How Important is Scripture?

“Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:” Isaiah 28:9-10

I don’t have the vocabulary to relay the importance of God’s holy word.  The Bible is God’s mind revealed to man.  How else can a person know how to live the best life possible if he or she never picks up a Bible and consumes the precious word?  The job of a prophet was to teach the knowledge of God and His will and to bring understanding and enlightenment of the truthful word of God.  Those who were the recipients of the prophets’ teaching were to become students of the prophets at a very early age.  It was common for Jewish mothers to nurse their children until they were three years old.  Therefore, when a child was ready for preschool, as we call it today, he was ready to learn about God and His ways.  They were taught just as children are taught today beginning with one simple truth and then proceeding to the next, building upon what was learned before: precept (commandment) upon precept, line upon line.  This was all done by word of mouth because very few people had a copy of the Torah in the early days of Israel.

How did the written word come into existence for the benefit of those who choose to read and study it?  We know that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament known as the Torah in the Hebrew language.  Other books of the Old Testament were written by various authors, many of them prophets.  Most of these other books were also written in Hebrew except for brief parts of Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah which were written in Aramaic, the language which took the place of Hebrew after the period of exile in Babylon and was the language of which Jesus spoke.  The New Testament was written also by various authors and was written in Greek.  Those of us who understand that the Bible is the word of God, also understand that it was written by many men who, under the inspiration of God, put His words to pen and paper.  In the 4th century, Saint Jerome translated the entire scripture into Latin, the Vulgate, which was revised in 1592 and used in the Roman Catholic Church.  At that time all scripture was handwritten, thus there were very few copies.  How did we get our English copies which made it possible for God’s word to be shared among millions of people?

For that, we have several men to thank, among them John Wycliffe.  He was born in 1330 about 200 miles from London, England.  He was very highly educated and became Oxford’s leading theologian.  Because of his knowledge of scripture, he became a very controversial figure in his disagreements with the Catholic Church.  His belief was that scripture was sufficient for salvation and no works or indulgences (some type of penance done to receive a temporary pardon of sin) were required to be fully forgiven. Forgiveness comes by grace through repentance of sin and faith.  This did not sit well with the Roman Catholic Church.  Also, since Mr. Wycliffe could find no evidence in scripture for transubstantiation, the actual changing of the bread into Christ’s body and the wine into His blood, he rejected that practice of the church.

At that time, the only Bible was the Latin Vulgate, and only the church had copies which made scripture unavailable to the common people.  All of what they knew of scripture was told to them.  Mr. Wycliffe began to translate the scriptures from Latin to English.  The printing press had not yet been invented, so all copies were handwritten.  He did not live to see the finished product, but his work was carried on by others who believed as he did.  Scripture was now available to the common man.  The Catholic Church condemned the English Bible.  They placed heavy fines on anyone caught reading it.  Persecution increased, and some of Wycliffe’s supporters were burned at the stake with the English Bible hung around their necks.  However, they could not stop God’s word from spreading across the globe.

Why would the church be so opposed to God’s word being available to anyone who could read?  I think of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who were so fearful of losing their power over the people.  I also think of politicians who want to keep people in the dark so that they can maintain control over them.  It is all about power.  It is said that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and that is a true statement.  A real Christian encourages others to turn to scripture to find the answers for truth, salvation, and how to live one’s life.  Jesus was constantly being harassed by the religious leaders of His day.  They assumed ownership of the Torah and the writings of the prophets yet failed to see Jesus as the One written about who would bring salvation to mankind.  He said in John 5:39-40, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.  And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.”  The Council of Constance condemned Wycliffe posthumously, and forty-four years after Mr. Wycliffe died, they exhumed his body, burned his bones, and scattered his ashes into the Swift River.  Just as his ashes spread, so did the word of God to places far and wide.  We have much for which to thank Mr. Wycliffe.