Quite a number of churches around here have signs out front like everywhere else in the country. Many of them display cheesy, trite, or otherwise lame sayings and slogans. Some of them amuse me, some make me groan, and some of them really annoy me. A current one, in front of a large Baptist church, reads, “To know the Bible is good. To know its author is better.” This is one that really annoys me.

Having been involved in various churches for nearly twenty years, I honestly do not believe that very many Christians have ever actually read their Bible. They’ve read parts of it. Maybe even a chapter of two, perhaps an entire epistle. But all the way through? Never.

That has never made the slightest bit of sense to me.

The Bible is the foundation, it is the only means of learning about god directly (relatively speaking). It is considered holy, inerrant, infallible, sacred. It is supposedly the very words of god. Many churches trying to cover all the bases state that it’s all those things “in the original.” Take a look at any church constitution, you’ll see some kind of statement as to what that church believes the bible is. Keep in mind that there are no known “originals” if those words are included. All we have are copies of copies.

That’s an awfully faulty foundation to build your entire life philosophy on.

(I feel compelled to point out that there are groups, such as the King James Only crowd, that insist the bible is all those things only if it is in the correct translation. The fact that it wasn’t written in anything even remotely resembling English seems to be completely beyond these people’s comprehension.)

According to this church sign to know the bible is good. I would hope so. It’s where all your rules and regulations are written down in clear, easy to understand language which requires no interpretation. All the important doctrines, rules, and regulations are spelled out in concise carefully worded verses. There can be no doubt about what any of them mean. Which is why there are so many denominations with so many different interpretations as to what those rules and regulations actually mean. This was always a pet peeve of mine when I was in church. I frequently challenged people to explain their foundations for their beliefs. The most predominate answer was “because that’s what I was always told.”

Knowing the bible is not really required.

Knowing certain parts of it may be necessary in some circles but none of them require you know the whole thing. If the bible really is the word of god you would think it would be absolutely mandatory to know it cover to cover. The simple fact that it isn’t should tell you something. Which is what annoys me about that church sign. It’s better to know the author than what it is he wrote.

That’s an excuse for not knowing the bible. That’s permission to pick and choose what you want to know about god without having to know what god said about everything else. Not knowing the bible is allowing someone else to tell you what to believe.

How can you know god without knowing his word? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It seems to me you can’t actually know the author without knowing his word, they are one and the same!

So the sign makes no sense. It’s good to know the word but it’s better to know the word. But that doesn’t actually mean you need to know the word.

I hope my sarcasm is making some small bit of sense to you. I spent a long time in churches that proudly proclaimed that the bible was the word of god and that it it the most important thing that you can know. You wouldn’t need five fingers to count everyone in the average church who had read the entire bible let alone actually studied it cover to cover including the pastor. So much for the most important book in existence.

Seriously, most online atheists know the bible better than most Christians.