There must be a greater reason than just literary structure and clarity as to why more copies of the Bible have been purchased and published around the world in plenty of languages.
I must quote a book I have been reading for class recently. It is called The Mystery of God’s Word by Raniero Cantalamessa. The title doesn’t sound too enthralling at first glance. And the author is far from your typical American Evangelical. This guy, Raniero, has been the Pastor to the Papal Household since 1980. That’s right, he’s the Pope’s Pastor.
Listen to this from Cantalamessa:
“In the world at large and even within the Church there have been and there will be better books than some books in the Bible – of greater literary refinement and, religiously speaking, more edifying (suffice it to mention The Imitation of Christ) – yet none of these produces the effect that the most modest of the inspired books produces…In Tales of a Russian Pilgrim, we read of many people being cured of the vice of drinking, thanks to their having kept a resoluton to read a chapter of the gospel whenever they felt the compulsive need for a drink coming on. Recommending the practice to one such, a monk said, ‘In the very words of the Gospel there is life-giving power, for in them is written what God himself has uttered. Never mind if you do not understand it properly; it is enough if you read carefully. If you don’t understand the Word of God, the demons certainly do understand what you are reading, and they tremble.’” (Reniero Cantalamessa, The Mystery of God’s Word [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1994], pp. 13-14).
