Bibles, Bibles & More Bibles!
Hold on a second, I’m counting..1..2..3..4…..5..oh 6! Yeah, I think that’s about right. I think I have 6 bibles, and that’s not counting the pew bible I keep on my shelf in case I need to look up the page number for print in the bulletin.
If I look back and try to figure out why I have so many I can’t really remember why. I’m sure I had an excuse to buy a new one, or maybe I had high hopes that THIS one would be the one that would help me get on track with my daily reading. Uhhh, nope, that didn’t work! I have the NIV, NRSV, and the NKJV. I’ve even recently found myself out shopping YET AGAIN for another one because I “need” one for preaching. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself of. I’m sure I really just wanted an excuse to go shopping and to spend money, and buying a bible made me feel better about it. How American of me!
While I was out shopping, a salesman came up to help me choose from the myriad options there are to choose from. There is the study edition, the student edition, the archaeological edition, the women’s edition, the married edition, the single’s edition, the teen edition, the teen girl edition, the preteen edition, the graduate edition, the children’s edition – I can go on, but I think you get the idea.
So how many do you have? How many different versions do you have? Can you remember where and why you got them all? I can’t, but I do know that I had great intentions each time I spent another $60.00 on the HOLY BIBLE!
I think it’s a good witness to others to see my bibles out on the table, all worn and obviously used. It’s like the expensive weight system that’s set up in my garage. Every once in a while I’ll go out and shuffle the 45 lb weights around and dust off the saw dust to convince myself there is a purpose to keeping it around. I sometimes do the same thing with my bibles – move it around on the coffee table, crinkle up a couple pages, drop it in the mud, and underline a few random verses so it looks like I actually use it.
As I sit here and look at the frayed edges of my Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible – It sure looks good sitting here on my desk. I’m sure all of you think I spend the majority of my time deep in the Word because my bible keeps me company at all times.
I’ve got a few extra minutes this morning, maybe I’ll do something different today. Maybe I’ll crack this thing open and see what God’s doing.
Blessings,
Eric