Article August 25, 1962 Issue

Signs of the Times

Ralph E. Knudsen

Bible Society Record

The Rev. Dr. Ralph E. Knudsen Dean, Berkeley Baptist Divinity School in the American Bible Society Record New York, New York

Dr. Francis Stiller, the Society's former Editorial Secretary, in his well-known series of broadcasts on the Bible designated one of them "How Unread Is the Best-Seller?"...Millions of Bibles or parts of the Bible are sold annually in the United States, and year after year it is listed as the bestseller in this land of ever more books. That fact means very little unless this best-seller is read and studied. The mere possession of a Bible is not enough, since it can be found so often where men live or work.

Competent writers and speakers are liberal in their recommendation that America needs a restoration of the Ten Commandments as a guide for living, and a return to the Bible as a priority on all lists of preferred reading. It appears to be an unread Book for many, if discussions about it and attempted quotations from it are a reasonable criterion. About all that many know about the contents of the Bible is what someone else says about it. Many books are read, and new methods of study are originated in order to help us understand the Bible, when the Bible is easier to understand than many of the books written about it. The Bible does not seek to confuse; it answers the question of Philip and all humanity, "Shew us the Father."

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