Dr. Michael Brown, radio host, theologian, and seminary professor wrote on the devil's latest tactic to keep Christians ignorant of God's Word.
Social progress and the advent of digital media have made the Bible widely accessible to anyone. But as Dr. Brown has aptly put, "Satan (is) always working overtime to keep Christians from the Scriptures."
In his latest article for The Christian Post, Dr. Brown masterfully summarized how the devil, which he labeled as "The Old Deluder," changed tactics over the centuries to keep people spiritually blind by simply preventing them from reading the Bibles.
"In the past, this act declared, Satan kept people from reading the Scriptures by confining the Bible to a tongue unknown by the common people (namely, Latin)," wrote Brown.
But thanks to the sacrifice and work of William Tyndale, the Bible became compressible to the European Christian's common tongue, English.
During the colonial era, when European Christians have also spread abroad their faith, the devil switched to the colonial definition of literacy to prevent non-English speakers from reading the Bible in their own tongues.
"Similar sentiments were expressed in the New Haven Code of 1655, which stated that the purpose of education was to equip children to be 'able duly to read the Scriptures ... and in some competent measure to understand the main grounds and principles of Christian Religion necessary to salvation,'" explained Dr. Brown who also holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University.
Today, the Old Deluder is quite successful in his new tactic which is "distraction" according to Brown.
"Never before have we had so many things vying for our attention," Brown said.
The distraction ranges from texts, emails, DMs, phone calls, TV shows, 24/7 news reports, sport events, social media posts and ads.
The theologian turned book author also recounted his experience of getting distracted by a suggested video on YouTube. He was hooked into watching animal videos for almost an hour.
"I'm not sure if I wasted 60 minutes or 90 minutes that night, but for sure, the time was wasted. I simply got distracted," he admitted and asked with concern, "And how many have been distracted by things far more harmful than nature videos?"
"Of course, we can't blame the devil for keeping us from the Word. That is our choice and our choice alone," said Brown.
"But we can recognize the temptations of our age, temptations which have even robbed us of the ability to concentrate. And we can make a fresh determination to put the Word of God first in our lives," he added.
In another part of his essay, he noted that Tyndale would be shocked beyond words to see how much Christians ignore the Bible for which he and other early Christians have devoted their lives.
With the availability of God's Word everywhere, Brown encouraged believers to "avail" (themselves) of the "Scriptural riches" by making "focused, devotional reading of the Bible a priority" in their lives.
"If enough of us do that, putting into practice what we read, it will have a revolutionary impact on the nation. Literally," Brown concluded.
