No One Should Charge for a Bible

"Freely you have received, so freely give" (Matt 10:8). Although this passage refers to the apostles healing ministry, I think it can apply, since the gospels use healing as a symbol of spiritual healing through God's Word.

I think, therefore, that Bibles should be free. That includes these huge Bible programs. No one should be making money off of the Bible. Christians should donate to fund the projects and people doing the work, or better yet, they should really be an outreach of the local church; but charging for a Bible, whether an old paper one or a nice sophisticated one, I believe, is immoral. The problem is that we've become comfortable with that immorality. We're used to making money off of people who want to become closer to God. We've become the moneychangers who condemn the moneychangers in the Bible but give little application to what we're doing in selling Bible's in the present. Again, people should be supported in ministry, so via donations or church funds, we can support their work. Publishers can even charge for other books in order to fund their Bible production, if they truly are ministries and not money-making machines that is. It doesn't need to be an ultimatum of "give us money or no Bible." We're not the authors. God is, and He doesn't charge us. We may translate it. We may compile tons of Bibles in a program and design programs to search it. But it's God's Word, and it should be free. That's just my two cents.