“There’s nothing we can experience on this earth that the Bible hasn’t gotten to first.”

James Catford, CEO of the British and Foreign Bible Society talks with Simon Smart from the Centre for Public Christianity about the growing demand for Bibles. He says there is great demand particularly in China, and one of the great challenges for Bible Society and Christians more generally is how to supply scripture to the “exploding church” in China.

“You can’t be a believer without beginning to explore scripture,” Catford says. “It’s so important for a Christian to read the scriptures, that very early on in their Christian life, they’ll want to have their own.”

“We need to understand that they’re entitled to understand truth, the same as everybody else. And i think in a conversation, a global conversation, we in Australia need to be in conversation with the Christians in China, with the poor in Argentina or Brazil or wherever it is in India, who are discovering that in the Bible they find who they are, they find answers to many of the issues of our day.”

Catford says he is very optimistic about the Bible in our times. The more people who have access to the Bible, he says, through smartphones and other technology, the more people will read it. Hostility to religion is also something Catford suggests bodes well for Bible reading, as people get tired of just being told how bad religion is and choose to go and check it out for themselves.

Hear James Catford talk through these issues in more detail in the video below:

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