200 Million Christians In China Are Without a Bible

Within two decades, China is on track to be the largest Christian nation in the world, according to Bibles For China.

 

Reports are projecting growth to over 400 million believers, and yet one thing is lacking: Bibles. Bob Drew with Bibles For China notes, "It's estimated that roughly 200 million Christians right now don't have Bibles in China."

Without the grounding of Scripture, new Christians are at risk of falling into heresy. Yet, the isolation prevents access. And there is another obstacle aside from remoteness and scarcity: cost. Millions of rural Chinese Christians subsist on less than $100 per year, which means a $5 Bible costs about a third of month's wages. "A lot of these people have never seen a Bible", Drew says. "They've been learning Scripture off of chalkboards; they've been learning from very, very old versions of the Bible, dating back prior to the 1940s."

The discipline required to memorize chapters at a time is admirable, but Drew says Bibles For China wants to do more. "We raise funds in developed countries that legally and openly give Bibles free of charge to the believers living in poverty-stricken areas. For Bibles for China, we focus on rural Chinese areas."

At a cost of $5.00 each, Bibles for China is currently purchasing and distributing God's Word free of charge to rural Chinese believers--complete Bibles which are legally printed in China. The need is huge: hundreds of thousands of Bibles have been requested. "When [some of them] actually got a new Bible, we had people literally break down and cry, screaming and chanting to God just how thankful they were just to have [His Word] in their hands."