Is The Bible For Everyone?

Jesus said, in what we call the great invitation,

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

While there are many lessons we can draw from that great text, the one most relevant to the question, “Is the Bible for everyone?,” is that Jesus said “all” could come to Him, “all” could learn of Him and “all” could find rest for their souls in Him.

The “all you” in Matt. 11:28-30 would be equivalent to “whoever” in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Such statements show that the Bible is for everyone. Anyone who desires to come to Christ can learn of Him and come to Him.

Notice, in Matt. 11:29, Jesus said, “learn from Me.” The only way a person can learn from Jesus is from the Bible (Rom. 1:16, 17). Paul said that the “hope of glory” is to have Christ formed in you (Col. 1:27). He goes on to say that for this reason he preached for “every man” to present “every man” perfect in Christ (Col. 1:28). Paul worked with great diligence to spread the gospel to as many people as he possibly could in his lifetime.

In the same passage that Paul referred to preaching Christ to “every man” so that Christ could be formed in him, he said that the gospel had been preached to “every creature under heaven” (Col. 1:23). Before He ascended back to heaven, Christ had told His apostles that they were to “go into all the world” and “make disciples of all nations,” preaching the gospel to “every creature under heaven” and “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:19). In His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred in AD 70, Jesus said that this would be accomplished prior to that event (Matt. 24:14); i.e. the gospel would have been preached to the whole world before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

All these passages show that the Bible is for everyone. Why would Jesus have said that the gospel was to be preached to the whole world; the gospel that is God’s power unto salvation (Rom. 1:16), the truth that will make you free (John 8:32); if it wasn’t for the whole world? There is nothing about the requirements of the gospel that would restrict it to a particular place or time. It is for all people of all times for the saving of the soul!

The very last chapter of the Bible ends with another “Great Invitation” for “whoever desires” (Rev. 22:17). Do you desire the water of life today? Then the Bible is for you!

Romans 10:17; John 8:24; Luke 13:1-3; Romans 10:9, 10; Mark 16:16