Very often we hear the news of some church vandalised, the altar desecrated, pews overturned and maybe Bibles burnt. Immediately there is a hue and a cry and the noise is as if Christ is being crucified again.
There is outrage from the pulpit. There are processions on the street. There are loud declarations about persecution. And you would think the kingdom of heaven is tottering because someone burnt a wooden cross or tore a few printed pages.
But let me tell you something that might sound uncomfortable. Unless something is done to you to make you renounce your faith or deny your Lord, you do not need to protest beyond calling it what it is, which is a simple crime of vandalism. File a police complaint. Get the law to do its work. Treat it as the breaking of property and nothing more. Because the Christ who walked on water and raised the dead does not tremble because somebody burnt paper and wood.
What should shake us far more is something else. Every time you do not live a spiritual life outside of that one hour in church on Sunday morning, you are a thousand times worse than those who desecrate a church.
Every time your Christianity begins and ends with hymns and offertory, and your everyday conduct is filled with envy, anger, gossip, slander or dishonesty, then believe me, you are setting fire to the Bible yourself.
You are burning the Word without even striking a match.
There is a verse that speaks louder than any protest march or angry television argument. Second Corinthians chapter three verses two and three. ‘You yourselves are our letter written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.’
Think about that for a moment. The Bible says the world reads us long before it opens printed pages. It declares that the true Word is not on paper that burns, but written deep within us where no matchstick can reach.
So let us remember this. You are a living letter. A walking Bible. A visible cross carried through daily life.
That is the Bible people study when they see how you treat the poor, how you speak to your spouse, how you conduct yourself in business, and how you behave when nobody is watching.
If you want to defend Christ, then live Christ.
If you want the world to respect the Bible, then become a living Bible. If you want to honour the cross, then carry it with grace in the middle of traffic jams, quarrels at home and petty office politics. And if tomorrow someone burns another stack of Bibles, do not behave as if God is dead. He is not. He never was. And He never will be.
The only real tragedy is not when men burn Bibles. The real tragedy is when believers fail to live by them...!
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