Why I am a Christian (17)

The Message of the Bible Touches and Changes Lives

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

I have so far covered themes linked with science, philosophy and theology before looking at five different facets of Jesus (I could have explored many more). Now I am looking at the Bible.

Having marvelled at the extraordinary unity of its message and its impressive resilience, the thing that most stands out for me about the Bible – and the seventeenth reason I am a Christian – is its power to change the lives for the better of people who read it with an open mind.

I once knew an old American man called Frank who married and settled in France after serving in the U.S. Army in the Normandy landings. If you’ve seen the film Saving Private Ryan, you’ll have a graphic idea of the carnage he survived as he made his way up Omaha Beach on 6th June 1944. Each soldier in that operation had been issued a pocket New Testament. Frank tucked his into the breast pocket of his shirt and forgot about it.  

As a young man, by his own admission, Frank was a fairly cynical, hard swearing, heavy drinking kind of guy with no time for spiritual things. But shortly after that harrowing battle to breach the Nazi defences just north of Colleville-sur-Mer everything changed.

Frank still had that same New Testament some sixty years after D-Day; it was just about intact but was badly damaged. It had in fact been the shield that stood between an enemy bullet hitting him straight through the heart. Between assault battles Frank began to read the damaged pages of his little pocket New Testament and it started a surprising journey of faith for him.

Why does the Bible change lives? Over the years, people have found that it confronts, provokes and convicts them. It soothes, assures and consoles troubled hearts. It brings guidance, wisdom, light and peace of mind to enquiring minds. It fires up the spiritual side of people in gratitude and joy, nourishing faith and bringing health to the soul.

I’ve found that so many of those who read it often and take heed of what it says are people who “have it together.” As Charles H. Spurgeon once put it “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.”

There are many people I could write about whose lives have been totally turned round just by reading the Bible and believing its message but I am going to have to be savagely selective.

I love the story of Elliott Osowitt. Born into a liberal Jewish family, Elliott worked in the tourism industry and his frequent travels away from home led him to years of what he calls “loose living and immorality.” Things unravelled in his domestic life until he lost control. One of his two daughters started to get into trouble and ended up in prison during that time. On Christmas Eve 1996 his wife Polly, fed up with the impact her husband’s lifestyle was having on their children, threw him out of the house.

Elliott, depressed and disconsolate as he reflected on the mess his life had become, was going to turn a gun on himself in his motel room that night. Before he did though, he noticed an open Gideons Bible laying on the television set.

"When I looked at it,” he says, “I thought who needs that and I threw it on the floor. It fell on the floor and it still stayed open, like it was beckoning me. It really made me mad, so I kicked it, but it hit this wooden box frame under the bed and popped back on the floor."

So he picked the book up and was about to hurl it at the wall when he glanced down and saw a verse from the Gospel of John. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14.27).

Inexplicably, Elliott stopped and welled up. That night began a long process of change and healing that eventually led to reconciliation with his entire family and his life getting back on track. “Although God is still doing a work in my family and me, we are now a recovering, reconciled, restored, and most of all, a resurrected family” he says. Elliott Osowitt now leads a church called Faith Fellowship in Jefferson, North Carolina. That’s what I mean when I say that the message of the Bible touches and changes lives.

Then consider Richard Taylor. There are remarkable parallels between his and Elliott’s stories though they come from very different backgrounds. As a teenager growing up without a father figure in his life, Richard lived an existence of crime and drug addiction in South Wales for which he served several sentences in H.M. Prison Swansea. One night, in jail awaiting trial, he picked up the Gideons Bible that had been placed in his cell and tore out a page to roll a cigarette. This is how he explains what happened next:

“I opened the Bible randomly and tore out a page and made myself a roll-up. I struck the match, but suddenly, I found that I had an inner voice that I wasn’t used to hearing. It said ‘This is all wrong, I should be reading this, not putting a match to it.’ I blew the match out, unrolled the page, and began to read it. It was the Gospel of John chapter 1. I read the page and then read most of that Gospel, about twenty chapters, before I put it down. I found it captivating. I was lying on my bunk with the Bible resting on my chest and fell asleep. Sleeping in prison is not easy because of the noise and I wasn’t on any drugs – my usual way of drifting off to sleep. Nevertheless, I slept the deepest and most peaceful sleep that I could remember. From early afternoon, right through to the next morning, I slept. It was as if the weariness of years of turmoil, crime, drugs, aggression and fighting was being rolled away through peaceful sleep. My subconscious mind was being cleared of the nightmares of my life up to now. The Bible talks about the peace of God that passes anyone’s understanding and perhaps this was my first experience of it.” (Extract from Taylor’s autobiography To Catch a Thief)

Richard was then inexplicably spared a heavy sentence on condition that he spent some time in a Christian rehabilitation centre which he agreed to. By then his life had already been turned around and he is now one of the country’s most dynamic and influential church leaders.

The Police Chief who had no control over Taylor in his days of spiralling crime can only admit that he is a reformed man and happily wrote an endorsement on the cover of the book. Taylor’s church has many ex-lap dancers, reformed criminals, drug addicts, recovering alcoholics and the like.

Two examples of lives turned around by the message of the Bible. Oh, the folly of those who want to outlaw the distribution of Gideons Bibles in schools and prisons either for fear of offending people of other faiths or because of some pipedream of a secular utopia.

The Bible is immensely valued by those for whom the government suppresses its distribution.

Nicky Gumbel (the man behind the Alpha Course) once travelled to Communist Russia when he was 21, at a time when the Bible was forbidden there. He visited a church in Samarkand, central Asia, wondering who he might give his Russian Bibles to. It was a risk because such churches were often infiltrated by KGB agents. He saw a man who was about 65 years old and who had a radiant expression on his face. Gumbel thought he looked full of the Holy Spirit so he followed him out of the church, touched him on the shoulder and handed one of his Bibles to him. 

When the old man saw a whole Russian Bible, he was elated. He took out of his pocket a thread-bare New Testament.  It had been read over and over until it was completely worn out. Now he had a whole Bible in his own language.  He didn’t speak a word of English and Gumbel didn’t speak a word of Russian but they hugged each other with overflowing joy. This book would help sustain the old man’s faith in the most hostile circumstances. 

The organisation Open Doors has thousands of similar stories after years of smuggling Bibles into Marxist and Islamic states. The Bible sustains joyful faith that violent and oppressive regimes can’t extinguish.

But the Bible’s impact on people’s lives isn’t limited to just personal salvation or private encouragement. It also makes a difference to the way ordinary people lead their lives and, directly and indirectly, has a huge effect on society.

It’s when the Church shakes off its pompous traditions and gets back to the simplicity of the Bible’s message that it becomes truly transformative. Just today (I am writing this in late July 2013) the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is in the news for saying that local churches, facilitating not-for-profit Credit Unions, will aim to put payday loan companies that take advantage of the poor out of business. Where does that come from? It comes from Old Testament prophets like Isaiah:

The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people.
The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people:
‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

(Isaiah 3.13-15)

And it comes from the New Testament as well with Jesus saying things like this:

When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

(Luke 14.12-14)

Isn’t this announcement by the Archbishop just a one off? Not really.

An article in the Daily Telegraph (February 2013) found that 6,500 Church of England parishes now provide special services for elderly people, schoolchildren, parents and new immigrants. 8 out of 10 individual parishioners give up their spare time to provide informal help to people struggling with issues such as isolation, family breakdown, drug abuse, domestic violence or spiralling debt. And that’s just the Church of England, not including other churches.

According to the National Church and Social Action Survey 2012 Christians offer 98 million hours of unpaid volunteer work on social projects every year - and that’s outside of church based activities like lunch clubs and youth groups. There seems to be something about the message of grace that motivates Bible-reading Christians to serve others and make the world a better place.

In one of the two churches I lead, I once conducted a survey amongst the non-churchgoing parents who brought their children to a holiday club the church organised. One of the questions was “Should All Saints’ be doing more in the community?” 80% answered along the lines of, “it already does an awful lot.”16% confessed they didn’t know.

4% felt the church should do more. Of these, one person thought we use the building too much for church programmes and not enough for non-church activities. I wondered if that was like saying that Old Trafford should be used for rock concerts, instead of football matches. Someone else confessed to be an atheist and said we should be tidying elderly people’s gardens. On reflection, I wish I had had the presence of mind to reply “Oh, there’s no need for that; there are volunteers from the British Atheist Association already doing that all over the country when they’re not running events like this.” But I don't think sarcasm helps.

I am not claiming that people don’t make a difference in society without the Bible as their inspiration. That is obviously untrue. I am just saying that, overwhelmingly, the message of the Bible touches and changes lives for the better.

And that’s the 17^th reason I am a Christian. I want the world to be a better place and the book that Christians believe to be inspired has a proven track record of transforming those who read it with an open mind.

If you’re not one of them I hope you at least you will agree with me that the Bible is good for society. And the next time you open the Bible, why not ask God to speak to you through it – if you dare?