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The Bible

Chris Fabry

While looking in my latest Christian catalogue the other day, I came upon an astounding thing. Ads for new Bibles. Hundreds of them. I’m not talking about different translations; I’m talking about specific Bibles for specific people.

The front page featured the Life Application Bible and the Young Explorer’s Bible. A few pages further, under the heading “Bargain Bibles”,

I found the following: The Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional Bible, The Illustrated Family Tree Bible, The Ryrie Study Bible, The New King James Mother’s Love Bible, The Nelson Classic Wide Margin Center-Column Reference Bible, The Imperial Reference Bible, The Men’s Devotional Bible, The Personal Growth Study Bible, The Wesley Bible, The MacArthur Study Bible, The Leadership Bible, The New Student Bible, The One-Minute Bible, The Full Life Study Bible and The Adventure Bible.

There was The Giant Print Reference Bible, The Passages of Life Bible, The Spirit-Filled Life Bible, The Wide Margin Study Bible (published by the same people who bring you The Wide Margin Center-Column Reference Bible), The Believer’s Study Bible, The Thru-the-Year New Testament in Color, Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible, The Teen Study Bible, The NIV THIN-LINE Bible, The Quest Study Bible, The Senior’s Devotional Bible, The New Living Translation Bible – Deluxe Text Edition, The Thompson Exhaustive Topical Bible, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, The Word in Life Study Bible, The Narrated Bible, The Youth Walk Devotional Bible, The Living Insights Study Bible and The International Inductive Study Bible.

But wait, there’s more. I looked and behold, there was The Open Bible completely revised, The New American Standard Loose-Leaf Daily Organizer Bible; The Everyday Study Bible, The HarperCollins Study Bible, The Experiencing God Study Bible, The Serendipity Bible, The King James Comfort Print Bible, The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, The New Geneva Study Bible, The Prophecy Study Bible, The Life Application Red Letter Study Bible, The Complete Bible on Cassette, Alexander Scourby Holy Bible on Cassette, and this doesn’t even count The Quiet Time Bible, The Online Bible, The HyperBible, The Adventures in Odyssey Bible, The Bible for Today’s Christian Woman or my personal favourite, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. I read the amplified version of that one.

I am grateful for access to so many versions and just about any imaginable reference material. I’m glad publishers want to get God’s Word into the hands of people who need to read it, which is everybody.

As a matter of fact, I think the publishers have missed a few good titles. I’ve come up with The Birth Order Bible, The Bible in Great Big Pictures for Nearsighted Little Eyes, The Chicken Soup Bible, The Slightly Overweight Women’s Workout Bible, The Frank Peretti Scary Bible on CD and The Left Behind Bible. Perhaps by the time you read this, these will already be published.

I’m just perplexed by one thing. I read stories about people who have only scraps of the Bible, people who meet in dark places to hear God’s Word read. The level of commitment in those places is astounding. These people give sacrificially and in some cases die for their faith. Then I look at the church in North America and all the Bibles and materials on the Christian life available to it, and I wonder why it is so shallow. I wonder why I am so shallow.

There must be something missing. It must not be enough simply to own a Bible. The secret must not be in having good materials available. Perhaps – and I know this is a stretch – you have to be so committed, so sold out, that you actually open the thing and read it, and then do what it says.

It makes you wonder: With all the resources, what could happen in this country, in my town, on my corner and in my home, if that would happen?

Reprinted from At the Corner of Mundane and Grace. Copyright © 1999 by Chris Fabry. Used by permission of WaterBrook Press, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.

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Last modified November 16, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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