You’ve probably heard the saying, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” Little proverbs like this can be misleading. I know some folks who are not believers in any sense of the word, and whose main purpose in studying is to find new ways to attack the faith of those who do believe, and who wear out Bibles quite regularly.
But in general, I think this one is quite accurate, and that fact concerns me. The problem is that folks that I encounter in various churches are much more likely to have Bibles that are weighted with dust, than ones that are falling apart. I have learned that I cannot assume that individuals in my classes know the outlines of such stories as Ruth, Esther, Elijah, or King David. That applies even to churchgoers who are active enough to show up for a weekend with a visiting teacher, and thus to be meeting me on a Friday night! It’s hard to teach about more difficult topics when one can’t refer to basic stories without actually tellling the whole story right then.
Our words indicate that the Bible is important to us. I don’t encounter many Christians of any flavor or tradition stream who will say that studying the Bible is unimportant. But if I ask just what they do about that, it’s a different matter. One common request I get is for a quick way to study the Bible, perhaps “How to Know your Bible in 5 Minutes Per Day.” I haven’t invented such a plan, and I think it will always fail, because to study and know the Bible is in many ways also to study and know the God of the Bible, and we will never actually finish doing that (Ephesians 3:18-19).
I have a Bible that I inherited from my father. He was no longer using it for the simple reason that it’s very hard to use. Pages will fall out as you try to turn them. It’s also a pocket Bible, and the print was a bit small at the time he gave it to me. The margins were filled with notes, and there was marking from cover to cover. He obviously needed a new one. But I wanted to keep this one.
Last week, my father finished his race. I was there, and then I preached the funeral. As we were talking about him, my mother commented on how often I talk about that little pocket Bible. She offered me his current Bible, since I was most likely, amongst my generation, to appreciate it. There turned out to be a problem, however, because there were actually two Bibles. One had a replacement cover my sister had made, and was really the last Bible he used. The other was also marked up, with no space left on the flyleafs, and marginal notes throughout. I was paging through it before I wrote this, thinking I might comment on some of what he had marked, but that would largely be a futile exercise. There are markings everywhere, including Leviticus and Numbers. (I’ve heard people claim to have read the Bible through, but admit to skipping those books.)
Now I have a new Bible to treasure in memory of my father. But the question is this: Is this just a book and a memorial, or does it have meaning?
My father was never very demonstrative. He was a physician who served as a missionary. He rarely preached, only occasionally gave Bible studies, but regularly witnessed. His witness remained simple and straightforward. His strength was in Jesus, his Lord.
I recall my parents praying regularly, at least morning and evening, but if possible three times a day, as did Daniel the prophet. (If you don’t know, go find the reference for that. It’s in the midst of some very worthwhile reading!)
My father made it a habit to pray with each patient that he saw, before every surgery, and on his rounds. Sometimes he and my mother, an RN, would even sing for patients when they made rounds.
After emergency surgery in Guyana in 1971, my father was told he would never work again, and that he would not live more than 10 more years. It was suggested that he return to the states. He and my mother responded, “God sent us here to do a mission, and we haven’t done it yet.” They called for the elders of the church, anointed my father with oil and prayed for his healing. Two weeks later he became the sole physician for a 54 bed hospital and worked at that task for a year before he had any relief. He lived until about 1 1/2 weeks ago, and went home at the age of 86.
When he was being taken into the operating room for his last surgery, my mother asked him how he felt. He said, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. It doesn’t matter how I feel!” Before he was given the anesthetic, he called the surgeons and asked to pray with them. He did this when he was so weak he could not walk.
It sounds to me like these “falling apart” Bibles belonged to someone who wasn’t!
My question for myself, and for all of you is this: Are you so sure of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that you can say, “It doesn’t matter how I feel?” Dad didn’t get the ability to say that all of a sudden. It was a lifetime of wearing out Bibles, wearing out the knees, and exercising the faith that God had given him (and he would not accept credit for any of this–“It is the gift of God,” he would say) that let him face the end of this life and the prospect of eternity with simple confidence.