- Why did the Gutenberg Press change the entire known world in one year?
- Why did Tyndale burn at the stake because he printed the Bible in English?
- Why do we still buy books by writers from 500 years ago?
- Why do 95% of all travelers put a book in their carry-on to read on an airplane?
- Why have we created Kindles, Nooks, and iPads to read more books?
The importance of the written word in the history of the church is difficult to overstate. Whether it’s the canon of the Holy Scripture, the writings of the early church fathers, or the pamphlets of the Reformation, God has used text as a vital means of building his church. By God’s design, books continue to be one of the most effective vehicles for passing on truth to the next generation. Where books are lacking, believers are subject to false teaching, undermined doctrine, and weak living.
Christians in the West are privileged to have had abundant access to good literature, in the form of printed books, for hundreds of years going back to the Gutenberg press. In modern times, access to the written word has only increased with the advent of computers and the Internet.
And yet, still to this day, the church in the Global South often suffers from a famine of biblical resources. There are still many people groups without the Scriptures in their language, and more who have no Christian literature to equip pastors and elders to lead their congregations. This gets to the core mission of Desiring God International Outreach and is the reason why we made this video about our One Percent Campaign.
The Spreading Capacity of Books
Here’s the first of several quotes to come that illustrate the power of the written word in the cause of missions.
Daniel Webster writes:
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will.
To learn more about how you can partner with us in this cause, visit our One Percent Campaign and read about our mission of theological famine relief for the global church.
Watch for Part Two tomorrow. The entire article that includes all the quotes can be read in our Resource Library.
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