About Bible Foundation
Somewhere in America, there's a Bible nobody is reading.
It may be sitting in a box after someone moved.
Another rests on the back shelf of a church library. A family has accumulated several translations over the years and no longer uses all of them.
None of those Bibles are useless.
Somewhere else, someone may be looking for exactly what is sitting untouched on that shelf.
Bible Foundation helps bring those two realities together.
This independent Christian Scripture ministry has spent decades encouraging people to collect usable Bibles and Christian materials so they can be placed back into ministry rather than discarded or forgotten.
Its work reflects a simple idea:
God's Word should be used.
Before Buying Another Bible, Look at the Ones We Already Have
Bible distribution usually brings printing presses to mind.
Bible Foundation approaches the need from another direction too.
Millions of Christians already own Bibles.
Churches have extras. Christian organizations accumulate books and Scripture materials. Individuals replace older Bibles with newer editions while the previous copy remains perfectly readable.
Bible Foundation encourages Christians to recover those resources.
Used Bibles can be gathered through Bible drives and redirected toward ministries that need Scripture.
The Bible doesn't have to be brand new to change someone's life.
It needs to be readable.
A Bible Drive Can Turn a Church Into a Collection Point
This makes Bible Foundation's model particularly accessible to local churches.
You don't need to own a printing press.
You don't have to personally know a missionary overseas.
A congregation can begin by looking around.
Church members bring Bibles they no longer use. Christian books and other appropriate materials can sometimes be gathered alongside them. The collection is sorted and prepared so useful resources can continue their journey.
A Bible drive turns something ordinary into missions participation.
One person contributes a Bible.
Another helps collect them.
Someone sorts and boxes the materials.
Eventually those books can reach ministries capable of placing them where they're needed.
The person who donated the Bible may never meet the person who receives it.
Scripture becomes the connection between them.
Used Doesn't Mean Worn Out
There's something fitting about sending a used Bible to another reader.
Maybe its cover isn't perfect.
Perhaps someone has already turned the pages hundreds of times.
That doesn't diminish the words inside.
In fact, it illustrates what Bible Foundation is trying to accomplish.
A Bible was made to be opened.
If one person no longer needs a particular copy, putting it back into circulation allows its usefulness to continue rather than ending in storage.
This becomes especially meaningful when Scripture reaches places where books are expensive or Christian resources are difficult to obtain.
What looks like an extra Bible in one community can be a valuable ministry resource in another.
Sometimes Scripture Needs to Fit in a Pocket
Bible Foundation's work hasn't been limited to redistributing full-size Bibles.
The ministry has also been known for publishing small Scripture portions designed for widespread distribution.
These compact materials make Scripture easy to carry and inexpensive to share.
A small Scripture booklet can travel into settings where handing someone an entire Bible isn't practical.
It can be included with other materials.
It can sit in a pocket.
It can be handed to someone during an ordinary conversation.
The physical size may be small.
The biblical message isn't.
Bible Distribution Eventually Went Digital Too
Bible Foundation also played an interesting role during the early years of electronic Bible development.
Long before Bible apps became normal, putting an entire Bible onto a computer required someone to create and carefully maintain an electronic version of the text.
Bible Foundation participated in that work.
One notable example involved Noah Webster's 1833 revision of the Bible.
Beginning in 1991, the Webster Bible was converted into electronic form to provide a more modern public-domain English Bible text for computer Bible software. Bible Foundation assisted with scanning much of that Bible and helped make the resulting electronic text available.
Those files didn't remain in one place.
They spread into Bible software and eventually onto websites around the internet.
In a different format, the same ministry principle was at work again.
Make Scripture available.
Let other people distribute it.
Connecting People Who Have With People Who Need
Bible Foundation has also served as a connector.
Its resources have helped Christians find organizations involved in Bible distribution and places where Scripture can be obtained for ministry.
That role matters because the global Bible need is far too large for one small organization to handle alone.
Some ministries translate Scripture.
Others print it.
Some ship containers.
Missionaries distribute Bibles personally.
Churches collect used copies.
Digital ministries make public-domain texts available electronically.
These efforts don't have to compete.
They can form different parts of the same chain.
Bible Foundation has historically helped strengthen those connections.
Keep the Word Moving
The beauty of Bible Foundation's work is that participation doesn't always begin with creating something new.
Sometimes Christians simply need to recognize what God has already placed in their hands.
There's a Bible on the shelf.
Someone else needs one.
The distance between those two people may be thousands of miles, but ministries can help close it.
That old Bible gets picked up again.
It enters a collection box instead of a storage box.
From there, it moves toward another ministry, another community, another reader.
Eventually the cover opens again.
And a book that appeared to have reached the end of its usefulness begins another chapter of ministry.
At the heart of Bible Foundation is a wonderfully practical form of Christian stewardship: keep God's Word moving. By encouraging Bible drives, redistributing usable Christian resources, publishing Scripture portions, and historically helping make biblical texts available electronically, the ministry reminds Christians that a Bible gathering dust in one place may still have years of ministry waiting for it somewhere else.
