“A knowledge of the Bible without a college education is worth more than a college education without a knowledge of the Bible.” Dr. William Lyon Phelps, professor at Yale from 1892-1933
“This Christmas Glenda and I gave to our son, Jackson, his first, full length Bible and he said to me, ‘Why do I need to take my Bible to church? You print all of the verses in the bulletin and Mom makes me read them with her.’ I was raised in a church requiring me to tote my Bible every Sunday and so I learned how to navigate my way through it. (Sword drills in Sunday School helped as well.) I told Jackson that he should start bringing his new Bible to worship on Sundays to use it as I was not going to print my entire sermon texts in the bulletin. He seemed excited to have this opportunity. When I was a kid, after worship, my four siblings and I would dump our Bibles into my Mom’s arms so that we could play. Undoubtedly this was a frustration for her. And so, we have the opportunity to teach our children a little responsibility to cart their Bibles to and from worship. One more childhood memory: My older sister and I had red-letter Bibles, the words of Jesus printed in red. While my Dad was preaching we would look for the two consecutive pages in Matthew’s Gospel that were completely red print! When we were teens my sister and I shared a memorable discussion: Are the words of Jesus any more the word of God then the other words in the Bible? Why were Jesus’ words in red? One of our cynical answers = the publisher can charge a little bit more for color print.” (Actually, the inventor, Louis Klopsch had a different reason.) Pastor Nathan Lewis
In this New Year, Pastor Keith Thomas, is encouraging us to devote time to family worship in our homes. He will be making fine materials available to us at a reduced cost. Of course, the primary and best of materials is the Bible. Reading to our children and hearing them read to us the very words of God is worth our time and effort.
