In the midst of our efforts to persuade South Korean authorities that the Chosun (North Korean) Bible we launch by balloon and distribute by hand is not “anti-North Korean propaganda”, we received the following thank-you note from a North Korean laborer. The laborer, after having been sent abroad by the North Korean government, received a Chosun audio Bible from one of our team members. After listening to it, the laborer wrote:

Thank you, Dear Father, who gave us a handful of hope which flowered in our life. Please give us your boldness to shout out and proclaim your love to the world.

It reminded me of another prayer of thanks to the Father:

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. (Matthew 11:25)

That prayer reminded me that the value of the Bible is not a conclusion drawn on the basis of human persuasion. It always comes as a gift of divine revelation. And it is the Father’s good pleasure to conceal this gift from the wise and the learned–and sometimes from the authorities–and instead to reveal it to North Korean laborers, to sex-trafficked North Korean women, and to North Korean defectors who are increasingly maligned on both sides of the border.

So the last shall be first, and the first last. (Matthew 20:16)