The Bible is the greatest book in the universe. Much more than merely a Christian book of morals and stories, the Bible is the actual speaking of God to man. But how did the Word of our God, recorded so long ago, reach us in written form today? The Bible has taken an incredible journey—from God’s mouth to our hands. To grasp the magnitude and preciousness of this journey, we need to know the the process by which God’s word has reached us. God communicated His word to man by speaking to man so that it could be recorded and preserved in written form and then the Bible was made available to all men in the languages common people could understand. Thousands willingly risked and even gave up their lives to translate the Word for all to read. In this, God used faithful men to extract the profound and hidden truths in the Word through the proper interpretation of the Bible. Now the Bible is unlocked and more accessible than ever before. Today, by God’s mercy, we stand at an extraordinary point in the glorious journey of the Bible.

Having God’s Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church’s income and power would crumble. People would begin to challenge the church’s authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God’s Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public’s eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held. Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be called into question. The availability of the scriptures in English was the biggest threat imaginable to the wicked church. Neither side would give up without a fight.

The Word of God is unchanging from generation to generation, but language is a dynamic and ever-changing form of communication. We therefore have a responsibility before God as Christians to make sure that each generation has a modern translation that they can easily understand, yet that does not sacrifice accuracy in any way. Let’s be ever mindful that we are not called to worship the Bible. That is called idolatry. We are called to worship the God who gave us the Bible, and who preserved it through the centuries of people who sought to destroy it.