Lie #1
This is a 7 minute read
Adapted, with copy right permission, from the book, The Insanity of Obedience by Nik Ripken
This is a 10 pt Series Click HERE to read the introduction
Walking into the narrow bookstore, I felt like I had entered another world. The shelves were not stocked as I remembered the shelves of our mall bookstore back in the USA. Instead, the books looked more like decorations propped up in an otherwise empty space. Some of the books I recognized, although the lettering was in Mongolian. I remember finding Rick Waren’s The Purpose Driven Life and seeing a long ago released book by Joyce Meyers.
I noticed a basket of stickers with Christian symbols the kind as a child, thirty years ago, I would have received in Sunday school for memorizing my verse or bringing a friend. The stickers looked aged but still in their plastic wrap as if they had been swept off the floor of a declining Christian bookstore in the USA and transported here.
The way the light beamed in from the one window illuminating the dust particles in the air helped to provide me with the feeling that I had stepped into some kind of in-between world. Indeed I had. I was standing in a Christian bookstore in the heart of Mongolia’s capital city Ulaanbaatar in 2009. This was an unusual place, uniquely both old and new in this post-Soviet country. Everything here was new to this nation while being outdated in another. I was struck by the limited resources a Christian would have in Mongolia.
“Did the Bibles get printed yet?” I asked. “No…still no Bibles.” Came the disappointed reply of the shop worker. We had been waiting on Bibles for over a month now. A donation had been made for us to purchase up to fifty Bibles. The trouble was finding them. In that time, Bibles were out of print in Mongolia with no distinct information on when they would be back in print. I remembered another missionary telling me stories about the early print of Bibles in Mongolia after the fall of the Soviet Union and how they had been given away in droves. But many didn’t know what a Bible was, so it became not too uncommon to discover a Bible in the outhouse being repurposed as toilet paper. Although this may seem shocking to many of you, it wasn’t such a bad idea to a community where toilet paper was hard to come by, and the Bible was just another book. By the time I was on the scene, nearly fifteen years later, the Bible was more precious and understood. It was something all Christians longed for because they believed it was the trusted Word of God.
The community I moved into was mostly unreached. By this I mean, most of the people not only did not own a Bible but they couldn’t tell you what it was or why it could be of any value to their life.
I had taught Sunday school, led Bible studies and student ministries in the USA, but this would be my first time teaching the Bible to an unreached people. Boy, did it knock the wind out of my early missionary sails. Nothing will take you further down the road to discovery of the authenticity of Scripture than teaching it to someone who has no foundation in it whatsoever.
Imagine a person presenting you with a random book, telling you it was full of words from GOD meant for you to read. Like most people, you would want to know why they trusted such a book. You’d be looking for facts, not feelings, proof, not stories, and credibility, not opinions. If they told you these “words” changed their life, would it help you to accept what they were saying was anything more than just another cult? Although such a claim could pique your interest, it wouldn’t build your trust. You’d need something more.
Let’s leave the Mongolian bookstore for a moment. Did you know that in 2021 Bible reading has gone up in the USA? You’re welcome for that good news. We can take a guess why.
Here are the specific statistics from the American Bible Society State of The Bible 2021 report:
It looks like we were having a good turn out in 2014 as well, reaching our all time high of 53%.
The reading of the Bible is a good start but the real power and change comes when we believe the Bible is actually the Word of God meant for us today.
Here are those statistics from the 50% who are reading in 2021.
Bible reading isn’t necessarily life transforming. For some Bible readers, the Bible’s value has about as much as the Mongolian’s who didn’t understand and used it as toilet paper.
Author Nik Ripken writes about the 10 lies that keep us from going across the street or across the globe. The first lie he tackles in The Insanity of Obedience is the belief that the Bible is an old book, lacking power for us today.
“The “old book” lie suggests that the Bible describes accurately what God has done in the past, but this lie securely anchors God’s activity to the past. Admittedly, it is impossible to read Scripture and ‘miss’ the command to be people on a mission. According to this first lie, however, that level of obedience belongs to an earlier day. It no longer applies to God’s people today. Even more, God’s ways are different now. This first lie suggests that miracles, signs, and wonders that we encounter in Scripture are exciting but God does not work in the same way today.”
I'm surprised how many Bible readers, as well as Christ-followers, see the Bible this way. It explains the lack of enthusiasm to GO into all the world that I have been running into as a missions mobilizer.
My own journey to discovering why I can believe the Bible is both authentically the Word of God and meant for us today began partly through my lack of ability to answer some of the dynamic questions the Mongolians were asking upon hearing about the Bible for the first time. My research led to doubt and into a season of a faith crisis. Thankfully I continued to research through coming out the other side with more confidence than ever before that I can believe the Bible is the word of God.
“I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report [of] supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writing are divine rather than human in origin.”
And because of these facts combined with my own experiences of the Word of God speaking directly into my life circumstances, I am compelled to do what it says.
“Everything that God has ever done in the Bible He is still doing. Even in seemingly dark places in this world, God is making Himself known, often with signs and wonders that seem to step from the very pages of Scripture. We would be wise to not believe the lie that the Bible was written for another day and time. Why would any of us desire to go to the hard places on this planet or even across the road, with a God who has ceased being all the Biblical record says He is.
What God has done in the past He still does today.”
Struggling with how to KNOW the Bible is believable?
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