Could you spread the "Good News" without a Bible?

I've been meaning to write about this for a while.  I asked a number of people the question.  This is kind of a series I'm doing on mixing or messing things up.  I have a number of different thoughts on this topic but the question that sums it all up for me is that "Could you spread the 'Good News' without a Bible?"

Why would you want to?  You may ask.  After all the Bible is a pretty amazing book.  There are a number of ways to look at this book.  Most of Christianity considers it basically a Love Letter from God.  In this Love Letter God spells out all the "realities" of our personalities.  He acknowledges that we are not at all perfect and yet he still LOVES us and will always do so no matter what.  In addition he also LOVES the person next to you so you may as well treat them with some respect.  There is a lot more in it than that of course but if you view it through that lens you would be doing well... I Believe!

Even if you take a colder approach to the Bible and say that it is simply a collection of Letters, Songs, Historical Docs written by multiple authors over the course of thousands of years and that God has not particularly inspired these words it would still be a pretty amazing Book.  The true Cynic would say that the whole thing was written by some early church fathers after Constantine made Christianity the State Religion.  Even if that were true which is pretty difficult to support at least on the Old Testament side, it would still be a pretty amazing book to still be in circulation and to have fooled so many people for so long.

So hopefully you accept that this is a unique book in all of history?

The point I'm making is if we are trying to witness or share Good News with people they don't necessarily accept this book with the same authority that we do.  It would be like trying to prove the Law of Gravity with a textbook written by ME.  Well ok not quite that bad but still you will find people that know the passages of scripture better than you do but don't hold it in the same regard.  If that is true they probably have a better argument against believing than you do for believing. 

Now there are the other kind of people that know nothing about the Bible.  Even in churches you will find very few people that actually read or have ever read the Bible.  They just don't.  I went to what we commonly call a "Bible School" for college and even in that crowd I found few people that had read the book from cover-to-cover, every begat and all.  Only a few people read the Bible!  It's sad really but true.  So what are we proving when we learn 4 or 5 scriptures to throw at somebody to prove that they are going to hell unless they follow steps 2, 3 and 4!!

Read the Bible, Memorize the scriptures, let them influence and change your life--  But share the change that a certain Love Affair has made in YOUR own life and I believe that is more powerful.  Sure have a scripture in mind when you are talking to somebody but don't quote it or throw in Thee's and Thou's accidentally.  Tell people your story... then once the Affair has started for them hopefully they will want to read the Love Letters.  Turn away from being an Ugly Christian to a person who is beaming the effects of that Love on your face.  That will attract people and that will hopefully start a more earnest desire to read this Book we call the Bible.