OUR Bible societies have a great case for wider distribution when we consider the challenging need for reading materials among the rapidly multiplying literate population of the world. Moreover, despite the tremendous circulation of the world's best-seller, it has not kept pace with population growth any more than has Christian church membership, and it is paradoxically one of the most widely disseminated and one of the least read of all the world's books. In multitudes of homes the Bible has lain for years on some inconspicuous shelf, unread, often undusted, almost always unknown. Someone recently commiserated by remarking concerning these neglected Bibles, "Unread, but ready."
If world conditions should produce the spiritual hunger that would drive people back to the Book and its basic moral principles for the victorious spiritual life, how revolutionary would be the resultant changes in the moral atmosphere! Back to the first printed Book, the most bought Book, the least read, the least known Book, the best loved and the most hated! These and many more paradoxes are no more surprising than those that for nearly two thousand years have swirled around the great central figure of the Bible—Jesus of Nazareth.
It is said that some part of the Bible is available in 1,165 languages, covering the languages of 95 per cent of the population of the srlobe. This, however, still leaves more than a thousand tongues in which no Scripture portion is available.
One wonders if we do not deceive ourselves sometimes in talking of huge sales and new versions of the Bible. Will not most of the purchasers of any new translation of the Bible that may appear tomorrow already be readers of the Book, or somewhat interested in it? If the millions who bought the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible were all non-Christians, it would be a marvelous thing; but that certainly was not the case.
In an unusual book published in 1961— The English Bible in America—Margaret T. Hills, librarian of the American Bible Society, has listed chronologically, with some detail, every Bible printed in America in English from 1777 to 1957. A total of 2,573 titles appears. If this could be added to the British and Foreign Bible Society's total in Darlow and Monle's "Historical Catalog," and to editions by other Bible societies in other languages, then, while we have no exact figures, the Bible surely becomes the most translated book of all time. All of which complicates the paradox if it is also the least read of books.
When Luther translated the Bible into German and the Authorized Version was put into the hands of English-speaking people, the Bible was undoubtedly read more avidly than it is today. The influence of the Holy Bible penetrated our language, our customs, our laws. It entered into men's thinking in an age that was emerging from the gloom of the Middle Ages. It touched the life of the common man, lifting him above his environment and giving him larger horizons, as in the case of men like lowly John Bunyan.
In the course of time there arose a bitter crisis, when modernism, humanism, and inter-church disputes entered the European scene and then spread over the New World and wherever the Western missionaries went. The consequent loss of faith in the Holy Word helped to leave men with little conviction of their sinfulness and with no sense of the presence of God in their lives. All of this adds up to a renewed and more acute need not only for the continued distribution of the Bible but for its acceptance and assimilation.
The Life of God in the Soul of Man
In the gloomy days when the opulence and cruelty of Rome had brought the end of the empire in sight, the Christian religion took flame and the teachings of the Bible spread to all the known world. The Scriptures were avidly read and absorbed into daily life, into jurisprudence, and in time became the foundation of Western civilization. Pentecost and thereafter saw men breaking through the cynicism and hopelessness of the times, risking their lives for Christ's sake, unafraid to die because they knew how to live with Christ in God. Thenceforth the ebb and flow of spiritual life has generally followed the rise and fall of worldly prosperity.
The lesson in all this is not that religion is only for the poor and oppressed, but that man's perversity turns from God unless circumstances arise to remind him that he cannot stand alone.
In Greece there is today what is called the Zoe Movement, organized to stimulate Bible study among the laity. Zoe, of course, is the life intensive, which Christ came to give: "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John 1:2). "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life" (John 5:24). Zoe is the word which expresses "all of highest and best which the saints possess in God."-— Trench, New Testament Synonyms, Paragraph XXVII.
Eternal life depends upon a knowledge of God, which comes to man primarily by external revelation through the Bible. This age is passing back into the gloom of unbelief, due to the neglect of God's Word. We need a Zoe movement, or some kind of spiritual renewal that will turn men back to the Scriptures. Preachers need to return to the Word, preaching anew that the Zoe of the ages is ours in Christ Jesus, basing our sermons on sound principles of interpretation, of course, but nevertheless preaching Christ the living Word.
A New Emphasis
We have made everyday life so complicated and crowded that time can scarcely be found for Christ and His Word. Have we complicated our church and professional life to the point where routine often submerges message, where paraphernalia beclouds preaching, where human wisdom displaces the Word? Do we ministers and leaders need a new emphasis, a return to the sacred things of the Word of God?
Some few modernistic preachers need to return from the academic wastelands. All of us need to take sufficient time to study the Word deeply in order to escape from pulpit mediocrity and spiritual atrophy. Promotion is not preaching, organization is not spiritual power, good public relations are no substitute for prayer-filled, study-fortified preaching. There is no substitute for soundly exegetical, Spirit - filled Bible preaching—we need not lack divine fire in the soundness of our exposition. When the living Christ stands exposed to the eager vision of expectant congregations, then promotion, organization, publicity, and all other adjuncts fall into place and into their proper function to the glory of God.
When the living Word was among men, John said, "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." "The followers of Christ must be partakers of His experience. They must receive and assimilate the word of God so that it shall become the motive power of life and action. By the power of Christ they must be changed into His likeness, and reflect the divine attributes. They must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God, or there is no life in them. The spirit and work of Christ must become the spirit and work of His disciples."—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 278.
H. W. Lowe
