This
summer a Vietnamese believer was arrested and beaten after police raided his
home looking for Christian materials. A few days before arresting “Mr. Lee”,
police had arrested other Vietnamese Christians and discovered Christian
materials on their digital music players. The Christians stated under duress
that the materials had come from Mr. Lee, a dedicated Christian in northern Vietnam.
Police didn’t find anything in the raid, but they still detained him for two
days, beat him and warned him to stop distributing Christian materials.
Several years ago, Shi Weihan was sentenced to three years
in a Chinese prison for printing Bibles to give away. (both stories from Voice
of the Martyrs)
Let’s think about that. A man in Vietnam is beaten for
giving people materials about the Christian faith. A man in China is sent to
prison and fined the equivalent of $22,000 for printing and distributing Bibles
at his own expense, leaving his wife and two young daughters to fend for
themselves while authorities “continue to pressure the family.”
Here’s a question for you: what is the difference between a
nation that can’t read the Bible, because it is not available to its people,
and a nation that won’t read the Bible? It evokes Mark Twain’s quip, “The man
who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.”
Forget the nation. What about the Christians? Why are there
so many people who claim to be followers of the God of the Bible who never or
seldom read the Bible of their God? Why is it that the typical church-goer in
America couldn’t find the book of Philemon or Ezra without a table of contents
if his life depended on it? Get into a discussion about the Bible with the
average church-attender today and it won’t be five minutes before he will say
something like, “God helps him who helps himself. That’s in the Bible, you
know.” No. It isn’t. Or he might make the ridiculous statement, “Jesus never
claimed to be God, and he never claimed to be the only necessary substitute for
our sins.” The truth is, many in the church have no idea what the Bible really
says because they never read it. The problem, I contend, is often found not in
the pews, but in the pulpit.
Think about it. If your math teacher never lectured on
algebra but instead spent his time in class pontificating on nuclear
disarmament, the ozone, or grey squirrels, would you lug your textbook to
class? Would you even read it?
You want to know one of my favorite sounds? The sound of
rustling pages of Scripture as the congregation, including children, turns to
the text that we will be studying that morning. I often say, “If you don’t have
a Bible, look on with someone who does.” We have only a few scattered copies of
the Bible in the pews, so it is rare that someone comes to church without his
Bible. Many have spent time during the week in the next passage in the book of
the Bible we are working our way through. Many have had conversations with
their families about the upcoming passage, to prepare their hearts for the
sermon. Why? Because the Bible is not just a great work of literature. It is
the Word of God, and is necessary that “the man or woman of God may be complete,
thoroughly equipped for every good work.” That’s why people are willing to be
beaten, or go to jail, or worse, to get the words of life into the hands of
those who don’t have it.
Bibles and hearts collect dust at about the same rate. Read
your Bible.
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