We live in a remarkable age. Yes, it is a highly devisive age, an age of selfish desire. But as abundant as these evils are in our age, even more is the abundance of the very Word of God. Like no other time in history, the Word of God is available to anyone who wants it. There are very few people groups who lack the Bible in their own language. Indeed, I saw a headline within this past year that Bible translators have the hope that every language group will have a translation of the Bible within the next 15 years! In the English speaking world we have our choice of more than fifty versions, and on various Bible sites (like BibleHub.com) 25 of those versions of the Bible are free, not to mention the Hebrew and Greek Innerlinear versions. On my app that I have on my computer as well as my iPad, I have ten Bibles, most of which were free. I can carry around my study references everywhere I go. I can read the Bible anywhere I can carry my iPad. If one doesn’t have a tablet or internet access, the Gideons are still giving away printed Bibles, still putting them in hotel rooms around the world. I’m sure local churches would also be glad to give a Bible to all who would ask. Anyone who wants access to a Bible can have it. But this was not always the case.
500 years ago, when Martin Luther was making a splash in Germany, only piests and those in the various religious orders had access to the Bible. The first time Martin Luther read the Bible was in his late twenties. And he was an educated man from a middle-class family. Just 100 years before Martin Luther, Tyndale and Huss had been declared heretics, in part, because they thought the Word of God should be in the language, as well as the hands, of the people.
Living today, with the ubiquitous copies of the Bible carelessly strewn about, we can have no conception of just how revolutionary it was for people to go to church to hear the actual Word of God being read. Before the Reformation, people went to see the Mass, which was in Latin, not their native language, and had little if any Bible reading included. By the time Martin Luther died, it was the expectation that people would hear the Word of God in church – more than that, God’s people demanded it. So potent was that Word to them.
Even 200 years ago, it was not uncommon that the only book people would take them with as they were colonizing and developing a new frontier was the Bible. The family Bible was the most cherished possession. But each family could only afford to have just the one copy. And not everyone could read it.
With the development of public schools, suddenly a whole generation of people could read the Bible for themselves. And suddenly, eveone had their own copy. They were now presents at christenings and baby dedications, at baptisms and weddings. Never before had the Bible been so commonly seen in people’s homes and in people’s hands as they went to church.
We live in an age when there is no reason for Christians to not be able to read their Bibles on a regular, daily basis. But the majority of Christians, or those who say they are Christians, neglect this very gift of God’s Words that few have known in the whole history of God’s people.
We hold in our hand the Very Word of God. God has actually spoken to us, told us what He wants us to do, told us that He loves us so much He sent His Very Son to pay the penalty for our very messed up, sinful lives. God has not remained silent. He has spoken. And we have those Words right in our hands. Right here for free online. And we have a whole history of writers who have poured through and studied these Words and written about them so we can understand better God’s message to us. How amazing to have not only all these resources from learned theologians through the centuries (also translated into English). And God gave us all this so that we might know Him better.
With it in such easy reach, how can we ignore this great gift of God’s self-revelation to us? So start reading.
Faith Gym 