There are many more of Jesus’ words, and they are found in the Bible, the Bible people are buying. But are they reading? Are they heeding? Are they obeying?

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Bible sales went up 22% since 2024, and the Morning Wire podcast featured a story on this. What does this mean, besides more money for publishers?

It means that people are purchasing more physical copies of God’s Word, God’s revelation to humanity in written form. However, almost no one is wanting for a Bible. They are everywhere; they are online; most families already have at least one; they are in libraries (if anyone goes there anymore). But perhaps this indicates a felt need for what the Bible offers. I hope so.

Most Americans, including most Christians, are illiterate about biblical matters, as Barna and others have been telling us for decades. We are too busy with our amusements—the video games, the films, the series, ad nauseum—to take the time to read and study and reflect on the Bible. Bible sales could increase 100% and it make no difference if people do not read and do not heed what the Bible says, and what it says is disturbing and disrupting of business as usual. There is no Hallmark card or Precious Moments version of the Bible. It is hard, but it is good.

What the Bible Teaches

The Bible says that we are not our own. We were created by God (Genesis 1-2). God keeps us in existence and controls history (Hebrews 1:4; Ephesians 1:11). God is our Judge. There will be a Last Judgment where lies have no effect (unlike in this world). See Revelation 22:15. God is a perfectionist. Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). God doesn’t wink at sin. God doesn’t grade on a curve. God is an absolutist and objectivist about what is good and what is true. He does not dissolve into a sea of subjective whims, wishes, fantasies, and deconstructions. He is the Rock that cannot be moved by falsehood or publicity stunts or propaganda campaigns or algorithms. Jesus was not elected Lord.  

God is holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:1-3)—the appendix, zenith, and epitome of transcendent goodness, untouched by error, compromise, or relativism. God is who is he, and you cannot change it. If you knew yourself and if you knew God, you would not want to change God. This is because his character is the backbone of morality, and his judgments are true altogether. Yes, God is love, but that love is holy and cannot be divorced from his holy justice and holy judgment.

God’s holy love and holy justice brought Jesus Christ to the Cross, to die an agonizing death to atone for our sin, to set us right with God on God’s terms, not our own. “Let God be true, though everyone a liar” (Romans 3:4). Jesus unmasks our pretensions, our evasions, and our definitions of God, morality, and ourselves. This is what the Bible teaches about Jesus. Jesus said:

What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

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