On the shelf behind my desk, there is a Bible published in 1929. It
was here before I got here, and every once in a while I pull it down and flip through the pages. It is a well worn Bible, with a few layers of different eras of tape holding the binding together. Time has aged the book, but its previous owner is the one who wore it out. I know nothing about the original owner, but can make a few assumptions. One: he read his Bible. Passages throughout are underlined and circled, with notes filling the margins. Two: he read it to inform his life. Much of what was underlined is instruction, and many of the notes are notes to himself. Three: he read it a lot and knew it. Before the days of google and Bible apps, he wrote parallel verses and tie ins with other parts of the Bible. Four: he loved his Bible. This relic is falling apart because it was so well used, not because it has been on a shelf. Its owner did his best to keep it together because it did its best to keep him together. Thus five: he loved God enough to learn from Him, and trusted Him enough to keep reading. When we need to hear, see, and experience God bad enough, we stop trying to find it everywhere else and look intently where He has already shown and is constantly speaking: in His Word. When we love God, we not only talk to Him through prayer – we also listen to Him. When we love God, we not only try to “be good,” we not only read about all the other imperfect people in the Bible (and how God still worked through them) but also about the perfection of Christ in example and wisdom. The Bible scholar Charles Spurgeon is quoted as aptly saying, “A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” Now, it’s not a contest, and a tattered Bible doesn’t make you holy. But it’s worth some serious reflection: what would your Bible look like if you just put a few fingerprints on it a day for the next ten years? What would your life look like? In this Bible, underlined in blue pencil, 1 Peter 3: 15 reads, “Be ready always to give answer to every person that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.” Ask, seek, knock – it will be given. See you at the watering hole.
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AuthorSean King is the Pastor for First Christian Church of Cisco. Archives
October 2021
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