Chains on the Bible?
- Matthias Knopp
- May 29
- 5 min read
In 1538, the English reformer, Thomas Cromwell declared that every Christian church should have a large Bible prominently on display to be read by as many parishioners as possible. When the printers finished their work on this Bible, it became known as, "The Great Bible" due to its size.

But the history of The Great Bible took an unexpected turn when people kept taking the Bibles from their places of display. It's very likely that copies of The Great Bible were stolen from the churches for both nefarious and loving reasons. I can imagine some zealous young person, hungry for the scriptures, spiriting a copy away to study and then forgetting to return it or losing it.
But, for whatever reasons they were stolen, The Great Bible also became known as "The Chained Bible." I bet you can guess why... Before the word of God was so widely printed, it was a great treasure (and I don't only mean spiritually). Any copy of The Great Bible would have sold at a high price and they weren't cheap to produce. Therefore, churches would chain the Bible to their pulpits to keep them safe!
Those were wild years all around Christendom. Men were translating the Bible into their mother tongues and the scriptures were becoming more and more widely available. William Tyndale, who died in 1536 had defied the Pope and said he would make it so the boy who drove the plow would know the scriptures as well as the priests.
Due to the many laborers of the reformation, that became a reality. English speakers today could go buy a dozen copies of the Bible at Wal-Mart at a moment's notice. It is a tremendous blessing from God!
But our familiarity has also worked to breed a contempt for God's words. In fact, when we look at contemporary English culture, we can see there is widespread disbelief and a lack of concern for God's perspective. Having the scriptures so easily available has not cured our ability to take them for granted!
But that is the culture of the world, what about our churches?
What About Our Churches?
At the outset, we need to at least agree that it is possible to give lip service to Christ and not really know or do what he commands in his word. Consider that Jesus condemned the religious folks of his day for giving him lip service,

Matthew 15:8-9, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Do you notice that Jesus ties the lip service and heart worship to their teaching. They teach the commandments of men as though they were the doctrine of God. This produces vain worship.
But how do we know the doctrine of God? It is through the scripture (see 2 Timothy 3:16). Therefore, when we "unhitch" our doctrine from the scriptures, we begin to worship Jesus Christ in vain.
Let us ask ourselves, is it possible to go into a church in America and find a people who are believing things that God has not taught? I think we would all agree that is not only possible, but that there are many churches teaching and believing things that God has not taught.
Many people will commend Catholic churches for their strong traditions that often stand as a bulkwark in changing times. And, while I do believe there is a place for traditions, there is nothing that stands against the flood of human error like the word of God.
In every church, there should be a pulpit, a place where the elder stands and holds forth the word of God with a holy boldness. He should make it clear that he is holding forth the word of God in its purity and perfection and make it clear that the scripture, not the speaker, is the ultimate authority over all men!
Untethered from our Bibles
There has been a concerted effort to unchain the Bible from the pulpits of today's churches and, thereby, we have become untethered from our Bibles. There are a lot of angles the Devil has taken. Let me give you just two quick examples:

He works through gnosticism on parade as spirituality. Gnosticism is the belief that there is hidden wisdom and super-secret, spiritual insights that people are able to receive that no one else can acheive. Gnosticism is an ancient heresy, but it is very prevalent today.
We can see gnosticism when someone says, "The Holy Spirit told me..." or, "God wanted me to tell you..." and then something comes out that is not scripture. Just as a silly example, there were a glut of billboards on the roadside years ago in Northeastern Ohio that were just white text on a black background and they would says something like, "Don't make me come down there. ~God."
The crazy thing is that a man is putting words into God's mouth. There is nothing more foolish or ridiculous than that. But all such talk and all such attempts point to the wrong belief that there is knowledge that God gives to some people that he does not give to all people in the scripture.
Another terrible attack is the idea of "unhitching" certain parts of the Bible in order to defend Christianity. Andrew Stanley has popularized this idea, but this error goes a long way back. The idea here is that we can defend the gospel without using the Bible or without using parts of the Bible.
Usually, this is a drift into liberalism that says, "I'm not really comfortable with what the Bible says in Moses, so we will only go with Jesus." Or, "I'm not a huge fan of what Jesus says, so we will only go with Paul."
It is wild to me that our modern evangelical brethren are so cavalier to attack the ancient English churches at times for their errors while we are drifting wildly into spiritualism and liberalism. At least they had Bible chained in their pulpits. So much the better for them!
Inspiring A Chain Reaction
What are some ways to fix this disastrous scenario in which we find ourselves? I could make some recommendations.

Every family should be doing exegetical studies together, going through the Bible bit-by-bit to see what God really has to say. Fathers should be the ones teaching their children the word of God faithfully. If dad is unavailable or unwilling, mom should step up.
Every church should be committed to preaching through books of the Bible and no book should be off limits. If your church doesn't do this, begin encouraging your pastor and other members to begin reading and understanding the Bible in the way it was written.
If you cannot get your elders to change, make an exodus and don't mind making a bit of a sanctified stink on the way out. Find a church with like-minded believers who want to hear what the Bible has to say each week. In other words, find a church where the Bible is "locked into" the pulpit!
And, just a quick word about the sermons: you will find that expository preaching makes the time fly by. A 45 minute sermon that is helping you to uncover gems of gospel-rich truth in the text will excite and thrill you and cause you to worship the God who loves and saves.
Hope this help.
Yours in Christ,
Matthias Knopp
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