We would miss out on so much of our heritage as Christians if we didn't have access to bibles. We would know hardly anything about God or Jesus, the gospel, salvation, healing, forgiveness and loads more.
What would we base our beliefs about God on? I suppose we might look to creation and realise God is a creator God. We might be able to glean other truths from creation too but our knowledge would be limited hugely.
Another way to think about this is: would you still be a Christian if someone proved the whole bible to be a lie?
I'm guessing not. However, like me, i'm asusming that you don't believe this would ever happen as the bible is God's truth to us. So much of what we believe rests on the bible being true, almost everything in fact. Obviously, we have a living relationship with Jesus, not just with a book, but we know from John 1 that Jesus is the Word - the two are intertwined and inseparable.
A further way to realise the importance of the bible is to think about how you would explain to a non-christian friend or colleague your christian beliefs without using any bible references, stories or quotes. Could you do it? Well I guess you could talk about your personal relationship with God through Jesus...but how would you explain how you found about who Jesus was? You would need to refer to the bible, or to refer to someone who had read the bible and then told you about it!
Why then do we, do I, neglect the bible sometimes and not do everything we can to make sure we get first hand knowledge and understanding of it? Especially when bibles are freely available to most of us, in bookstores, libraries on the internet, on our iPhones etc. Some people in countries that experience persecution for being Christians don't even have access to a bible and would give anything to own 1 bible for their family. Let's get our priorities right and back on the Word!
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