How Valuable Is Your Bible

I got in big trouble several years ago when someone (I call him "George") cleaned out some of the junk that seems accumulate in church buildings. There were several old KJV pew Bibles with torn covers and some pages missing. I told George to just throw it all away, even those old Bibles. Well, someone found the Bibles in the trash can and pitched a little fit— “Why would anyone ever throw away Bibles. They could use those Bibles on the mission field.” Myabe there is a pressing need for KJV Bibles with no covers missing half of 1 Samuel! Of course, I calmed them down by saying, “I can’t believe George would throw awa a Bible like that!”

Bibles are indeed valuable. I don’t guess I fully appreciated that until I went to Ukraine in 1993 on a mission trip. We lugged several dozen cases of Ukrainian New Testaments across the busiest part of Kiev attracting a bit of attention. It would be hard for a group of foreigners carrying cases of books across the busiest intersection in the city to be inconspicuous. We set up shop on the steps of the Kiev circus, an ideal location across from a Metro stop and several bus stops. It was lunch time, and many people had converged on the very spot we had selected to buy their tickets for the evening performance of the circus. We opened several of the cases, held one in our hand, and in our very best Ukrainian said, “Biblia, pezhalusta.” And in ten minutes, all 2000 Bibles were gone! The next year in Zhitomir, the reaction was the same. Our translator climbed on top of a car to get away from the crush of the crowd!

Do we really treasure the word of God like that… or do we take it for granted? We live in an age that has access to the word of God as never before. How many Bibles do you have in your house? I counted the Bibles in my office, and I have 20 English Bibles (not counting the 12 or so I have on the computer). Some of these are pretty worn-out and ratty, but I’m not going to throw them away. Nope, I learned my lesson there. No matter how worn out it is, you never always hang on to a Bible… because it is God's word.

Did you know that 300 years ago people were burned at the stake for having English Bibles. William Tyndale was executed for making the Bible available in the language of his people. Copies of an a slightly later version of the English Bible known as the Bishops Bible were literally chained to the pulpits of the churches so that people could not take them home! Bibles are valuable.

Of course, the question isn’t really “How many Bibles do you have?” The real question is, “Do you read the Bible?” Do we really appreciate our privilege of possessing and knowing God's word? What is our attitude toward that word? Has the Bible become for us a rather impressive looking book that you put up on the shelf, a book in which to record family information like weddings and funerals? Or do we realize to truth that so many people died for-- the Bible is the word of God, the central truth around which all life must revolve. We don’t really show how much we value the Bible by where we display it or how we hang onto it. We show that we value the Bible by reading it and living it.