The Best-selling Book Of All Time

The Best-selling Book Of All Time

Through its pages millions came to know God personally.

FOR FORTY-FIVE years Queen Elizabeth reigned over England. She had neither husband nor children and grew increasingly lonely in her last days. Queen Elizabeth’s devotion to her country characterized her reign, and when her life finally ended on March 24, 1603, the coronation ring, a symbol of her marriage to England, had to be filed from her finger. It had seemingly become one with her, one of England’s greatest devotees.

It was in the midst of the nation’s mourning that the state’s trumpets announced the reign of King James I. Already serving as King James VI of Scotland, he brought the two nations under one ruler. James took the throne in the midst of the growing pains of the Church of England. The church had labored to free itself of Roman Catholicism, and the Puritans sought to continue to liberate the church from additional remnants of Rome they felt still existed. In an effort to show his willingness to listen to the petitions of his new subjects, King James convened the Hampton Court Conference on January 14, 1604, to hear the concerns of the Puritans. Anxious to prove his own prowess in matters of the church, the king began the conference with a five-hour critique of the corruptions of the Church of England. The following day he heard the concerns of the Puritan leaders, who had been encouraged by the king’s criticisms, but he disappointed them when he dismissed each of their requests and called instead for uniformity within the Church of England.

The king used the Hampton Court Conference to establish his control over the Church of England and to make clear his desire for unity. The one tangible result of the conference, however, was the decision to produce a new translation of the English Bible, one that would express the ancient text in the common vernacular, and unite his subjects through their access to the Scriptures. The king approved a list of fifty-four scholars divided into six translation teams that were to meet separately at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge. The translators were mostly middle-aged scholars, all but one members of the Church of England, chosen for their skill in the ancient languages of the Bible, knowledge of theology, and biblical scholarship.

This learned group of men spent two years and nine months creating the most accurate translation possible, drawing on every resource available to them. The result was a biblical translation that was not materially revised until nearly three centuries later when the Revised Version was published in 1885. The work of these men had a profound literary influence, setting a criterion of “Bible English,” which helped standardize the English language. For three hundred years nearly every English-speaking Protestant family in the world had a King James Bible. Through its pages, millions came to know God personally. It is the single best-selling book of all time.

Reflection

Owning a Bible is one thing; reading it is another. The Bible is God’s primary message to us. Reading and studying it has revolutionized millions of lives—it can revolutionize your life too.

Jesus’ disciples saw him do many other miraculous signs besides the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life.

John 20:30-31