I recently finished reading through the Bible again. I started this habit over 50 years ago as a skeptic. Since that time, there have been few days that I haven’t read, meditated on, or studied it. It never gets old. The Scriptures are fresher and more meaningful to me than they’ve ever been. No other source has had a greater impact on my life than this book. I have seen its power to transform my own thinking and life as well as countless others.
One of those was a man named, Jeff. When we moved to South Carolina in the mid 1980s to help start a church, I rented an office in a small complex near our home. Jeff and his wife operated an independent insurance agency in the office next door. Over the months we got to know each other and I found him to be quite a colorful character. Jeff was a smoker at that time and would often step outside to take smoke breaks. On many occasions I would join him to talk. When he found out that I was a pastor of a new church in town, he was a little stand offish at first, but eventually he let his guard down and we became pretty good friends. We started having some lively spiritual discussions.
"Does the Bible have anything to say about sex?"
I’ll never forget one day as we were standing outside our office complex, Jeff looked furtively around to see if anyone was within hearing distance, stepped a little closer, lowered his voice and asked, “Floyd, does the Bible have anything to say about sex?”
I laughed and happily replied, “Well, yes, Jeff, it has a lot to say about sex. In fact, there is a whole book of the Bible devoted to the topic!” His eyes grew big and he said, “Really?” He pulled out a pad and pen and said, “What’s the name of it?”
I told him, “The Song of Solomon.” He said, “I’m going to have to get me a copy and read it.” And that is what he did.
We started meeting regularly to discuss the Bible together. Early in the process we were having breakfast one morning at a local restaurant near our office. As we discussed a passage of Scripture, Jeff was impressed by the insights he was discovering about God and his relationship to him. This was back in the days when smoking was still allowed in most restaurants. Jeff took a puff on his cigarette, blew the smoke upwards out of the corner of his mouth, looked up at me and said, “Floyd, this is one helluva book, isn’t it!”
I smiled and said, “Well, I’ve never quite heard it described that way, but you are right, it is a remarkable book.”
A supernatural book
And, it really is. In fact, it is a supernatural book. There is no other explanation for it. Written over a period of 1600 years by over 40 authors from different walks of life (from well educated scholars to common farmers) in three different languages, it has one unique central theme and focuses on one singular person and his good plan for us now and in eternity.
As I mentioned, I first started reading it when I was a senior in high school, and it wasn’t because I thought it was special. By that point I had come to a place of unbelief, a rejection of God in general and Christianity in particular. I wouldn’t have claimed to be an atheist. I thought there was some type of Supreme Something, but I wanted little to do with him or “it,”—whatever was there. In my opinion, I had little to do with God, and I felt, as far as I could determine, he wanted little to do with me. So, I set my course to live a god-less life.
"How can you reject something you know little about?"
I was living with my mother at that time and, despite my lack of spiritual interest, she still required that I accompany her to church. I didn’t listen much, but there was a preacher that said something that caught my attention. I don’t remember anything else about his sermon, but these words struck a chord in me. “How can you reject something which you really don’t understand?” That made sense. I had decided to turn my back on the church, Christianity and the Bible, but I thought that if I was to be intellectually honest in my rejection, I at least needed to understand what I was rejecting.
So, I decided to justify my unbelief. I reasoned that I would read through the Bible for myself and then, after doing so, I could dismiss it because I had understood it first hand. My assumption was that it was full of fairy tales and replete with error, and so by reading it firsthand I could become fully aware of these and therefore justify my rejection. While not familiar with much of its content, I at least knew that the New Testament mostly had to do with Jesus and, since Christianity was based on him, I committed myself to read through it and note especially all its preposterous errors and fantasies. Then I could be done with it.
About the only version of the Bible around at that time was the King James Version, with its archaic English containing “thees” and “thous” which made it difficult for me to understand. So, I found a modern language New Testament entitled, The New Testament in Modern English, by J.B. Phillips. I still have it in my possession these many years later.
But, I didn’t quit reading. Over the weeks my skepticism softened. Jesus started becoming more and more attractive to me. By the time I had finished the New Testament, approximately 8 months later, my attitude had drastically changed. While I still had a lot of questions, I wasn’t hostile any more. In fact, as I have already written previously, I thought his life and teachings were something to which I should aspire. God brought me to a place of openness to hear about how I could know him personally, which happened my first year of college.
A "God-breathed" Book
I have found as I’ve continued to ponder the words of Scripture that they are, what it states about itself, “God-breathed.” (2 Timothy 3:16). Though I’ve lost count how many times I’ve read it, it is still fresh and invigorating—even more so—than the days that I first started reading it trying to discredit it. Rarely is the day that God doesn’t speak to me through his Word.
I have found, though, that few people read it regularly, including Christians. In a survey done in 2019 by the Barna Group, they report that only 5% of the population is Bible centered, meaning that they interact with the Bible frequently, it is transforming their lives and impacting their relationship with God and others. 48% of the population never interacts with the Bible at all. https://www.barna.com/research/state-of-the-bible-2019/.
I encourage everyone to regularly spend time reading and thinking about the Bible. There are still things that I don’t understand about it, but I’m learning more all the time. I believe that if you regularly spend time in it, you will grow in your relationship to God and you will hear him speak to you, too. Unlike when I started, It is more available today than ever before in countless print and digital versions and translations. If you don’t have a copy, you can download free apps to read it, like YouVersion, or even to listen through Bible.is.
The great British preacher from the 19th century, C.H. Spurgeon, said something like this, “If you find a Bible that is falling apart, it more than likely belongs to someone whose life isn’t.”
I’m so glad that I was challenged to start reading the Bible as a teenager, even though I started with all the wrong motives. I can truly say, along with my friend, Jeff, it is certainly one...God inspired, life changing book.
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