Unveiling History's Best-Selling Authors: Christie vs. The Bible

Okay, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

So I was wondering recently, who's the best-selling author of all time?

And the answer, Agatha Christie.

She's widely considered the best-selling author of all time,

with estimated sales of over 2 billion books.

She wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections.

Her works have been translated into numerous languages, making her a globally

recognised author, along with films, TV and theatre.

Her play, The Mousetrap, holds the record, someone's been, holds the longest

record, longest running play in history.

It started in London's West End in 1952 and is still running 73 years later.

Anyone here seen it? Yeah, we've seen it too. 46 years ago.

I don't read fiction books. I haven't for decades. And when I go into the library,

which I did the other day, when I walk past and see rows and rows of fiction

books, I think to myself,

people are spending a lot of time in make-believe life.

And when I think of Agatha Christie writing 66 detective novels and all that

she did, I'm glad I didn't know her because I have a feeling that if she was talking to you,

she'd be looking for her next character in her book, the next plot.

So I'd probably feel a little bit uncomfortable. And then when I found out how

much she'd done, I felt sad for her because she must have spent days and days

and days thinking up murders.

I don't think it's the way God wants us to live. But if I was to ask you the

best-selling book of all time, I'm pretty sure your answer would be the Bible.

I'm in the right group to know that answer.

With an estimated 5 to 7 billion copies

sold, the Bible is the most widely distributed book in human history.

Its first mass-produced edition, the Gutenberg Bible, was published in various forms in 1455.

The Christian Bible has been translated into many languages,

from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

And as of November 2024, the whole Bible, according to what I saw,

has been translated into 756 languages.

The New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,726 languages.

And smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 other language.

So at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,756 languages.

And these days, as well as in the written form, you can get,

as we know, the Bible as an app on your phone, on an audio player.

You can watch it on YouTube, la-di-da-di-da, there's a whole lot of ways.

Back in 2010, a new person started

coming to the home group in the church that we were in at that time.

She was an electrical engineer, and she'd been working in Ecuador for 10 years,

doing missionary work, and also establishing a Christian radio station there, Hope Radio.

On her return to Australia, she had no idea what she was to do next.

So we were praying with her, and in time she became the CEO of Global Recording

Network Australia, based in Prospect, which was only a walking distance from her family home.

She was daunted by the task, but she has depended on God completely these past years.

And seen GRN grow and keep up with new technology.

They have missionary recorders who travel to all parts of the world recording

languages which are then used to produce the next translations.

So from what they've been doing so far, they've got over 6,439 different languages

available on their app, bringing the gospel message and Bible stories.

And 1,275 of these have no other gospel resource available apart from GRN.

There are also audiovisuals and script and picture books available.

Currently in Australia, there are 150 Indigenous languages that are used,

and GRN have continually worked to add to the ones that they've already recorded.

And the reason that they've got such a higher number than I quoted earlier is

because, well, that example, there's 150 different languages just in Australia

that are being used amongst the Indigenous people.

And in the Philippines and other countries, there's so many different languages

and so they're working away at the different ones that are there.

They've started giving to me the talking tiger with the audio player and we've

got a picture of it here, which is really cute.

And they've been distributing those in different parts of the world for traumatised

children and children in hospitals and they know that having a cuddly toy helps

calm the children and eases their trauma,

as well as them hearing about God.

As we know, there are many organisations printing and distributing Bibles.

I must mention Gideon's, which was established in 1899 in London.

It started in Australia in 1956 when they placed Bibles in the hotels in Melbourne

before the Olympic Games.

Billions of Bibles have been distributed by Gideons in various places over the years, including here.

Some people may ask, why is the Bible the best-selling book of all time?

In 2 Timothy 3, 16-17, it says, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable

for teaching, for reproof,

for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, complete,

equipped for every good work.

Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is living and active,

sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit,

of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

No Agatha Christie novel can do that. It may entertain for a short time,

but the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.

I have a family Bible, and we have a picture of that. Well, that's the inside page.

That's the one. Now, Josh, we were talking about this recently,

and I told you that it weighed four kilos. actually it weighs 7.1 kilos it's 13 centimetres deep.

And I would love to have brought it along with me today, but I probably would

have bent this or broken it, and it would have strained a few of my muscles as well.

Now, it has 1,338 pages, which is the Bible part alone, and it's got hundreds

of more pages, including a dictionary of the Bible, Bible stories for young children,

the chronological index of the Holy Bible, 4,000 questions and answers intended

to open up the scriptures for students and Sunday school teachers.

That was the heady on it, a new practical concordance.

I didn't know they had a concordance back then.

When I got my NIV study Bible, I thought it was, that was, it made a huge difference, didn't it?

But, you know, little did I know they had it back then.

And there's a lot more other pages of things. There's an encyclopedia.

It's got pictures of the animals back then, the birds. It's amazing.

And it's also got two versions of scripture.

It's got the authorised version and the revised version, and they're arranged in parallel columns.

So on each page, you can read one, and then you can compare it with the other one.

This particular one was published between 1872 and 1890 by John Williamson Company in New York.

And as you can see, it's got metal, I don't know what they are on the brackets

or something, and you clip them in.

That's helpful when it's so heavy and there's so many pages, I'm sure.

So it's a family pictorial Bible with pronunciation as well.

So it also tells you how to pronounce things. Isn't that good?

And it's got lots of great pictures. So we've got a couple more pictures.

One that we saw is just the inside cover and another one that's there and I put, there's Moses.

And there's lots of pictures. There's lots of, it's absolutely amazing.

Some pages also, because it's a family Bible, some pages have got photos of

my great-grandparents and my grandparents, because that's the idea of it,

a family Bible, and you stick family photos in.

So there's pictures of people I've never met because they were really old.

And I wasn't born. My grandfather, he must have bought it just after he was

married in 1914, because it's got an address in Manchester inside it.

And that's where they'd moved to after they'd married.

They later moved to London, where my father was born.

Then they went to Cairo for two years. And for about seven years,

they lived in Pretoria in South Africa before coming to Australia.

Now, this Bible must have been important for them to bring it along on their

journeys, all seven kilograms of it.

As a child, I'd known we had a family Bible, but I'd not really had a good look at it.

But it did come into my possession about 18 months ago.

My sister had been looking after it since our father had passed away,

and she wanted me to take care of it when she realised she didn't have long to live.

And after all those years, I finally had a good look at it, and I was amazed at all it contained.

I'd love to be able to tell you that my grandfather had been a great role model as a Christian,

and I understand that he had been in his early life, but he became involved in an organization,

an apocalyptic movement, and over time, when certain things didn't happen the

way that they had predicted they would, he walked away from it all, never spoke of it again.

He never came to church with us, even when he was living with us,

after my grandmother had died.

He didn't show me the family Bible. It was packed away, gathering dust.

And my father rarely came to church either, because his time in Darwin during

the war had caused him to struggle in his faith.

You can still buy a Bible like this one. I found one on eBay. $1,300.

That's roughly 2,000 Australian dollars.

So in Tim's sermon two weeks ago, he said, many people revere the Bible, but do they read it?

How many people have homes that have a Bible, but they're just gathering dust?

And how many people are listening to Satan's lies and being deceived,

no longer knowing what to believe.

In Luke 11.28, Jesus said, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

Isaiah 40 verse 8 says, The grass withers, the flower fades,

Isaiah 40:8

but the word of our God will stand forever.

Psalm 119 verse 105 says, Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my

Psalms 119:105

path." There are so many scriptures which speak of the Word of God.

And I was amazed how many there are in Psalm 119 alone.

Verse 105 is the most quoted one. The whole psalm is worth a read, all 176 verses of it.

So what can we do to ensure that we don't become distracted by the things that

the enemy wants to entice us with?

In Colossians 3.16 it says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,

teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom,

singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Hebrews 10, 23-25 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,

for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how we may spur one another

on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together,

as some are in the habit of doing,

but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

So how important it is to meet together, to spur one another on,

encourage one another, and to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.

Jesus set us a good example.

After his baptism, he was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by

Satan, and we read of that in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And so after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

The tempter came to him, and each time he was tempted, his response was, It is written.

So how long since you raised up the sword of the Spirit?

Lately, the Lord has been putting on my heart Isaiah 43, 10-13,

when I pray for Christians not only in the Southern Highlands,

but also throughout Australia. and it says, and I lift up the sword of the Spirit.

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

Before me no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.

I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no Saviour.

I have revealed and saved and proclaimed, reclaimed, I am not some foreign god among you.

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, that I am God. Yes,

and from ancient days I am he.

No one can deliver out of my hand when I act who can reverse it.

So how good it is to use the scriptures as part of a prayer,

for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.

As I look back at the difficult times of my life, the Lord has given me something

from His Word to get me through.

Verses to meditate on, memorize, and pray over.

Life-saving verses they have been. And they have also become gifts to others

as I share them, knowing they will give hope and life in the situations that they're going through.

The promises of God in the Bible are another aspect of the Bible to explore,

and Tim shared some last week.

It's estimated that there are around 8,810 promises, but don't worry,

I'm not going to start listing them now.

I'm sure you all probably have some favourite promises of your own as well.

About 10 days ago, I had a look to see what AI had to say about it,

and they said there's between 3,000 to 30,000 promises in the Bible.

And I had another look on Friday at what AI had to say and they changed their

story and now they were saying 8,810.

So AI had obviously been looking at the websites I'd been looking at.

I'm not going to see how many promises there are in the Bible,

but probably, like me, you've probably got about another 8,800 to discover.

So let's make that a priority. What have we been missing out on?

There's a phrase repeated 365 times in the Bible.

Does anyone think they know what that might be? Fear not.

So remember that next time you are feeling fearful. So that works out to be

one fear not for every day of the year.

Did you know that the name Jesus appears 953 times in the Bible?

It's all very well having a lot of knowledge about the Bible.

And a quick search on Google can tell us all sorts of things,

like the points I've just mentioned.

They might not all be accurate, as we know, but if it gives us a bit of an idea.

But it's not our head knowledge that our Heavenly Father wants.

It's a relationship with us.

And John 3.16 tells us how that relationship can come about,

and it also comes with a promise.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes

in him shall not perish but have eternal life. What a promise.

In John 14 6, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

We were minding our grandchildren for the weekend in the Central Coast some

years back now, and during lunchtime conversation, I had the opportunity to

tell them the most important thing I had learnt in my whole life.

That got their attention. Grandma had been around so long, what could it be?

I quoted John 14.6. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

One granddaughter started to sing the verse as she had been learning it in scripture,

and two others joined in.

What a joy it was to be able to reinforce what they were learning,

and the youngest was soaking it up too. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but.

To the Central Coast next weekend, and I'm praying for more opportunities.

They're a lot older now. In fact, that granddaughter who started singing the

verse, she's going to be 18 very shortly, and the oldest one's now 19,

and he's starting to be a chiropractor. That's going to be really handy.

Except he's a bit far away. No, I won't need one.

I don't know whether it's been my influence on them that he's gone down that

path because one of the things that they rush for when I arrive is a back massage.

So Matthew 24 verse 35 says, heaven and earth will pass away,

Matthew 24:35

but my words will not pass away.

So let's approach this new week

with a renewed purpose to read God's word and to apply it to our lives.

To not let distractions keep us away from doing that. To search for more of God's promises.

To share God's word with others. And to encourage one another.

So Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, for its power and its purpose.

Help us not to be distracted by the things of the world, but to always make

time to draw near to you to read your word to receive all that you have in store for us,

we thank you for all that Jesus has done for us and continues to do by your

spirit thank you for your love and faithfulness in Jesus name we pray Amen.