Exodus 31:18; 32:15-16
The First Gideons
Prepared by Dr. John E. Marshall
For Missouri Gideons Meeting, April 15-16, 2016
I want to encourage you by helping you remember the philosophical and historical roots of the Gideons. Your organization is relatively new, but its roots were buried deep in the consciousness of God's people thousands of years ago. You are doing a great work. You follow a wonderful heritage.
The first Gideon was Moses, who carried the Ten Commandments, which had been written by the finger of God, down from the mountain. The first Gideon chapter were the Levites who for forty years carried through the Wilderness the Ten Commandments in the Ark of the Covenant. Tenets that became the basis of Western Civilization were carried. And all the Gideons said, "Amen!"
Another important moment for Gideon-nostalgia is when King Josiah was renovating the Temple, after many years of neglect. In the remodeling, a Bible book (Deuteronomy?) was found. The decision was made to carry it to the King (2 CH 34:14-16a). The result was a time of national awakening. The Bible, when carried to people and places, always leaves a good result. And all the Gideons said, "Amen!"
This is why I am grateful for the Gideons. You spread Bibles throughout the whole world. Few enterprises could ever be more important.
Why do you do this? Why do you spread the Bible at great expense to yourself in time and money? Because you deem the book you carry to be precious. We believe what the Bible says, God says. It possesses authority.
This is no new concept among believers. From the first, Scripture has been held at a high standard. Remembering the beginnings of our New Testament evidence this. A book, to be accepted in the New Testament canon, had to meet three stringent standards. One, apostolicity; written during the Apostolic Age, in the first century, before the last of the 12 Apostles died. This was the dominant requirement. Almost all scholars now agree the 27 New Testament books were written within the first century.
Two, orthodoxy. A book had to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus and the disciples. This became more valued as time passed, especially as heresies began to pop up. No book could be more than one person removed from an Apostle. Matthew and John were Apostles; Luke was connected to Paul; Mark wrote for Peter; James and Jude were Jesus' brothers.
Three—and this is the one we will focus our attention on in this Gideon meeting, for soon to be obvious reasons--widespread use. To gain acceptance, a book could not be popular in only a small sect or in only one section of the Empire. Leaders everywhere were expected to be using them.
The early believers saw themselves as not only a local, but also a global, community. They felt a need to have worldwide impact. Thus, what happened elsewhere in the Empire mattered to them.
The writings had to be valued widely. This meant that before future New Testament books were included in the canon, they had to be carried. And all the Gideons said, "Amen!"
Paul's letters helped spread the Bible. He told the Colossians (4:16), "When this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea." When this text was read out loud in Colossae, several Gideons immediately stood up and said, "We will take care of that, at our own expense."
The early believers interacted with each other a lot. Roman roads helped make this the case. To connect the 113 far-flung regions of the Empire, the Roman army built over 50,000 miles of stone-paved roads. They were built so skillfully that many are still in use 2000 years later.
Their purpose was to give the army quick transport to squelch rebellions anywhere in the Empire. These roads turned into highways on which Bibles were carried to the ends of the Earth. And all the Gideons said, "Amen!"
Rome ruled. The world was largely at peace. Hence, there was freedom of travel from one part of the Empire to another. Such widespread open travel between nations was not experienced again until the late 20th century.
Information and manuscripts flowed freely among early believers, because couriers carried written materials. All the Gideons said, "Amen!"
New Testament books obviously spread far and wide quickly. By the last half of the 100s, the Fathers at various points of the Empire were referring often to many of what are now New Testament books as Scripture.
They were read in churches every Sunday; an honor accorded only the Old Testament Scriptures. One reason so many manuscripts were saved is due to the fact early believers deemed them authoritative from the first, and wanted them for public reading in worship services.
Early believers had a rabid desire to read, and be read to, about Jesus. As Christianity spread across the Roman Empire, the four Gospels began to be translated almost immediately into languages other than Greek. In the 100s the New Testament was translated into several languages, including Latin (distance from Jerusalem to Rome, 1434 miles), Coptic (to Cairo, 262 miles), Syriac (to Nineveh 566 miles), Georgian (to Tbilisi, 861 miles), Gothic (to Denmark, 1991 miles), Ethiopic (to Addis Ababa, 1587 miles), and Armenian (to Yerevan, 786 miles). Talking in our parlance, the Gospels went viral.
Demand for the four Gospels was so great that believers helped develop a new literary form; they contributed to the world's shift from scrolls to books. Scrolls were cumbersome and could be written on only one side. Books allowed documents to be written on both sides, and made it possible for them to be stacked and bound together. This also made it easier for them to be carried from place to place. All the Gideon's said, "Amen!"
From the first, believers craved to have copies of the four Gospels. People wanted to know about Jesus. What I liked most about studying this was seeing how desperately early Christ-followers wanted to be in the Word, and to be near Jesus in their learning. Amen. May we be and do likewise.
The fourfold Gospel codex was by far the most popular book among early believers. The fourfold Gospel witness was not due to edicts enforced from above, but due to a grassroots movement among believers to have the Gospel. The people had a portable Jesus library they loved. They enjoyed the richness of having more than one vantage point to look at Jesus' life.
Once Christianity had carried the day in the Roman world, the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius to copy and send 50 copies of the Bible throughout the Empire. Immediately, Gideons who wanted to have the honor of fulfilling this mission mobbed Eusebius.
In the midst of this fun excursion through the "early Gideons", allow me to tell a sad story of when not carrying the Bible changed the course of history. When Islam made its militant march through the nations, its spread was made easier by the fact there were very few copies of the Bible in that part of the world. Where there are no Bibles, people languish. You are doing a good work, Gideons, please keep it up.
Any time Gideons gather to meet, the emphasis is what they do with their hands. They carry. May we take a few moments to look at our hearts also? Is our love for the Bible waning? Has the immutable infallible inerrant Book become less important to us personally? If you begin loving it less, you will carry it less.
The theologian Emil Brunner well said, "The fate of the Bible is the fate of Christianity." My Grandpa Marshall called the Bible "The Book," as if no other book deserved to be ranked with it. When he lay a corpse, my grandma said he did not look right. After she had his Bible brought and placed under his hands, she said, "Now he looks like himself." "God, help me love the Bible like that. Let no discernable distinction separate Holy Writ from holy life."
Love the Book. It will carry us when nothing else will, all the way through the valley of the shadow of death. And then, once we have passed into the light casting the shadow, the Bible will remain behind to comfort our loved ones left here in the dark valley. At my wake, I want people to hear in the background my recorded voice preaching the Bible.
On my tombstone, I want an electric eye that will activate my voice preaching the Bible. Late some night, I hope a drunk will stagger past my grave, trigger the preaching, and get saved from hearing the Bible preached.
Never take it for granted. In persecuted lands, visitors see handwritten copies of the entire Bible. In the Middle Ages, Bibles were chained to poles to keep them from being stolen. It is the most amazing book ever, worthy of our saying, "We love this book." And all the Gideons said, "Amen!"
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