Bible sales are increasing

If you're searching for answers in the Word of God, you're not alone

I restarted my yearly reading of the Bible focusing on the principles I discussed in “Understanding we live in enemy territory.” I’ve borrowed from JRR Tolkien’s eye-opening declaration to CS Lewis that we live in a “true myth.” The Bible tells an epic tale of good versus evil that just happens to be true. I’ve borrowed also from concepts in Rod Dreher’s book, “Living in Wonder,” calling it “reading in wonder.” If the Bible is true, how does it inform how we should live?

We are only three days into our reading in Genesis. As I was reflecting on all that is consequential and foundational in just the first few chapters of this book (here and here), I heard on the Morning Wire podcast a report that Bible sales are outpacing the rest of publishing. As evil becomes more and more apparent in our world, we need the good news that there is an ultimate Good, and He is found in the Word of God.

I’ll borrow from my insights today after just three days of reading:

We live in the consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin, in that we are all destined to die (“to dust you shall return” [Genesis 3:19]). But we know we are not different from them. I posited in my essay that inspired the concept of reading in wonder that “the Bible demonstrates that [God] has engaged in all the many ways that we demand that He reveal Himself to us, and still we are not satisfied and still we rebel.” Many who reject God don’t reject that He is (and His creation does reveal Him, so we are without excuse if we deny His existence [Romans 1:20]). They reject Who He is. They make Him in their own image, instead of realizing they were made in His. I could have wished my earthly father were different, but he was who he was. He made the rules of my childhood home. God is Who He is, and He makes the rules of our earthly home. All praise to Him that He is loving, and that He longs to have relationship with us, by evidence, in our short reading so far, of His “walking” with Adam and Eve, Enoch, and Noah. He simply asks that we believe Him. He warned Adam and Eve there would be consequence for their sin. The serpent, the deceiver Satan (Revelation 20:2), tempted them to disbelieve God. He still tempts us to do the same.

I read a chronological plan and a daily Old Testament/New Testament plan, partly so I don’t have to wait nine months into the year, by the chronological plan, to get to the New Testament. After Adam and Eve sinned, God declared and enacted the consequences. In this declaration, there is a cryptic promise to the serpent: “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).

On the same day that we read in the Old Testament of the sin of Adam and Eve, and the consequence of that sin for all humanity, we read in the New Testament of the seed of the woman who will conquer the enemy of our souls. The Gospel of Matthew begins with the “record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1).

The Lord God has given us this amazing book so that He might reveal Himself, His expectations, His plan, His love, His grace, and His mercy, so that we might know Him and know the hope of living eternally with Him. We’ve lost the Garden of Eden, but we were created for it. We long for its perfection. The answer to finding it is found in the Bible. In all the ways I participate, in my various personal roles, of helping to address the problems of the world, I have found no better solution than finding Jesus the Messiah. That is why my primary passion is to share Him. I pray that many are inspired to resolve to read in its entirety the consequential word of God. The Lord Himself promises, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).