“Most widely read magazine in the world”?

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It’s The Watchtower, “a flimsy, pamphlet-like” monthly, published by the Jehovah Witnesses (a pseudo-Christian cult). Here’s part of what Joel Meares writes in The New York Review of Magazines today.

Every month, nearly 40 million copies of The Watchtower are printed in more than 180 languages and sent to 236 countries. There are no subscriptions and you won’t find it on newsstands, but it’s still hard to miss. … The Watchtower is the most widely distributed magazine in the world, with a circulation of more than 25 million. Last year, the world’s 7.3 million-strong Jehovah’s Witnesses spent 1.5 billion hours knocking on doors and “street Witnessing” — stopping folks in parks and on streets — to preach the “good news” with a copy of The Watchtower. Its closest competitors are AARP The Magazine (circulation 24.3 million) and Better Homes and Gardens (7.6 million).

With such garbage getting regularly pumped into our world, what do you think real (biblical) Christians ought to be doing? Should those who know and love the truth (and love our neighbor as ourself) be doing more?! Have WE no good, gospel-literature to put in the hands of neighbors and seekers??

Lord, stir Your people to spread the real Word of the one true gospel!
pdb

Use a tape measure!

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Have you considered the danger of building the house of your life without a “tape measure”? asks Norm Wakefield, of Spirit of Elijah Ministries.

Norm will be preaching at CPCC here in NY on Sunday, June 6th. Here is an excerpt from one of his newsletter articles. — pdb

To ignore the Scriptures is like trying to build a house without a tape measure. The Scriptures are a tape measure, a vital gracious gift, that God has provided so we can walk under true grace and not a false grace as we build the house of our lives — His temple. I’m remodeling some rooms right now in our house, and I cannot imagine cutting the boards as I feel like it because I don’t want any one to tell me what to do. Every time I use a tape measure, it tells me what to do. It teaches me how long 39 1/2 inches is. When something isn’t fitting right, it reproves me because I measure it again and it tells me I cut it 1/4 inch too short. So then it corrects me as I recut the next piece. I am so committed to the tape measure that I have two of them just in case I misplace one! I need it every time I cut a piece of wood to build the walls.

    So it is with our lives. Every day we are “cutting wood” and building our houses with our words and actions. When things are not working out right (can’t love, can’t forgive, get angry, feel wounded and abused, deceive, ignore, reject, etc.) it simply is the fruit of working without a “tape measure”. The notion that the person walking in true grace doesn’t need an objective “tape measure” is as foolish as trying to build without a tape measure. The house that is built without a “tape measure” is a house that will fall down and need to be rebuilt.

“The Gift of Scripture” –– in the Chariot, July 2009