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Secret believers: people of the Book

“The book they used to burn now fires new revolution of faith in China” Jane Macartney, The Times, 8 December 2007

“For the word of God is living and active” Hebrews 4:12

“You are my place of safety and my shield. Your word is my only hope” Psalm 119:114

We have been – and still are – an organisation that distributes the Bible. It is what persecuted Christians ask for. They ask for it because it strengthens them – and because it is the source of truth and the way in which people discover Christ and His salvation for themselves.

I’m thrilled that Open Doors is making a special format John’s Gospel available for the Olympic Games – not least because it also includes the testimonies of Chinese Christians. This is the Word of God alongside the evidence of lives changed by it: people made living and active by the living and active Word.

But Open Doors does more than distribute Bibles – not least because those same persecuted Christians have other needs; they ask for literature that helps them and their neighbours understand the Bible; they ask for help to survive spiritually and materially in the face of suffering and loss.

In fact, the ministry of Open Doors has broadened on the authority and inspiration of the Word of God. It is the Bible that demands we care for our brothers and sisters materially as well as
spiritually. It is the Bible that insists our love has to be expressed in action.

Secret believers across the Muslim world are nourished and sustained by the precious Word of God. They value it so much. The irony is that so often the easier we find it to have the Bible,
the less we care to read it and allow our lives to be shaped by it.

Last month Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali caused a stir by his call to the nation to “recover that vision of its destiny which made it great.” He added “That has to do with the Bible’s teaching that we have equal dignity and freedom because we are all made in God’s image. It has to do with a prophetic passion for justice and compassion and it has to do with the teaching and example of Jesus Christ regarding humility, service and sacrifice.”

In our secularised society, which is so suspicious of those who claim to base their lives on an ancient book, we face the same challenge as secret believers: to apply the Word of God to our lives and our society with courage, sensitivity and intelligence. If the Word of God is living and active, so must we be.

So I thank God for His Spirit. His breath inspired the writers of Scripture; His breath breathes His life into us. Now is not the time for the silent majority to remain silent. In our society we cannot afford to be secret believers any longer.