Where have all those Bibles Gone?

Bibles are forbidden in schools, all government facilities, military bases and academies; forbidden in some of the countries we defend with the lives of our soldiers. Most court rooms keep a copy for ‘swearing in” people to testify they will tell the truth, while all courts now let the witness affirm they will tell the truth, without swearing on this frightening and unpopular book.

Most churches put the scripture references on big screens and few people tote their bibles there any more. Employees have been told to remove it from their work places and kids have been sent home for reading it at school during free choice reading times.

Are we losing the Bible to Political correctness? Or are we going to stand firm on its use and power? Where is your bible?

We are subject to a government that has done everything in its power to remove the Holy Bible from public life and use. Yet, this act flies in the face of historical evidence of its importance to American life and liberty.

Did You Know That:

Congress formed the American Bible Society. Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of scripture for the people of this nation.

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words,

 “Give me liberty or give me death.” But in current textbooks the context of these words is deleted.  Here is what he actually said: “An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us.  But we shall not fight our battle alone.   There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations.  The battle sir, is not to the strong alone.  Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it almighty God.  I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks. Was Patrick Henry a Christian?  You be the judge.  The following year, 1776, he wrote this:

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here.”

Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his well-worn Bible:

“I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.  I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator. “

He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role.

On July 4, 1821, President Adams said,

 “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

There is more.  In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution:

“The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.”

William Holmes McGuffey was the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until it was stopped in 1963.   President Lincoln called him the “Schoolmaster of the Nation.” Read these words of Mr.  McGuffey:

 “The Christian religion is the religion of our country.  From it are derived our notions on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe.  On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.  From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures.  For all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology.”

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636.  In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the scriptures:

“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

Yale historian Harry S. Stout’s wrote an article in Christian History magazine titled, “Christianity and the American Revolution”.   Here is what he said about America at the time of the Revolution.

“Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!

 Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from God’s. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God’s providential design.

 The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. – [Today] taxation and representation are political and constitutional issues, having nothing to do with religion. But to eighteenth-century ears, attuned to lifetimes of preaching, the issues were inevitably religious as well.”

Times have changed, the world is different from those days, yet we all have the same hopes and desires, the love of God, family and the freedoms that such a spiritually based birth gave us here in America.

Yes, we are a great nation, but it was earned by the sweat and toil and prayers of men and women like these. Let’s not forget this!

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3 thoughts on “Where have all those Bibles Gone?

  1. I grew up in the mountains and went to a one room school house the first 8 years, same room same teacher, Mrs. Jones.. There were 8 rows of desks.. 1st grade at the window on the side facing the teacher. Fourth grade had the middle, near the potbelly stove.. That was a great grade to be in during the very cold winters..

    Eighth grade got the windows again. The school came with its own outhouse.. The firewood supplied by the families.. We had a water bucket with a scoop from the well in front of the building.. Walked every day about 2 miles.. In winter used snow shoes to get to school. One year I rode with my sister on a horse.

    Never forgot it. No fooling around with Mrs. Jones. you never did not do homework.. We always got out early during harvests often took a week off at that time.. We were so glad to get back to school after hauling crop in from 5 AM til after dark..

    The one thing I do remember above all else was that we stood and pledged alliance to the flag every morning, then sat down and read the scriptures and prayed. Yes, it was a public school. But local families, not the government, ran it.

  2. Pingback: Funny You Should Mention That!

    • sitting on dusty shelves. I was on a pastoral visit to a family and took out my bible.
      The lady said, “wait, let me get mine”
      she ran into another room and came back with her bible.. used to be red and also read.

      It was brown from age and dust..

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