Did you know that GQ Magazine has named the Bible one of the most overrated books in history. The Bible is ranked No. 12 on the magazine’s list of 21 books you don’t have to read before you die. “Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring,” noted the editors. “We’ve been told all our lives that we can only call ourselves well-read once we’ve read the Great Books. We tired.”
The magazine goes on to say the Bible, “is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced.” The Bible, they claim, “is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned.” The best they can say is there are “some good parts,” all the while mocking those, “who supposedly live by it.” Instead of the Bible, GQ recommends reading Agota Kristof’s The Notebook, “a marvelous tale of tow brothers who have to get along when things get rough.
In fact the Bible narrates for us the greatest story ever told. God loved the world so much, that he sent his only Son to die for a fallen human race. It is the Good News the world needs to hear. Todd Starnes gave this rebuttal to the editors of GQ. “And it’s also the best-selling book of all times – more than 5 billion copies sold, according to Guinness World Records, which also reports that the whole Bible has been translated into 349 languages and says at least one book of the Bible has been translated into 2, 123 languages. Statistics Brain estimates even more Bibles has been printed – just over 6 million.”
Whether GQ realizes it or not, they are only confirming how Scriptures is viewed in our day. “For the time is coming when men will not tolerate wholesome teaching. They will want someone to tickle their own fancies, and they will collect teachers who will speak what they want to hear. They will no longer listen to the truth, but will wander off after man-made myths” (II Tim 4:3-4). When the editors, out of sheer ignorance, say the bible is boring and they tired of reading it, they are only confirming the books listed “tickle their fancy” leading them into man-made myths, rather than knowing the truth that could set them free.
When I read of GQ’s attitude toward Scripture, I thought of the words of Isaiah 66:4, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” When the people of Israel gathered at Mt. Sinai, we are told they all trembled. “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightening, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled” (Ex. 19:16). When the exiles returned to the promised land, they heard scripture being read to them. We read of their response “Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel came and sat with me [Ezra] because of this outrage committed by the returning exiles” (Ezra 9:4 )
Men, remember that the Bile has authority because the authority of the triune God is exercised through its words. That is why we believers tremble at God’s Word, rather then mock it authority. N. T. Wright observes, “Scripture itself points – authoritatively, if it does indeed possess authority! – away from itself and to the fact that final true authority belongs to God, now delegated to Jesus Christ.” In a great line, Wright writes, “When John declares that “in the beginning was the Word.” he does not reach a climax with “and the word was written down” but “and the word became flesh.”
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