For Wilshire Baptist Church
My mother texted me on Monday with a curious question: “While many use an app on their cell phone to read or follow along in SS or even worship, most also have a ‘real’ Bible. What translation is your real Bible, is it a study Bible, is it tabbed, is it leather, and what color is it?”
That left we wondering: Was she shopping for a Bible? Gathering data for a survey at her church about people and their Bibles? I was able to answer her question quickly, and I learned later she was buying a Bible for her oldest grandson – my oldest nephew – for his birthday. That got me thinking about the Bible in general and my Bible specifically.
Here are some details I didn’t tell her about my Bible that she’ll know now because she reads this blog: My Bible was on a shelf in the closet. I had to scrape a thick layer of dust off the cover to confirm my answers. That’s because I’m one of those people she mentioned who uses a Bible app — BibleGateway.com to be exact.
I use the app on my smart phone in Sunday school and on my desktop computer at home because it’s so easy and useful. You can search words and phrases across books of the Bible, can change the translation instantly and compare translations side-by-side. I mostly use the app for research, and I don’t always use the app in Sunday school. Often, I prefer to listen as others read, and sometimes our Sunday discussions don’t have a specific scriptural reference.
While I don’t carry a Bible around as I once did, I read from the Bible weekly. We read scripture every Sunday in worship where it is printed in the worship folder. LeAnn and I read a page from a devotional book together each night at bedtime that includes scripture quotes and references. Some of the verses are familiar, and some are not, so I’m still learning.
Regardless, except for taking required Old and New Testament courses at Baylor and attending a few adult studies, I’ve not been a Bible scholar. Certainly not like my father, who collected hundreds of Bible reference and commentary books over his lifetime to aid him with teaching but also because he was simply interested and intrigued. LeAnn’s mother is the same way, and at almost 102 she still is on the teaching rotation in her adult class.
For whatever reason, I’ve not been so stimulated or motivated. My real Bible has handy tabs and printed notes and references, a concordance, dictionary, maps – pretty much the works. But, it doesn’t have any underlines or notations in the margins made by me. I’ve been to funerals where the minister said they thumbed through the dearly departed’s Bible and found marked verses that obviously meant something important to them; perhaps helped guide their life in a significant way.
When my turn comes, the poor minister will have nothing to go on because my Bible is clean inside. Maybe that’s because I was educated in Texas public schools where writing in our books was forbidden and punishable in some vague way that was never really explained. And in college, a clean book meant a better resell at the end of the semester. But I think the real answer is I’ve just been biblically lazy.
I’m amazed when people in our Epiphany class at Wilshire can reference a book, chapter and verse off the top of their heads. I have an unusually good memory for song lyrics, but that’s no good for spiritual growth and definitely not of any particular use in the mission field – whether on the street where we live or some remote village.
My lack of absorption of the scriptures is embarrassing to confess when there have been countless people across history so hungry to read the Bible they’ve risked their lives for it. LeAnn’s father came home from serving in the Pacific during WWII with a large Chinese language Bible. It was given to him by a Chinese tailor in exchange for his pocket-sized New Testament. The man was fleeing the communists and needed to lighten his load but desperately wanted to take the holy scriptures with him.
Still, I’m not a complete Biblical illiterate. When I was in grade school, I learned and recited the books of the Bible in perfect order and was rewarded with a silver dollar by my Sunday school teacher. I can still do that today, probably. More important, I think I have a pretty good handle on the ebb and flow of the scripture narratives, and in which books various stories and lessons are located. A dozen years ago I wrote and published a short book with a modern telling of the Book of Jonah. I’ve thought about doing that with others.
I’d like to think while I haven’t memorized and retained specific chapters and verses, much of what I’ve read and studied has been “written on my heart,” as the saying goes. I hope I’ve lived what I’ve heard and learned, although that’s for others to judge.
I don’t recall ever buying anyone a Bible, as my mother is doing, and I don’t believe it’s an easy task with so many choices. A dozen years ago I had a book signing at Logos Book Store in Snyder Plaza and I overheard a conversation as a woman was asking the owners for some advice on what type of Bible to give a young person as a gift. I don’t recall the details of the conversation, but I hadn’t really considered there were people who had no clue as to where to begin in choosing a Bible. I’d probably be just as stumped, especially in this app-happy age.
I also don’t know the cost of a new Bible today, but I do know there’s a cost to never opening, reading, studying or learning what’s inside. The cost may be simply embarrassment in my case for being such a Biblical slacker, but what about the cost of not knowing, learning, living and sharing “the good news” as revealed in the scriptures?
By the way, I answered my mother’s question with this text: “My real Bible is a Zondervan Study Bible, New International Translation, in blue leather and silver page edges. Those colors are an interesting coincidence because you and Dad gave it to me for my birthday in January 1993. You gave it on Super Bowl Sunday. Cowboys beat the Bills 52-17.”
The Cowboys have been in the desert most of the years since then, and considering the dust on my Bible, maybe I have been too.