RJS February was a busy month in our household, but it is now time to get back to What is the message of the Bible? Denis finds that for him " reading the Bible is a mystical experience. It is a spiritual encounter between us and the Lord, facilitated by the inspired words in Holy Scripture." (p. 64) But lives are changed by the message of the Bible, not by a legalistic or literalistic rendering of precise words. Words, by the way, written and spoken in ancient languages and into ancient cultures, using images of the day. Consider Mark 4:30-32. Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”(NIV)