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As for my thoughts on this. I would say that off the top of my head, I would answer the question as a NO. Christianity does not need the Bible to be successful at winning souls. Nor does it need the Bible to survive, and my biggest defense it this belief would be what God told Jeremiah,
"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." (Jeremiah 31:33)
All we need is for Him to be in our hearts and we can and will win souls. The life of those who were locked up without bibles in concentration camps under the Nazis, and the Soviet Union, and East Germans, reached non Christians with their logical explanation of God and Christ. The original Christians had no Scriptures to read and share. Inevitably the letters they could share became our new testament, but man were saved and brought to Christ who could not read, by other Christians who could not read. Jesus told his followers that he would bring to remembrance the things he taught them when they needed Him to. When it comes time to testify, we are told not to worry about what to say, because the Spirit will speak for us.
The Bible at times I fear, becomes a hindrance for many. I mean so in the case that they fail to put things to memory, and so when they attempt to remember scripture they fail. If we put more faith in Christ to help us share the word, then we will be able to reach the people we need to reach in ways we never would have thought possible. Yes, especially if we do not have a bible handy to point to. The Bible is needed for Christians to study and learn. We are supposed to read it, and each and every Christian is told to study to be approved, but it is not needed to grow the Church.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2Timothy 2:15
The passage cited in Jeremiah regards the House of Israel AFTER the Great Tribulation, during the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ here on Earth over he House of David.
During the Church Age, at present, He is brought into our hearts by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit by faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
The Bible today, provides each and every believer a tremendous educational tool, by which we may read His Word. While we are thinking that Word, God the Holy Spirit is free to sanctify our thinking in our soul via our human spirit. As we continue to think through His Word, we also bring that Word into our mind (soul) where it may be used in our memory in recall, to address future situations by faith (doctrine).
Removing the Bible, removes one of the greatest tools and blessings God has ever given man.
There are parts of the Bible which I could not hope to defend in a debate; there are other parts such as the flood story and the story of Uzzah in which you have to separate the story itself from the religious language and interpretation i.e. I could defend the story of Uzzah electrocuting himself by putting his hand on something which amounted to a crude capacitor but I could not defend the idea of God killing the guy for saving his (God's) own device from falling off a wagon and breaking; and there are stories I could defend quite well and surprisingly this includes the three major ghost stories in the bible, Jesus' own Resurrection, the tale of Lazarus, and the story of Saul, Samuel, and the "witch of Endor". Those three stories are all entirely ballpark for the paradigm which Julian Jaynes described. I don't subscribe to the idea that such things were shared hallucinations, I believe the phenomena Jaynes wrote about are the way the spirit world works.
Amongst the things I could not hope to defend in a serious debate, the worst is the book of revelations. The thing starts off saying "these things shall shortly come to pass"; there is no rational definition of "shortly" which means that two thousand years later whatever it is still hasn't happened, and reasonable people are standing around saying "Any day now, any day now!!!"
The book of revelations apparently was included in the Bible by some sort of a 5/4 vote and in my estimation the five guys got it wrong and the thing should be removed.
well said. the WORD of God is Jesus Christ, we must not forget that and become worshippers of a book, we worship Christ.
I would not present this to students. It may be an interesting intellectual exercise that brings glory to who? there are much better things to be talking about and doing. If skeptics are offended that is ok.
the fact is God CHOSE to use the bible to communicate with us. He didn't have to but he did. the people in the new testament were steeped in old testament.
Personally as a christian, I have stopped reading all the other books about Christianity and stick to the original source.
C.S. Lewis comments on the dangers of spiritual pride:
“One is sometimes (not often) glad not to be a great thelogian; one might so easily mistake it for being a good Christian. The temptations to which a great philologist or a great chemist is exposed are trivial in comparison. When the subject is sacred, proud and clever men may come to think that the outsiders who don’t know it are not merely inferior to them in skill but lower in God’s eyes; as the priests said (John 7, 49), ‘All that rabble who are not experts in the Torah are accursed.’ And as this pride increases, the ‘subject’ or study which confers such privilege will grow more and more complicated, the list of things forbidden will increase, till to get through a single day without supposed sin becomes like an elaborate step-dance, and this horrible network breeds self-righteousness in some and haunting anxiety in others. Meanwhile the ‘weightier matters of the Law’, righteousness itself, shrinks into insignificance under this vast overgrowth, so that the legalists strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” [emphasis mine]
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
I often think of the early saints who went off to evangelize pagan territories, risking mightily simply by dint of being outsiders - meek but courageous - unafraid, but not strident... aware that what they would preach rubbed 180° against the old rules.
Yet somehow they they pulled it off.
If you had a Bible you were very lucky (they were few and far between).
What would a book written in a foreign language mean to those illiterates?
I would imagine the spirit and the virtues (examples) of the evangelizers being paramount. The key points about loving thy neighbor, forgiveness, turning the other cheek must’ve been shockers and rubbed against everything the “savages” knew for a fact. “You hit me, I hit you back!” - even till this day is the default attitude.
The Holy Spirit... not Bible Class. A more powerful magic (a stronger voodoo). An awakening, an awareness, still far from refined or genteel, probably still impossible to extend to outside enemies, but gradually accepted by some within the clan.
Then some miracles... healings...
In those early days the Bible was written in the evangelizers’ heart.
The lesson gradually learned was that Morality trumped knowledge. Good was wiser than “smart” or “crafty.” Forgiveness stronger than revenge. Everything got turned upside down, yet made more sense and felt better to boot.
And centuries would have to pass before those squiggles on parchment came into the picture.
My suggestion is to think it out like a movie... and imagine an evangelizer going into the forest of that Germanic tribe at the beginning of the film “The Gladiator”.
I thank you for this post, still think you have gone too deep with the concept.
But it did make me question what people think of when they hear the word Bible. For many of us the first thought is the printed Bible or delivery system. The other thought that will slowly come to mind is the Bible is really the contents.
I do remember a sermon titled “Where is your Bible.” I felt proud because I knew it was by my easy chair where I had opened it two weeks before. Now I have to go “ouch” because I know it should be internalized.