Where Do People Get Their Bible?

It’s an irony I’ve never quite figured out: folks who self-identify as Christians yet don’t read the Bible.

They may go to Bible studies, church, Sunday school; they might pray to God; and they may even, at minimum, say the name of Christ in spiritual conversations. 

And yet, they can go their entire lives not knowing much about the Bible at all. 

See, when I wasn’t a Christian, I didn’t even know what a Christian was, because in my world, people never identified as Christians—they identified as Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians (In case you’re wondering why Evangelical isn’t in the list, it’s because I never even heard that word until I was 38 years old!)  

But once in a blue moon I would hear whispers through the “tsk-taking” grapevine about someone being this peculiar thing called “a Christian.” And it was never in positive terms. 

So growing up, Christian came to mean “those (always the word "those" as a precursor) Bible-thumpers, goody two-shoes, holier than thouers, and hypocrites.” 

And yet, God in His amazing grace and mercy, was, even back then with me at the ripe age of 7 or 8, instilling in me a huge curiosity for, and draw towards, these Christians, these “nuts.” 

I remember a family of Christians who lived next door to my parents’ best friend. Once in a while, members of this family would stop and chat with our friend while we were at his house. The kids were soft spoken and gentle, as were the parents. 

I remember marveling at them, mesmerized, not knowing why. But I liked them, just through observance. I wished I could know them. I wished I could be them. 

But it would be another 30 or so years before I came to understand exactly what these peculiar people were: Christians who were, in fact, not “nuts.” And I could understand what they were because now I was one, too. 

God, in those intervening years, had led me through what seemed an endless maze of New Agism, sentimentalism, platitudinal sound-bite ideology, nature worship and liberal Presbyterianism, to finally, Christ Himself. 

And God did this through His Word: through the preaching of it on Christian radio, through the modeling of it by Christians in the small town I had recently moved to and built my house in, and through the reading of the Bible.

I had begun reading the Bible about five years before I actually was born again in Christ. I read it in fits and starts, only as a “bucket list” thing to do: I loved literature and wanted to be able to have said “I read the Bible.”

It was during the perfect storm of circumstances—a perfect storm in a good way—which included the reading of Scripture, in which God reached down and sealed the deal in a lifetime of His calling on my life. And the capstone of this transformation from a dead life to a living one was the Bible.

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12

It is through the Bible that God ultimately called me, and through which His special revelation came to me. 

God’s natural revelation only goes so far. His creation points to Him, it isn’t Him. God is not a tree. God is not another author we revere. God is not a song—not even a hymn! 

God created the trees, the writers and the music. He is separate from what He created. God’s natural revelation always points back to Him.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20

“For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.” Romans 1:25

“Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” Acts 17:29

It is God’s special revelation—of Jesus Christ—that is only found in Scripture. That is what opens the Gospel to us. The Gospel is the light of Christ, shining in the world, and we go to Scripture to know that light. 

“You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:14

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world.” Hebrews 1:1-2

It was in Antioch, on Pentecost, that people were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). 

And those Christians heard the Word through preaching, and through the reading of the Apostle’s letters and the other witnesses. 

The early writings are historically proven to be legitimate and accurate. And yet the writings in the Bible are readily dismissed by many people, frequently without taking any time to investigate further. 

It’s as if people don’t want Scripture to be true.

I’ve heard the Bible, because it contains some metaphors, described as only being metaphor. 

Same goes for poetry: because it contains poetry, people write it off as only being poetic creative writing. 

I’ve heard the Bible rejected as something worthy of being read simply because it was written by men long ago (yet people continue to read Plato’s The Republic even though a man wrote it long ago). 

I’ve heard those who look to ancient eastern mysticism for their daily dose of wisdom say that the Bible was only meant for the people who lived during that time, and therefore the Bible is no longer relevant.

Irony abounds in the discounting of Scripture.

I’ve heard people who call themselves Christians spend more time reading books about the Bible than the Bible itself. 

They believe they are “studying God’s Word” or that they are “learning about Christ.” 

And yet.  

They 

Never 

Read

the Bible. 

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” Matthew 16:24-26

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

This is the key point: we can decide what we want to decide, and we can be sincere in that, but we can be sincerely wrong (as someone somewhere once said).

And if we call ourselves Christians, that must stand for something, and it does—it stands for a person, the Christ we meet and come to know in the Holy Scriptures. 

The Bible is the Book of Christ—Old and New Testaments. 

That is where we meet Him, that is where we grow in the knowledge of Him and that is where we learn to die to self and are taught how to “make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy” (Hebrews 12:14).

And if we don’t like that, if we don’t like what “Christian” stands for, then we have all the freedom in the world to call ourselves by a different name.

So to answer the question in the title of this post: Where do people get their Bible?

Some get it from their own inner selfish desires, their sentimental sensibilities, their shallow definition of love, their worldly context of peace, and their fleshly desire to continue to live according to their own parameters. 

Or, from intellectualism, from numerous books other than the Bible, and from the latest zeitgeist craze.

Some get it from their pastor, priest or Bible study leader.

But that isn’t the Bible, and no matter how hard they try, it will never be the Bible.

Just as the emergent church is suddenly no where to be found, faded into the background like all the other faddish pop-ups of faith that came before, today’s current spiritual hit playing at the top of the charts will soon be displaced. 

Thankfully, there are those who receive the Bible directly from the Bible.

I know of a young American man, in a place he cannot disclose (although it is always warm there), who literally is sweating out the translation of God’s Holy Word in order that people who do not yet have the Bible in their own language can read it, cherish it and find new life in it. 

He is working with teams of people from within these people groups: men and women who God brought to Christ through missionaries, or the reading of Scripture in a language they could understand because they are bi-lingual. 

And these people are helping this young man translate the Bible so that the Bible can become their people group’s Bible too. They translate so others can find the freedom that the Gospel—the Good News of Jesus Christ—brings. 

These translators do this often at risk of their very lives. But they do it, because they know there are things worse than physical death: and that is, a living death that goes on and on and on without Christ—Christ, who willingly went to the Cross for us, so that we could have new life here on earth, and in heaven forever (Philippians 2:6-8). 

I watch these people work via email updates and photos with faces blotted out for their own protection, and I thank God for their love of the Word; that there are still people who love God’s Word, and read it and want others to read it and will go to unbelievable lengths to make that happen. 

I thank God for His Word spreading out over the globe in every tongue amongst every people, bringing life to whomever it touches in the Spirit of Christ. 

And I’m overjoyed that they will be receiving their Bible from the Bible—from God, the Word, Himself. 

copyright Barb Harwood

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” Romans 1:16