Bibliolatry is what is known as worshiping the Bible as a form of idolatry. Now, I don’t know of anyone who actually worships the Bible even bowing down, singing, and praying to it. I haven’t heard of any temples or gold Bibles that people worship. “Bibliolatry” is actually used to refer to the act of worshiping God’s law rather than God or slander against Christians who follow Jesus’s example relying upon “all the Scriptures” for teaching.
“Bibliolatry” is usually used as a slanderous label for those who believe the Scriptures to be the word-for-word inspired and all-sufficient collection of writings for all Christian doctrines and practices (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The use of this label comes from those who do not accept the Scriptures as God-inspired and, or as complete revelation. If a “Bible worshiper” or a “bibliolater” is just someone who believes in the inspiration of Scriptures, then this label would be referring to the Lord, His apostles, His prophets, and the church who believe and teach the inspiration of the Bible.
Worship the Christ
Christians must worship the Word in the flesh (John 1:14), but they must not worship paper, letters of a language, or books, even leather-bound books. Truly, the faithful must not worship the Law of Christ but worship Christ trusting in the law of His grace. The Bible is the collection of inerrant inspired writings revealing the Word, so Christians, therefore, respect the Scriptures and spend a lot of time reading them for the Spirit’s revelation is there. This is not worshiping the Scriptures.
Strangely, those using the label of “bibliolatry” for slander are either missing the importance of the Word, are willingly ignorant, or more likely lack the faith to accept the Word of God as it is written. Many elaborate scenarios asserted upon a little history to assert that the Bible was collected by men, polluted by men, and inspired by the imaginations of men. The Scriptures stand because Christ stands. The Scriptures are inerrant because Christ is inerrant. As Peter preached in Acts, the predictive prophecies of Christ, Jesus’s empty tomb, and various witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection prove Jesus is the Son of God. Because Jesus is the Christ, His words given to the apostles and prophets are revealed in the Scriptures.
The Written Word
The reason to respect the saving Word is that the Word is alive and active with no need of revival or any new life to be blown into it (Hebrews 4:12). The Word gives life (John 6:63; 1 Corinthians 15:1–2). One must be born of the Spirit to enter the kingdom of Heaven, and Christians are born of the Spirit by the Word of God (1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Peter 1:23). The Word sanctifies Christians (John 17:17). The Word comforts (1 Thessalonians 4:18). Furthermore, the Spirit guided the apostles unto all truth for the writing of the Word of God (John 16:13). The Word presents the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22; James 1:18). God’s Word also produces love (Romans 5:5; 1 John 2:5). The written Word of the Scriptures is not just another religious text or guidebook for life.
The Word and Words
The wonder of the Word does not stop here. The “words” of the “Word” of Christ will judge the world (John 12:47–48). In John 3:34, John the Baptist affirmed that Jesus has the Spirit and the words of God. Jesus stated that the words He spoke are spirit and life (John 6:63). Jesus also said that His words would never pass away (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33).
Jesus revealed that He is ashamed of those who are ashamed of His words (Luke 9:26). Those who do not hear the words of God are not of God (John 8:47). Then Jesus stated that He had many more things to say that He would speak all things by the Holy Spirit to the apostles (John 16:12–13). The apostle Paul wrote that the apostles’ words were not by man’s wisdom but from the teaching of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:13). The Spirit teaches through Jude that Christians are to remember the words of the apostles (Jude 17). First Timothy 6:3–4 teaches that man’s godliness is dependent upon whether he or she follows the words of God.
Should we read these words? Yes. Where are these words? You should know. Where does everyone go to find the words of Christ? Even those who believe the Bible to be man-made come back to the Bible for the words of Christ.
Loving Christ and His Words
Christ’s words are not just symbols written on paper. His words are spirit and life (John 6:63). Can anyone else say the same thing about their words? Upon these words, the faithful must live. By these words, Christians know Christ to worship and love Him. We may have a general love for strangers lost and saved, but to really love someone, one has to know that person. No one can love Christ without knowing Him and the more we know Him, then the more we’ll love Him. The sole verbal source to get to know Christ is the written Word and all other sources learn from the Bible. I wonder how many people who label Bible followers as “bibliolaters” are themselves biblically illiterate, worshiping their own imaginations of God, their own lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes, or their own life’s pride. Most don’t know the Scriptures and just rely on their own philosophy and the traditions of men.
No one should be accused of the horrible sin of idolatry because they submit to Christ’s words presented in the Scriptures. The Bible is not just laws, but it is also not just a love letter. The Bible is so much more than what people can summarize. We must love the principles and ideals that Christ presents for the church, which He has built and bought with His own blood. My heart aches to know that so many are changing to their own version of Christianity because they think of the Scriptures as cold pages disconnected from knowing and loving God and His Son. However, the faithful love God by obeying Jesus’s commands (1 John 5:3; 2 John 9). Where are Christ’s promises and commands written? His promises and commands are in the book for which some would like to think is an idol of worship.
The Breath of God 
“…Scriptures to be the word-for-word inspired and all-sufficient collection of writings for all Christian doctrines and practices”.
Just happened to stumble across this article as I was doing research on this very topic. I was looking at this because I ran into an instance of the Pledge to the Bible. I’d be curious to know how you feel about the veneration of the Saints and Icons. I’d like to know how that differs from holding up a Bible and reciting the Pledge. I mean this in all sincerity and peace, Sacred Scripture does not make this claim of itself; especially the all sufficient claim. All Christian doctrines and practices are not spelled out in the Bible. Even John himself said that all of the books in the world could not contain all that Christ said and did.
Perhaps the most famous example of this is Marcion who began creating his own scriptures to spread his gnostic heresy. Since the Bible as we remotely know it today had not been compiled yet, what was left to argue against him were the oral teachings of the church and persons who received their instruction from the Apostles and Disciples themselves. This began the process of compiling the Scriptures and measuring what was clearly the Word of God and what was not.
You and I can both sit down and find any number of metaphors for the Trinity but neither one of us are going to find it explicitly mentioned. Are we totally depraved as Calvin suggested or are the Coptic and Eastern Orthodox Churches right in that human nature maintained some degree of good after the Fall? Atonement? Original Sin or Ancestral Sin; which is the curse handed down to us through Adam and Eve? Faith alone or are the Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Coptics correct in that we play some part in our salvation- that belief/faith requires an action on our part? Is salvation once and for all after a sinner’s prayer or is it possible to lose salvation at some point? If you are in a Baptist Chruch, why are bishops absent in the church hierarchy counter to what Paul directed in the New Testament? Is Communion a remembrance/symbolic service or the real presence of Christ? Baptism. Do we Baptise infants or not? If the answer is we wait until an age of reason for the child, please find that one in the Bible. I’m not saying that position or any of these positions are right or wrong, I’m just amplifying the point that not all of the Christian doctrines and practices are spelled out in Scripture. Well over 1000 Protestant denominations alone testify to this fact.
Yes, I’ve seen bibliolatry in practice. It’s hard to define but like the judge who once commented that adult content is hard to define but you know it when you see it pretty well sums up bibliolatry.
God Bless.
You know there are a lot of people who revere the Bible and have neither read all the New Testament nor all the Gospels for that matter. I see such people waving the book around proclaiming half truths. Yet, there is no other source for the words of Christ than the Bible. (Even the OT, see Isaiah and Psalms.) Also note that the Apostle John does not say that Jesus said more but that He did more (John 21:25).
I’m neither a Calvinist, Baptist, Reform, Protestant, “Orthodox”, nor Catholic. I’m just a Christian. We are convinced that faith and works justify, and yet we don’t save ourselves by our own working. Those in my fellowship have been called Lollards and Puritans. We partake of the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day in the Assembly just as the Scriptures say. We have bishops at our congregations who each is “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3, Titus 1). We take Christ’s words for what He says, and no hierarchy, professor, “pastor”, or whoever come before these words or privately interpret them for us. There are around 2 million of us just in the US who believe like this.
We believe in the infallibility of Christ, His words given to His Apostles and Prophets, and those words written in the New Testament Scriptures, which were collected in the 1st c. under the oversight Christ’s Apostles who were guided by His Spirit (https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/new-testament-collection/). Second Timothy 3:16-17 speaks of the Scriptures as “God’s breath” and these make a person complete giving him every good work. To be brief, Paul wrote 2 Timothy 3:16-17 with the New Testament Scriptures being gathered in mind, and his reference to every Scripture already included New Testament writings as seen by how he quoted Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:18.
The answers to all your concluding questions about doctrines and practices are in the Scriptures. Many of these subjects were invented on speculation and traditions, and people could speculated and invent traditions all day and God does not have to communicate how each of these is wrong or settle them in many more words. God said what He said, and we need not add or speculate about that. For instance regarding baptism, Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). Belief precedes baptism. I don’t need anything else to know that belief comes before baptism, and baptism before salvation. Yet the Scriptures clarify this over and over again. Repentance also comes before baptism (Acts 2:38). I just take Christ directly and by His Spirit at His Word.
My plea to you is to keep Christ’s words before all other words, compare the teachings of the leadership around with the words of Christ, and don’t be afraid to stand for Him.
May God bless you.
The Bible was written by persons living long after Jesus and his witnesses died. The Bible contains God but is not Gods word inerrant. To worship everyword in it as if it was Gods word..is idolatry. The Christ comes through me and through all persons, as the microcosm to the macrocosm that is God. I believe that Jesus became the I Am because he saw no separation betwixt him and his father. Jesus was trying to teach others about the Christ-self within and that we are all children of the Creator. Unfortuanately due to force and afterdeath threats, the final collated version of the Bible was the one that people are afraid to question. They believe that to question is to have the devil within even though to question is to be very truthful and trusting in God. The Bible and those pushing it as the only word of God have unfortuantely wrecked Christianity for many people. I.M.O Blessings upon you all.
And yet, you contradict Christ’s words, which have been given completely to and through His Apostles and prophets in the Scriptures. John 16:13, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
It’s sad to me that the mainstream Church does not recognize they they are worshiping the Bible, including the author of this blog and so many that have posted here.
Calling the Bible ‘The Word’ is blasphemy. Jesus is the word (that’s in the Bible).
The whole Bible=Word thing is a recent conservative tradition that the Pharisees might have come up with. It is not an orthodox belief, nor is literalism or inerrancy. American conservatives have a view of the Bible that is more consistent with Islam or Mormonism than Christianity.
The Bible is not God, it is a guide to God.
The Bible is not the full revelation of God’s will and character, Jesus is.
We are not saved by the Bible, we are saved by Jesus.
The Bible is just a tool, and having/reading one is not necessary for salvation.
There are huge populations of Christians around the world that have never read a Bible, now and through out history. They know the truth because they we convicted by the Holy Spirit, and they know Jesus because Jesus lives within them.
The New Testament is the Word of God.
Scott Shifferd Jr.
You sir, have heard and learned from God.
God bless and keep you dear brother.
If you believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, you are in denial as to its contents. Really, I promise you. You’ll do more justifying to “explain” its lack of contradiction than if you just admit it’s a “magic book,” which is fine w/ me, that’s how I’ve chosen to look at it. The King James Version of the Bible is what God intended us to have. Everything else is less.
Given what I just said, the *only* reason I am not a Bible-worshipper is that I also accept the feedback of my own intuition thru prayer.
The Bible contradicts itself all over the place. But the Word of God is in it. But it’s not like this spiritual supercomputer that is all-knowing.
If you think it is, then you worship the Bible. Sorry.
Thank you for supporting the premises of this article.
Thanks for the advice, really. I’m not here to argue with anyone and I’m truly sorry if I sounded so. But I’ve reached a decision. I refuse to worship a set of ideas. I don’t cling to any images of this God the father or what have you. I have faith in the unknown.
If you believe the bible is literally word for word inspired by God, if you read it everyday, if you think it is the only source of *true* truth… Sorry. You’re a bible worshiper. You say that you’re worshiping God but how the h#!! would you even know what ‘God’ means outside that book? What if the catholic church had not taken over the masoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures? What if the catholic church had not written and decided upon which books were to be included in the new testament? (If you don’t believe me, take a course on theology).
The bible did not descend from heaven with an angel. It came from the catholic church which because of its political influence at the time had forced the people to believe it as the word of God. It’s just as, if not more dangerous to worship it as it would be to bow down to images of wood or stone. What about the people who lived before the bible? In countries *other* than the near east such as India or China? Did they know who your God was?
By the way I used to be a christian myself. But I figured out the *REAL* gospel of Jesus which had been hushed up since its inception. And that’s why I’m an atheist – in the name of God.
This is exactly why we need more sound teaching. “Kalinx” became an atheist without any evidence. This person talks of speaking truths without evidence and premises to support these assertions. Where did “Kalinx” get the “REAL” gospel of Jesus? Not from Jesus’ words or from those eye-witnesses once skeptics turned believers who knew Him and lived with Him. This person would rather slander them. “Kalinx” must approach the bible with prejudice. This person prejudges the writers of the Bible as liars and frauds without any premises and would rather defame them by implying that the writers of the Scriptures are something other than genuine eye-witnesses. Today, if someone address a published book like this and whose authors were eye-witnesses, then this person would be guilty prejudiced defamation in court. “Kalinx” cannot produce one premise for such self-asserting conclusions. https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/the-skeptics-necessary-prejudice-to-the-bible/
See, how “Kalinx” would rather revile those who believe Jesus and what He said about His words. Those words that are spirit and life (John 6:63), which will judge those who reject Him (John 12:47-48). Those words that were given to His apostles and prophets to be written into the New Testament and then on our hearts (John 15:20, 17:8, Heb. 8:8ff). This person neglects to recognize that “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Heb. 1:1-2). This person is also overlooking that every good work is found in the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16-17). This person may also be ignorant that the faith was once for all delivered (Jude 3) and that all things for life and godliness have been revealed by His divine power (2 Peter 1:3).
It is nice that God’s providence have kept the words of Christ in pristine order through various religious parties (not just the catholic church). Sad, that this individual’s knowledge of church history consists of Jesus to Apostles (bypass patristic writers) to the “Catholic” (Orthodox) church. Somehow this person asserts that the Catholic church undermines the Words of Jesus. Take a course on theology? I did but my teachers did not suckle from catholic spin and did refer to primary sources rather than textbooks written by a sect and endorsed by secular skeptics. That is bias! I have a church history book used by an accredited school that contradicts these assertions, and that is not to say that any history book of generalities makes true history.
This person is so ignorant of the bible that they do not realized that the Apostles and prophets of Christ in the 1st century and in the bible oversaw the New Testament collection of Scriptures rather than the supposed 4th century counsels for which even Athanasius reveals.
https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/old-testament-collection/
https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/new-testament-collection/
“Kalinx” is going to have to do a little more homework. I would encourage this person to be honest and thoroughly study a subject before devoting your life to it.
The Christian Religion is a religion based for the most part, on the assumptions of man. The Bible is full of rumors, legends, assumptions, opinions and conclusions..
God only wants three things from us: 1. Trust God completely. 2. Love each other. 3. Accept Jesus. That is all. The Bible only stands in the way of most believers living those three basic wills of God.
Mr. West,
Your thoughts are prejudice. You cannot know Jesus outside of His words and actions in the Bible, and you can’t know and affirm not one witness of any word or action claimed to Jesus outside of the Bible. All you have are traditions and conjectures. There are no assumptions in the Bible. Such is not probable or knowable for anyone to know believing or not. The prejudiced could assert that the Bible is assertions, though rather numerous witnesses and proofs affirm the statements claimed by the Biblical authors to be revelations supported by OT predictions. The articles here and many other articles stand against your contradicting assertions.
Only from prejudice can you claim that anything in the Bible is a rumor or legend especially in the NT where all is affirmed by witnesses. Here you have presented assertions and irrational conjectures (conclusion). See (premises), for this to be a conclusion that the bible teaches rumors and legends, then you must have some premises, which must include witnesses or evidence that the authors of the New Testament concocted rumors and legends making them liars or some premises to show the names given to the Bible writings were fabricated by some dishonesty. Your error is as clear as if someone today asserted that the named author of a writing was not true, then the asserting person would be prejudice, which is that the person prejudged the authors with some kind of malice. You are apparently guilty of defamation, prejudice, and slander from some kind of malice if you have no premises. Why not rationally, honestly, and logically establish premises to reach conclusions? All assertions are prejudice and bigoted. Jesus said, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed”.
God gave us free will, a conscience, and moral absolutism. The bible was his test to see who would follow His true word, of love.
Bibliolatry is not what He wanted but I would not even belittle you enough as a person to insult you, because that is not what He wants either.
I doubt that there are seriously people in the world that actually subscribe to “bibliolatry.” I’ve heard of people worshipping nature which is nothing new. Romans 1 discusses that. But since we don’t have any original manuscripts, bibliolatry is virtually impossible.
I think that as you said, it’s a slandering label and that alone. It’s a fictional concept that’s just as silly as the Pharisees accusing Christ of using Beelzebub to cast out demons. I think that when people throw out such ludicrous terms as “bibliolatry,” it’s because have devalued the Bible so much that they have to compensate for their own “baseless” faith. It’s almost childish, really. By their standards, David, Solomon, and the rest of the psalmists themselves would be considered “bibliolaters.”
It amazes me how “Christian scholars” work so hard to devalue our Bible. I would almost beg them to label themselves as atheists so we’d at least understand where they’re coming from. Do they think that God tolerates their degradation of His word? It makes no sense to me.