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Dusty Bible No Laughing Matter

THERE is a touch of absurdity about dusty Bibles in Christian homes that borders on the humorous. Supposed Christians who do not read their basic textbook are a joke to some. They are about as funny as an engineer who never studied his engineering books, but it is no joke to cross one of his bridges. They are about as funny as a surgeon who never read his books on anatomy, but you would stop laughing if he came into the operating room and started a haphazard probing into your body with a knife in search of your appendix.

How can the Christian follow in the footsteps of Christ if he does not know the course Christ took? How could you do as Christ did and speak as he did without learning what he did and said? It is in the Bible that one learns his words and deeds. After his famous sermon on the mount Jesus said: “Everyone that hears these sayings of mine and does them will be likened to a discreet man, who built his house upon the rock-mass. And the rain poured down and the floods came and the winds blew and lashed against that house, but it did not cave in, for it had been founded upon the rock-mass.” How can you build up a Christian way of living on a safe rock foundation without knowing and doing according to the sayings of Christ?—Matt. 7:24, 25, NW.

If Bibles collect dust instead of readers they are like mountains of gold that are never mined. If their possessors do not read them how can the sayings of Jesus become known? And how can his sayings be obeyed if they are never known? To many the Bible is a closed book because they never open it. To many who do open it it is still closed to their understanding. It was closed to the sincere Ethiopian officer who was reading the book of Isaiah, for when Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading he replied: “Really how could I ever do so, unless someone guided me?” So Philip guided him and he understood and was baptized.—Acts 8:31, NW.

The needed guidance may be in the form of oral preaching, as it was in the case of the Ethiopian. Or it may be in printed form, as in the case of the Bible helps published by the Watch Tower Society. This magazine is one of those Bible helps. It is the official journal of Jehovah’s witnesses. It points our attention to the sayings of Jesus and to the urgency of obeying those sayings. If we open The Watchtower and read it, it will open the Bible to our understanding when we read the Bible.

Jehovah’s witnesses must not let their Watchtowers collect dust, as some persons do their Bibles. Jehovah’s witnesses do not take the Watchtower magazine just so it can be seen around the house, like some supposed Christians who have Bibles in their homes just for the sake of appearances. The witnesses read and study all the Watchtower magazine, not just parts of it, like some professed Christians who limit their Bible reading to the last one fourth of the Bible and brush aside as outdated the first three fourths of it.

To get the good out of a Bible help it must be opened and read. To get the good out of the Christian’s basic indispensable textbook, the Bible, it must be opened and read. To fail to do so is no joke. It is no joke to cross a weak bridge. It is not funny to be operated on by an incompetent surgeon. Still less is it a laughing matter to jeopardize our chance for eternal life by letting our Bibles grow dusty.