Sean,
You wrote: I'm wondering though how God intends to save people who have no exposure to his written "Word," the Bible.
As you know, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," (John 14:6) and "This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3) God's requirement that everyone must accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to gain eternal life is revealed only in the Bible. Thus I understand your concern for those who have had no exposure to the Bible. How can such people ever gain salvation?
The Bible does not clearly answer this question. So, all Christians can do is offer you their own thoughts. Here are mine:
Your question actually deals with two types of people who have not heard or read the Bible's good news of Jesus Christ. Those who will be living when Christ returns to judge this world and those who have already died. I'll first give you my guess on those who will be living at Christ's return. I think your concerns here may partly spring from the Watchtower Society's teachings (and those of other sects) that God will soon kill everyone on earth except true Christians. Fortunately, the Bible does not teach that. I believe that when Christ returns He will judge only the Christian world. As you may know, two-thirds of the earth's population has never even heard the good news of Jesus Christ, including billions of people in lands like China and India. Though many Bible believers believe that God will soon kill all of these people, I think they are wrong. This does not sound like the God of love, justice and mercy I worship.
One thing that leads me to believe this is an incorrect understanding of scripture is that that the Bible tells us that "Judgment begins with the house of God." (1 Peter 4:17) Jesus also said those who will rule as kings with Him will "judge the 12 tribes of Israel." (Luke 22:30) To me this indicates that when Christ returns and draws all true Christians to Himself (Matt. 24:31), they will then determine who among those who have heard the good news of Jesus Christ and not taken it to heart are deserving of death. "The 12 tribes of Israel," spoken of in Luke 22:30, I believe refers to all those who have heard the good news preached by those whom Galatians 6:16 calls "the Israel of God." Remember, the literal "12 tribes of Israel" had all heard the Law of Moses, but few had taken it to heart.
Remember too that it was only the city of Jerusalem that was destroyed in 70 AD, not the entire Roman empire, after those in Jerusalem who heeded Christ's words of warning had escaped. And First Century Jerusalem has long been understood to picture the Christian world, or as Jehovah's Witnesses call it, "Christendom."
Also to be considered is a fact known by most serious students of the Bible, history and science. The flood of Noah's day was a local event, not a global one. God brought that judgment only upon a land that had heard the message of "Noah, a preacher of righteousness," and failed to respond to it. (2 Pet. 2:5) God did not take the lives of those in other parts of then widely populated earth who had not heard Noah's preaching.
Interestingly, Revelation chapters 8 and 9 talk quite a bit about "a third of the world"
being judged. And by population, the part of the world claiming Christianity as its religion is almost exactly one-third. (See The World Almanac 1998, page 654)
If this understanding is correct, that Christ is returning to judge only the Christian world, then Christians, who all have the same "one hope" (Eph.4:4), will then have plenty of people to rule over as they serve as kings with Christ for 1,000 years. And they will also then have plenty of people to help come to know the true God as they serve as His "priests." For that is, after all, what priests do.
Now, so far as the resurrection of those who never heard or read of the Bible's story of Jesus Christ, my thoughts on this are these:
As you know, Jesus said, "A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out - those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." (John 5:28,29) But the Bible also seems to clearly indicate that the resurrection of all mankind will occur in two stages. It tells us that, "the dead in Christ will rise first." (1Thes. 4:16) It calls this resurrection, "the first resurrection," and it tells us that "the rest of the dead will not come to life until the thousand years [of Christ's millennial reign] have ended." (Rev. 20:5)
These things being so, I tend to believe that the resurrection of all who did not know and serve the God of the Bible during their lives will not be resurrected until the end of Christ's 1,000 year reign. However, I find it interesting that when the apostle Paul was discussing the future of nonbelievers he spoke of, "the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ." (Rom.2:16) With these words of his in mind, I think it is quite possible that God will judge all men's hearts knowing, as only God can know, how they would have responded to the good news of Jesus Christ, if they had heard it during their lifetime.
I am, of course, not sure if all of my present understandings are correct. I am sure, however, that no matter when and how God resurrects nonbelievers, and no matter when and how He judges them, His ways of doing so will be both fair and merciful.