A cut and paste from Mark Varney on a question
Can the Bible be used as an idol?
The following is my answer.
"Idolatry" is almost always the term thrown at those who believe that the King James Bible is the pure, preserved words of God. But let us examine that for a minute.
(1) Do King James Bible believers look at the word of God as something made by man (as an idol)? No, they do not, for they know that every word in that Book proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
(2) Do they genuflect (bow down) before the word of God as do those who bow to a statue of Mary, St. Joseph, etc? No, they do not.
(3) Do they pray to the word of God, as pagans pray to their images of wood and stone? No, they do not.
(4) Do they mount it on the dashboard of their car (as a statue of St. Matthew, or some other) for good luck, or safety during travel? No, they do not. But they MAY leave their Bible in the car after church on Sunday, for the whole week, LOL! More out of neglect, than for "good luck".
(5) Do they put the word of God up on a prominent shelf, in between two blinking electric candles, and glance reverently at it once in a while? No, they do not.
So instead of "idolatry", what is a King James Bible believer "guilty" of?
(1) He is guilty of receiving it "not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God." They actually believe the words are God's words.
(2) He is guilty of magnifying the word of God above the name of God....just as God Himself does.... Ps 138:2 "I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name." Why so? Think about it -- the word of God tells us EVERYTHING we know about man's sin, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, salvation that is offered by grace through faith, etc. The word of God is the ONE MATERIAL THING that God has given to man to represent Himself, that we may read it, believe it, study it, and count on it.
(3) He is guilty of believing that God actually DID preserve his words to every generation and that those words are not "lost", but he actually has all of those preserved words in the Bible in his hand. Psalm 12:6-7 "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever."
“I am a King James Bible believer. I read it, study it, believe every word of it, and count on it completely. When I am done studying it, I put it in a drawer, or lay a notebook on it -- I am not superstitious, and the words of God are not my ‘idol’, but those words are a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I thank God for the King James Bible; the inspired, pure, preserved words of God in my mother tongue.” Mark Varney