans chapter three verse ten.
Romans 3: 10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one.
Then, Romans chapter three verse twenty three.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Finally, Romans chapter six verse twenty three.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
My final and personal favorite of the four scriptures to include in an appendix is from the book of Colossians chapter one and verses nine through to twenty one.
Colossians 1:9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
A lengthy piece of scripture and perhaps too long and may be too vague to make the cut for the only piece of scripture in the Word of God. But if Colossians chapter one verses nine to twenty three were the only portion of scripture to survive. What a fortunate Church we would be. Could you ask for more?
If you had to include only one piece of scripture or a single verse in the Bible which would you choose. An interesting question don’t you think? Feel free to comment on this article and contribute you ideas on this topic.
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