Every week (or more sometimes) I get emails from Christian retailers urging me to buy their latest must have Bible.
The pink one with roses on, the purple one with 'soft touch cover,' the one with all the passages about justice highlighted, the one with Jesus' words in red, the one that's ultra slim, the one with a metal cover... you name it, there's a Bible for it.
Somehow this feels wrong, a whole pernicious industry growing up to make money out of the Good News... you know, that thing about grace and hope and freedom, oh yes, and it's all for free.
Do I really need a Bible to match my every preaching outfit? Then one for hiking, one for reading in coffee shops, one for my coffee table and so on. NO, NO and thrice NO!
So here's the thought... maybe instead of buying the latest designer NIV (or whatever) we could give the money to the Bible Society or Open Doors or some other charity that espouses gospel values?
Comments
... or perhaps we could give it to Wycliffe Bible Translators to allow people to have the Good News in their own language?
Amen and Amen - the commodification of the Bible worries me no end... as does so much else of the Christian accoutrements I can buy. But then I'm just a killjoy!!
Then there are all the CDs which we 'must-have' and the music books with just that one new song which was SO good, and the T shirt from the Christian event we went to...and our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world cluster round their one shared New Testament, with a small meal in a tiny room.
I'm with Radical Believer and Ruth on this. Oh and James Chapter 2!
Radical: Wycliffe - yes, definitely, should have thought of that too.
Ruth: no you're not a killjoy.
Angela: absolutely.
Just watch me! There are now certain shops I refuse to go into because they feel like a kind of Christian subculture, which is focused on buying and sellling. And then I realise I've just spent some money on a book on the dangers of consumerism - and recognise that I am not going to get this right, so go and have a hot chocolate instead! : )