Spiritual Power: A Living Word

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The deepest argument for the Bible's excellence is that people who read it with open hearts find that it reads them in return: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

Words That Change Lives

Scripture describes its own effect: "The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple" (Psalm 19:7). "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105). "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29).

Across the centuries, believers testify to the same pattern: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).

A Book That Would Not Be Silenced

The Bible has survived burnings, bans, and persecutions, from the Roman emperor Diocletian's edict in AD 303 ordering the destruction of Christian Scriptures to modern restrictions in various countries. John Wycliffe's English Bible (about 1382) was condemned, and after his death his bones were dug up and burned. Tyndale was executed. Yet the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 launched an age in which the Scriptures reached ordinary readers. The promise stands: "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).

The Most Widely Distributed Book

Bible societies report that the complete Bible is available in several hundred languages, the New Testament in well over a thousand, and portions in more than 3,000 [19]. No other book has been so widely translated, printed, and read.

Influence on Civilization

Historians debate how to weigh the Bible's role, and it has sometimes been misused. Even so, many point to its influence on education and literacy (as early Reformers wanted every person to read Scripture), on hospitals and charity, on the abolition of the slave trade (led in Britain by the evangelical William Wilberforce), and on concepts of human dignity grounded in Genesis 1:27. English literature, art, and music are saturated with its language and themes.

The Inner Witness

Jesus offered a test anyone can try: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" (John 7:17). Believers describe a conviction that grows with obedience: "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). This conviction is not, in itself, proof for a skeptic, but it is a major reason that millions hold the Bible as their most trusted guide.

CHAPTER 11