Bibles for the People ...

Friday, Jan 10, 2014. Have you ever heard of the Gideons? It is a worldwide community of Christians who have either academic background or work in leadership positions. The goal of the group is to distribute bibles, the word of God.

Bibles for everyone …

The Gideons distribute bibles in many different occasions. They go into hospitals. They go into schools, when they are invited. They go into universities and various other public and private institutions - and they offer little bibles, mostly the New Testament. They give it personally, from person to person, and pray that the one who receives it, may be blessed by it by the Lord.

Do we need bibles for everyone? Do we need everyone to know what the Lord has to say? You might think that every human has his or her own ideas about God, about religion. Yes, that is reality. But when God lives and when the Holy Spirit is reality, when HE talks through his words which were recorded in the biblical books, then we should read and understand it! And even if it would just be a book, we should read due to its strong cultural meaning which is has after 2000 years of Christian faith in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia!

I believe that everyone should read the bible - and come to his own conclusions. Listen to Jesus, listen to what he has to say and how he behaves. Listen to the Apostles and their interpretation of the events around Jesus. Listen to what happens when you follow, when you start to live your life in faith! Everything will change.

Read, Understand, Do …

You cannot understand the bible without reading it. And you cannot understand it without doing it. When you do not believe, you will stay outside. It sounds strange. How can your relationship towards some statements change your understanding of the meaning of these statements? Usually, we split understanding and the judgement phase. But this is not how the mind functions when it comes to faith. Things are strongly linked. We need to think about life as a whole!

So we need bibles for everyone. But we also need prayer for everyone. We need community for everyone. We need churches for everyone, the church community, the exchange between Christian brothers and sisters in faith. As a believer, you become part of the body of Christ - and you cannot live without the other parts of this body.

So the work which the Gideons do, distributing many millions of bibles each year, is very important. But it is not everything. It is not a church, just a service. It is not the body of Christ, just a tiny part of it. It needs the churches around, to form community and teaching and prayer and worship! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts