Many years ago, an extremely pious man traveled an extremely long way to worship the one true God in the only way and place that God had prescribed. When he returned home, he brought back something else precious and scarce: the words of God, written down in a book.

The man traveled at least 1,700 miles (the distance from Moscow, Russia to Dublin, Ireland), crossing international boundaries, a journey he likely could only make as a high-ranking government official (the U.S. equivalent would be Secretary of the Treasury). His mode of transportation was a chariot (although the chauffeured limousine of his time, this vehicle offered all the comfort and ease of an off-roading Jeep).

The book he obtained — likely for a pretty penny — was no book at all, but rather a scroll, where it’s much harder to leave your thumb to flip over to a cross-reference. And the words it contained were not those of the entire Bible but of a single book, the prophecy of Isaiah.

But, as he read from the scroll on his long journey home, the man became more and more perplexed. Another man ran up to him and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” This pious, powerful man responded humbly, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:26-39).

This whole episode sounds foreign to our modern ears. Today, God can be worshiped anywhere, and everywhere — at least in America — people can obtain a reliable translation of God’s word. Technological advancements have made it so everyone can afford their own copy of the Bible — the whole Bible — or even a range of translations, in his or her own native tongue.

In fact, according Circana BookScan, Americans bought 13.7 million Bibles from January through October of 2024, a 22% increase over the same time last year. Many Americans likely already have a Bible, and some were likely replacing worn-out volumes, but some of these purchases reflect people buying a copy of God’s word for the very first time.

It’s exciting to hear that more people are reading the Bible. The Spirit-inspired word is living and active, and he has used Scripture as a means to call sinners to repentance and faith for generations. (Augustine’s “Confessions” famously record his conversion after he heeded a children’s chant, “Pick up and read.”) Yet those encountering Christianity for the first time should be warned that reading the Bible is no substitute for living in Christian community as part of a local church.

This point cuts across the cultural grain. Americans are fiercely independent and individualistic. They don’t like submitting their lives or beliefs to the teaching of an institution. Their hero is the self-sufficient cowboy, and they scoff at the notion that they cannot be self-sufficient in religion, too. But the teachings of Scripture will always be at odds with cultural ideas.

Scripture itself teaches that “the world” — human cultures, desires, etc. — constitutes a way of life contrary to God’s way (Psalm 1, 1 John 2:15-16). If we’re going to follow Jesus faithfully, we must distinguish ourselves from the world and join ourselves to the people of God.

In fact, Scripture describes Jesus’s followers in this world, the church, using the analogy of a physical, human body. “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it,” Paul wrote to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:27). “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

In fact, Paul’s teaching implies that anyone who does not join himself to the visible body of Christ in the church may not actually be born again by the Holy Spirit. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” he said (1 Corinthians 12:13). Based on this verse, if someone is not baptized, or not joined to the body, how can they claim to have the one Spirit of God?

Many commentators have noted that, as a result of our union with other believers in Christ, the New Testament is full of commands about how believers should treat “one another.” Such commands assume that Christians are meeting together with other believers. The author of Hebrews makes that assumption explicit, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

It isn’t enough merely to skim the Bible for theology or practical wisdom, while ignoring its commands. James warns his readers that this amounts to self-deception. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

The point is, those who claim that all the religion they need is “me, my Bible, and Jesus” are following their own religion, not Christianity. For the Bible itself commands Christians to unite themselves with other believers, who compose the visible body of Jesus Christ here on earth. Anyone who rejects this is merely demonstrating that it’s possible to read the Bible without understanding it.

Just like the Ethiopian eunuch, we need other believers in our lives who can explain God’s word to us and apply it to our lives.

So, while it’s great to see rising sales of Bibles in the U.S., let us also pray that God’s Spirit uses that to convict people of their sin, give them new life, and join them to churches where they can hear God’s word preached.