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Could Christianity survive without the Bible? I think before we move on with the discussion, we should first make clear the meanings of the words we are discussing.
· Christianity is a Christian belief and practice.
· Survive is to remain alive or in existence.
· Bible is the sacred scriptures comprising the Old and the New Testament.
Base on this mutual understanding of the words, I will pursue my reasoning in areas as follow: First
is from the historical fact.
We all know Christianity started in around
A.D. 36 as recorded in the book of Acts 11:26. The disciples were
called Christians first at Antioch.
In the history class, we learned that the term outside the Bible was first used when Tacitus recorded that Nero blamed the "Christians" for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64.
As we read on the history, we see that Christians have been facing with
tremendous persecution of some kind somewhere right from the first day
at Antioch
until this very moment I am writing this article. Yet, Christianity
prospers throughout all these difficult years. Is Bible the source of
the survival? We will not go into length to discuss the Hebrew Torah or the Greek Pentateuch or Latin Vulgate of the
Bible history.
Bible etymologically means the papyrus roll and first
printed in English by Coverdale in 1535. From the time the first
papyrus roll Bible was scattered in 2nd century Christian
churches until Coverdale, history had witnessed that Bible never did
play a major role in the survival of Christianity. When the Latin
Vulgate was the main Bible edition used in the Catholic Church,
Christians were not allowed to own or read Bible. The interpretation of
the Bible was solely in the hand of the Church leaders. The Bible was
never used as the sole authority of God’s word. Church teaching was
based on both the Bible and Church Traditions.
Worse,
Bible was intentionally or negligently misinterpreted to the benefit of
some Priests. The situation deteriorated so badly to the point where
Martin Luther protested the Indulgence Decree initiated by the Pope
with his 95 thesis on the church door at Wittenberg. Was Christianity
survived during this period of Biblical abuse and scandal? Again
history told us “yes”, it did. During
the Chinese Cultural revolution from 1963 to1969, China was under the
iron-hand communist ruler Mao Se-Tung. His communist economic policy
known as “The great leap forward” turned out to be a total disaster. Ten and thousand of people died out of starvation.
Christian was brutally persecuted. There were no meeting, no praying,
no worship, no church and certainly no Bible. Was Christianity survived? “Yes”,
it did. But not only survived, it multiplied. Christians in China
actually tripled during this time known as the silent period. We were
praying for them at the time. We could not do anything much besides
praying in tears for we heard some of our brothers in Christ were
gunned down for leading house meeting secretly to worship God..
A
few years ago, our Cambodia neighbor ran into the Chinese style
Christian persecution. At least 1 million people were killed under the
communist Poi pot regime. We were gathering money to buy Bibles to dump
into the sea coast in hope that fishermen will pick them up for their
Christian family. The idea was pulled back for fear that Christian may
suffered harsh penalty if our activity was discovered by the Cambodian
authority. Christians in Cambodia today are still suffering
persecution. They do not enjoy the luxury of Christianity you and I do.
But they have survived and thriving. History again tells us that Christianity could survive without the Bible. The
Bible itself confirms that God never intends the Bible to survive
Christianity. Our survival depends on God Himself. For “the wrath of
God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since
what may be known about God is plain to them.
For since
the creation of the world, God’s invisible quality – His eternal power
and Divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what
has been made, so that men are without excuse - Rome 1:18-20 Jesus
Himself clearly stated that He is the One, not the Bible, who survives
Christianity. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
no one can snatch them out of my hand - John 10:28. Paul further echoed
Jesus’ teaching in Ephesians 1:11-12, “In Him we were also chosen,
having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out
everything in conformity with the purpose of His will…” The
purpose of the Bible has never been to make or to give or to restore or
have any thing directly to do with the survival of Christianity in the
sense as to remain alive or in existence as defined earlier. The
purpose of the Bible has many folds and chief among them is the
revelation of God Himself. Paul
said in Ephesians 3:3-6 that Christ revealed Himself and His Gospel to
us in writing. God intends His Words – Himself – Bible as Good News He
has made in the 2 Testaments for “those who ever believes in Him shall
not perish but have eternal life”. Paul again said that the Holy
Scripture has a purpose to make you wise for salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus - 2 Timothy 3:15. Simply put, it is to let you have the
wisdom, knowledge and make you understand the revelation of salvation by faith.
The
subordinate purpose of the Bible is to teach, rebuke, correct, and
train in righteousness so that man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work, 2 Timothy 3:16-17. And we should
obediently let the Bible do the works as such as intended by God. Thus,
I would conclude that Christianity could certainly survive without the
Bible.
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