The Perennial Book

The Bible has a fascinating history. Before the advent of the printing press it was a scarce commodity. Laboriously copied by hand in the monasteries, only a few copies were available here and there. These copies were so prized that they were often fastened into position with chains to prevent their being stolen. Once the printing press had been invented, the story changed. Now the Bible could be made available in quantities by mass production.

The printing press did not solve all the problems connected with the publication of the Word of God, however. When printing came into use, the Latin Vulgate was the chief source of religious truth. Yet hardly anyone could read Latin. And even for those who could read it the Vulgate was a problem. It contained thousands of errors, not the least of which was one that changed the thinking of Martin Luther. The Vulgate translated Jesus’ words in Matthew 4:17, “Do penance.” The KJV and the RSV translate them, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It was from the printed Greek text of Erasmus that “Luther had learned that the original simply meant ‘be penitent.’ The literal sense was ‘change your mind.…’ This was what Luther himself called a ‘glowing’ discovery. In this crucial instance a sacrament of the church did not rest on the institution of Scripture” (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand, New York, 1950, p. 88). Men like Luther quickly discerned that if the Bible were to be brought to the people, it would have to be translated into the language of the reader, despite the intense and continuous opposition of the church.

Luther made the Bible available in the German vernacular. This was a laborious task in which he encountered innumerable problems. He wrote a letter to a friend saying: “I am all right on the birds of the night—owl, raven, horned owl, tawny owl, screech owl—and the birds of prey—vulture, kite, hawk, and sparrow hawk. I can handle the stag, roebuck, and chamois, but what in the Devil am I to do with the taragelaphus, pygargus, oryx, and camelopard (names for animals in the Vulgate)?” (ibid., pp. 327, 328).

The Bible, kept from the masses for so long but now available in more than a thousand tongues, has been, and is, a controversial book. Indeed, no book has been more widely examined and attacked. No other book has had so many books written about it. And no book has remained more solidly in the affections of men with no signs of the law of diminishing returns setting in. The enemies of the Bible have sought to eliminate it from the counsels of men and nations. They have done all they can to relegate it to the scrap heap of forgotten literature and to cause men to despise it. But the critics of the Bible die, and their works crumble to dust. The Word of God abides forever. Like the hammers of a blacksmith that beat upon the anvil without destroying it, so the critics who beat upon the Word of God disappear. Their hammers are cast away, and the anvil remains to test the hammers of men of generations yet unborn. These too will follow the example of their predecessors. Their hammers also will be broken. But the Word of God will go on forever.

In America the Bible is an open book, available to everyone. But to many Americans it is a closed book, either because they leave it unread or because they read it without applying its teaching to themselves. No greater tragedy can befall a man or a nation than that of paying homage to a book left unread and of giving lip service to a way of life not followed. By this attitude men pass judgment upon the Book; some day they will discover that the Book has passed judgment upon them.

Timely Though Ancient

One of the chief reasons why men disregard the Bible is the notion that a book as ancient as this one cannot speak to the needs of today. Men somehow think that in an age of scientific achievement, when knowledge has increased more in fifty years than in any preceding centuries, this ancient book is anachronistic. But the Bible is perennially relevant. It had a message for the first century. It has a message for the twentieth century. And it will have a message for the fortieth century, if the world lasts that long.

The main thrust of the Bible is alien to the general orientation of our day. It proclaims absolutes at a time when relativism is the prevailing philosophy in the Western world and when ultimate truth is regarded by many as ineffable. The philosophy of relativism is not new. It has been current coin among thinkers of the East for at least as long as the philosophy of absolutes has been current in the West.

This tradition of absolutes is at the heart of the Hebrew-Christian religion. If it were to disappear, there would be no hope for mankind. Certainly relativism cannot do more than assure us that nothing is permanent and eternal, that all things are subject to flux. The religion of today may be untrue tomorrow. The ethics of today may be completely reversed tomorrow. Social mores then become time-structured and subject to the changing ideas of men. The homosexuality of today may be the norm of tomorrow, the monogamy of today may yield to the polygamy of tomorrow, and the lie of today may be true tomorrow.

But once man has committed himself to the absolutes of the Hebrew-Christian tradition, the picture changes. Absolutes remain fixed principles by which man guides his course. They are true yesterday, today, and forever. They are not subject to the vicissitudes of circumstance nor superseded by the latest fancies of science and sociologists. Absolutes give man something on which he can depend and by which he can steer a straight course.

It is in the Bible that God has spoken, and he has not stuttered in his speech. His revelation need not be rewritten by every generation nor his thoughts revised and altered by the questing minds of men. His principles are enduring, but they need to be applied reasonably and intelligently to the problems we face in a world where scientific advance has outpaced spiritual perception.

Need For Modern Prophets

The great lack of our day is the failure of the Church and Christians to make known the relevancy of the Bible to current movements and problems. There is a “Thus saith the Lord” for a world which faces apocalyptic catastrophe. We need prophets neither of doom nor of gloom. Rather do we need men who know what God has said and who will speak with complete abandonment as prophets of God to the nations.

Perhaps the most vexing problem in our culture today involves the American Negro. This problem finds its best and happiest solution for all when the principles of the Bible are accepted and applied by men of good will. Everywhere men are saying that the color of one’s skin is immaterial. Everywhere the consciences of men are declaring that segregation is wrong, that it is wrong to refuse a man a seat in a train, or to deny him entrance to a restaurant, or to keep him from voting, because his skin is black. But the significant fact is that this view derives from the Bible. Therein we discover that God is no respecter of persons, that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, bond nor free, but that all are one in Jesus Christ. This is no new truth. It is as old as the revelation of God. And we must be reminded of an additional fact—if this truth were to be considered relative instead of absolute, then the day might come when segregation could be justified. But under God’s absolutes in Scripture we may confidently affirm that prejudice based on the color of a man’s skin is wrong.

The Bible is also relevant to politics and passes judgment upon men who fall short of the moral principles that must undergird sound political life. Does God have a word for a culture? Does God have something to say to those in government? Indeed he does. As men and nations sow, so shall they reap. There are eternal moral principles that will, when broken, be paid for by the generation that has broken them or by generations as yet unborn. The history of mankind is filled with examples of men who have defied the laws of God. Always and inevitably the price of sin has had to be paid. In the ruins of the city of Pompeii, which was buried beneath the ashes spewed forth from Mount Vesuvius, there are places that defy description. They are kept locked, and the guides will permit no woman to enter and look. The obscenity and depravity equal that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Surely the cataclysm that overtook this city was a fitting climax to its sin.

The Bible also speaks to labor and capital, to unions and big business. It outlines the principles that are to undergird their relations. It forbids not only the actions of a corrupt labor leader, but also the collusion of price-fixing electrical giants. It not only prohibits featherbedding by labor; it also prohibits the employer from oppressing his employees. It declares that the laborer is worthy of his hire and should be paid a fair wage. But it also asserts that the laborer should give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. There are no problems between labor and capital that cannot be settled fairly when men of good will apply the principles of Scripture to their business lives.

One must admit that the biblical principles are rarely applied to the problems mentioned, because men do not wish to be bound by them. Selfishness, pride, and the hundred other sins to which men are addicted keep them from following the second law of love, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This law of neighbor-love works when it is applied; it does not generally operate because men do not choose to obey it. Although sometimes men are not aware of the compelling principles of the Word of God, most often it is not ignorance but indisposition. Men feel that the idealism of these principles is impractical for use in everyday life and would endanger their success, and they deliberately spurn the commandments of God. In the long run, however, racists, immoral politicians, corrupt labor leaders, and unethical businessmen will reap as they have sown.

The Bible perennially speaks to men. To every age it speaks racially, politically, socially. It speaks to men in business, in school, and in the home. Its principles are as enduring and valid today as they were when first they were given by God as a part of his divine revelation.

Harold Lindsell, vice-president and professor of missions at Fuller Theological Seminary, holds the degree of Ph.D. from New York University. This essay is condensed from an address he gave at the 1963 convention of the Christian Booksellers Association in Washington.

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