Stealing Your Way to Heaven????

I was watching the History Channel last night and one of the interesting facts thrown out was the fact that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time. I knew this of course, but I didn't realize how many copies are sold per minute. According to the History Channel, on average, approximately 50 copies of the Bible are sold every minute.

Of course, the amount of copies sold per minute is interesting, however, they mentioned one other fact during this program that was even more interesting: In addition to being the all-time best-seller, the Bible also holds the unique position of being the most shoplifted book of all time. Now, that is fascinating. Why would you steal the Bible? The Gideons and various other organizations are giving them away every day. I would imagine that you could walk into almost any church here in America and ask for a copy and it would be given to you free of charge. If that particular church refuses to give you a copy, I would strongly recommend that you find another church - obviously, the one that turned down your request for a Bible has failed to understand the whole reason for their existence.

I wonder what it's like to read a stolen Bible? How do you read what many believe to be the Word of God when you have stolen the very copy you hope to glean knowledge from? Of course, I am not talking about someone taking a copy from a motel room. Most of those are placed there by the Gideons or other Bible distributing organizations and I think they honestly hope you will take that copy if you don't have one. They will be glad to replace it. But what of those who go into a bookstore and just slip a Bible under their coat and walk out with it? I just can't imagine... I have never stolen anything but I certainly wouldn't start out with a Bible.

I guess the good news here is that people are being exposed to the Biblical message about God's love toward us in Christ no matter how it comes about. I just found the whole matter interesting and thought I would put some thoughts down on this while it was still fresh in my mind. I may come back to this subject later and ponder the idea of "stealing your way to heaven." Hmmm.