“Eight-five percent of all Bibles printed today are in English for the nine percent of the world who read English. Eighty percent of the world’s people have never owned a Bible while Americans have an average of four in every household.” - Rochunga Pudaite
How valuable is the Bible to you? What would happen if you could not even own one copy? Sadly, in many parts of the world, entire churches are without access to a single page of Scripture. Untold millions of people live and die without ever hearing there was such a thing as a Bible.
Isn’t it amazing that the church in the West completely takes the luxury of having God’s Word for granted? As we sit in comfortable churches and hear it preached every Sunday, millions are still waiting for their first page. Here America, we have over one hundred English translations of the Bible. We have gift Bibles, daily Bibles, travel Bibles, youth Bibles, study Bibles, electronic Bibles, and the list goes on. Yet we seem to forget our brothers and sisters overseas, in nations like China, India, and North Korea, who are begging for Bibles to feed their hungry souls. And still they wait.
Pastor David Platt writes about his experiences with an underground church in Asia and how desperate they are for the Word of God:
“On my first day with these believers, they simply asked me to lead a Bible study.
“So I put some thoughts together for a short Bible study and went to the designated location, where about twenty house-church leaders were waiting. I don’t remember when we started, but I do remember that eight hours later we were still going strong. We would study one passage, and then they would ask about another. This would lead to another topic, then to another, and by the end of the day, our conversations had ranged from dreams and visions to tongues and the Trinity.
“It was late in the evening, and they wanted to continue studying, but they needed to get back to their homes. So they asked two main church leaders and me, ‘Can we meet again tomorrow?’
“I said, ‘I would be glad to. Shall we meet at the same time [two o’clock]?’
“They responded, ‘No, we want to start early in the morning.’
“I said, ‘Okay. How long would you like to study?’
“They replied, ‘All day.’
“Thus began a process in which, over the next ten days, for eight to twelve hours a day, we would study God’s Word. They were hungry.”
The people in Asia are starving for the Bible. Without it, the church’s growth in these areas will be greatly slowed. We are so blessed to have unlimited access to the Bible, but millions of others do not have this privilege. Today, do something to bring the bread of life to our church family in other nations.
Reagan Schrock, GOA blog manager
*Quote taken from Radical, by David Platt, pages 23-24.
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