Texting is all the rave these days. But you have to be careful to send the message you really want to send, especially if your phone has autocorrect. For instance, someone observed that thanks to autocorrect, 1 in 5 children would be getting a visit from Satan last Christmas. Some other wag texted, “The guy who invented autocorrect for smart phones died today. Restaurant in peace.” Then there was this exchange between a mother and her son:   * Mom: Your aunt just passed away. LOL.   * Son: Why is that funny?    * Mom: It’s not funny, David! What do you mean?   * Son: Mom, LOL means Laughing Out Loud.   * Mom: Oops! I thought it meant Lots of Love.

Whether all texts convey what the sender really means to say or not, texts are flying off our fingertips and out of our phones. Statistics on texting are staggering. Some 81% of Americans text regularly. Over 6 billion texts are sent daily. Over 180 billion texts are sent every month. 27 trillion texts are sent every year. America is responsible for approximately 45% of the world’s text volume. Adults under 45 send and receive 85+ texts every day, on average. Adults 18-24 years old send and receive over 128 texts every day. Adults 18-24 years old send and receive 3,853 texts a month. I can’t go on with this except to note that texting, like just about every other technology, is a mixed bag. It can be so helpful, but also so harmful. If used reasonably it is a useful tool and can even be fun. But if allowed to, it become a tyrant that turns in to an addiction. Like other potentially dangerous activities, maybe there should be a warning to texters that says something like, “Text responsibly.”

Now that I’ve said all that, let me print out the greatest text that has ever been sent, and it was sent almost 2,000 years ago, before anybody on earth ever thought of “texting,” let alone sending one on a smart phone. That “text” is found in what always polls as the most famous and favorite verse in the Bible — John 3:16. It reads this way in the New King James Version: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  No single verse in all the Bible more effectively captures the heart of what we call the gospel or good news of God’s love and desire to save mankind from sin than that 25-word text! It is the most frequently quoted, used (and we might add, misused), and preached verse in the Holy Scriptures. Consider this from Bible scholar of past years B. C. Goodpasture. He wrote, “Forty men engaged in writing the Bible over a period of 1,500 years (1,400 B. C. to 100 A. D.). They wrote as moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21) and not in words of human wisdom but in words given by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:13). The Bible contains 3,566,840 letters; 773,746 words; 31,173 verses; 1,189 chapters; 66 books (39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New).”

He goes on to say, “We cannot be far off the mark when we insist of all letters, words, verse, chapters and books in the Bible, none more effectively and comprehensively captures in a single statement of Scripture the Good News God brings to mankind that    the statement in John 3:16.” Amen, Bro. Goodpasture! John 3:16 is simply the greatest text ever sent!

Dan Gulley, Smithville TN