On November 15, 1971, the Intel corporation advertised its 4004 processor and chipset in Electronic News magazine, making it the first complete central processing unit on one chip and the first commercially available microprocessor. It was the size of a little fingernail, held 2300 transistors, and delivered the same computing power as the first electronic computer which filled a complete room. It was capable of executing up to 92,000 single word instructions per second and accessing four kilobytes of program memory and 640 bytes of RAM.
“Words from Above” in the Bible tell us about something far more impressive than the capabilities of computers in John 21:25. Of course, the apostle John was one of the twelve original disciples of Jesus, and one of the three closest of the twelve. In his gospel account he wrote about many of the miracles which Jesus performed, as well as the teaching and preaching He did about the kingdom of God. In this last verse of his gospel, John is saying that there was no way he could have included all the things which Jesus did in his gospel account. He is pointing out that if everyone of the things which Jesus did were recorded in writing, there would not be enough books in the entire world to contain all these things.
Google developed a method to determine exactly how many unique books exist in the world, and after much calculating, the count came up to slightly less than 130 million. Of course, the question arises as to what is meant by a book, so Google didn’t count what library scientists call “works” or the elusive “distinct intellectual or artistic creations”. They did not, for example, count all editions of “Hamlet” separately, or distinguish between books containing different forewords and commentaries.
Hebrews 1 tells us that at various times in the past God spoke to His people by the prophets, but in the days of the New Testament He spoke to them by His Son Jesus. The writer of Hebrews pointed out that God also appointed His Son to be the heir of all things, and by Him He also made the world. He also pointed out that Jesus was the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of His person, and after He purged our sins on the Cross, He sat down once again on the right hand of God. Acts 10 tells us that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power so that He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. We now live for God through that same power of God.
Larry R. Steffee is pastor of the Center Hill Brethren In Christ Church on Miller Road in Smithville. Everyone is welcome to attend. For information, you may email lrsteffeetn@yahoo.com.
