In the year A.D. 303, the roman Emperor Diocletian issued a decree which he hoped would extinguish the spreading flames of Christianity. One of his primary objectives was the seizure and destruction of the Christian Scriptures. Later that year, officials enforced the decree in North Africa. One of the targets was Felix, Bishop of Tibjuca, a village near Carthage. The mayor of the town ordered Felix to hand over his Scriptures. Though some judges were willing to accept scraps of parchment, Felix refused to surrender the Word of God at the insistence of mere men. Resolutely, he resisted compromise. Roman authorities finally shipped Felix to Italy where he paid for his stubbornness with his life. On August 30, as the record puts it, “with pious obstinacy,” he laid down his life rather than surrender his Gospels.

Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 41.

It is said that when the famous missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, started his trek across Africa he had 73 books in 3 packs, weighing 180 pounds. After the party had gone 300 miles, Livingstone was obliged to throw away some of the books because of the fatigue of those carrying his baggage. As he continued on his journey his library grew less and less, until he had but one book left–his Bible.

Today in the Word, April, 1989, p. 28

In 1915, A Russian Armenian was reading his Bible when he was beheaded. I saw the Bible–large, thick, and well used. Inside was a reddish stain that permeated most of the book. The stain was the blood of this man, one of more than a million casualties of a religious and ethnic holocaust. About 70 years later a large shipment of bibles entered Romania from the West, and Ceausescu’s (dictator of Romania) lieutenants confiscated them, shredded them, and turned them into pulp. Then they had the pulp reconstituted into toilet paper and sold to the West.

Robert A Seiple, president, World Vision, June-July, 1990

A Bible in the hand is worth two in the bookcase.

Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.

‘ Forget the modern British novelists and TV tie-ins; the Bible is the biggest selling book every year’.

The times

‘ As usual the top seller by several miles was the Bible. If cumulative sales of the Bible were frankly reflected in the best seller lists, it would be a rare a week when anything else would achieve a look in the. It is wonderful, weird, or just plain baffling in this increasingly godless age — when the range of books available grows wider with each passing a year — that this one book should go on selling hand over fist, month in, month out. It is estimated that nearly 1,250,000 Bibles and Testament is are sold in the UK each year.’

The Times

‘The Bible is a high explosive. But it works in strange ways and no living man can tell all know how that book, in its journey through the world, has startled the individual soul in 10,000 different places into a new life, a New World, a new belief, a new conception, a new faith.’

Stanley Baldwin May 1928

The Bible is God’s rule book. It tells us what is’ in’ and what is’ out’. He tells us what we can do and what we must not to. In even we play it within the rules there is freedom and Joy. When we break the rules, people get hurt. God did not say,’ do not murder,’ in order to ruin our enjoyment of life. He did not say,’ do not commit adultery,’ because he is a spoil sport. He did not want people to get hurt. When people leave their wives or husbands and children to commit adultery, lives get messed up.

Nicky Gumble – Questions of Life – P8

“Proper understanding of the Scriptures comes only through the Holy Spirit.”

Martin Luther