For the Peanut Gallery
I'm tossing this out to see what kinds of responses might come back: What is the Bible to you? Do you have one, and if not, why not? If you have one, how often do you read it? How much a part of your life is this book?
I might use some responses or pieces of comments in future posts, so replying needs to be with that "permission" in mind. No "wrong" answers. Just go easy on me, alright? Thanks ahead of time.
posted by Rick @ 10:32 AM
8 Comments:
For me the bible is my guideline for life. We have several and i don't read it nearly as much as i should. :-( Working on that and my personal life with Christ. I know i am not where i need to be or want to be. Working on it though....
It is.....it has been the most amazing thing for me to read the bible...I had no idea when I began as a prerequisite for small group leadership...how my life, my family's life would change, how we would all fall so deeply in love with this God of the bible, with his son Jesus...I truly had no idea. I read it along with a church in Hawaii http://www.enewhope.org/bible/ and journal what I read.
the bible. it's something i defenitely do not incorporate enough into the day-to-day, although it's always there, in the background. i read it at LEAST weekly, but that's certainly pathetic, isn't it? when we were leading bible study, it was a LOT more often...
it's actually something i'm hoping to get more on top of, now that i'm going to be moving around and living a more normal existence (and not bed/drug-bound). =)
I met Jesus through a Bible study and for the first 3 years of my Christian life I did the through-the-Bible-in-a-year thing. Since then I focus more on a single book at a time.
I find it a source of energy. I read some times more than others but it has become kind of the background: I'm not always conscious of it being there but so many times I'll find my thoughts phrased in Bible verses. I guess I've "hidden them in my heart" though I've never really focused on memorizing it.
It is a part of me--integrated into my thinking as much as the memories of my childhood. I'll never be the same again and I'll never be without it.
good stuff, y'all. thanks - and don't stop :)
The intent of my heart is to have the Word as a filter for every thought and deed. Some days are easier than others, but God knows my heart. Man looks on the out side, God looks on the heart. I'm so glad to have His insructions. Always there for me when I CHOOSE to use them.
I own many bibles. I was given my own bible at 9 years of age. My born again grandma wanted me to have a way to grow closer to Christ after I professed to her my need for him.
I was unchurched by my mom.
I was given another in my early 20's. I continue to be gifted with Bibles. I have about 10. 5-6 different translations. I read them with and without a concordance.
My current favorite is a Creation Study Bible. My all time favorite is the Hebrew version.
It's a love story. It's a road map through this journey of life. It is a tool. It's an instructonal manual for my salvation.
Lately, I hardly read it enough. Someday it's several times a day.
Sometimes it's a few times a week...sadly at times nothing at all.
It's a huge part of my life because I see it as TRUTH.
We have thirty bibles, at least.
I don't read them much any more devotionally (though I did daily for twenty years). I study them for grad school and I'm learning NT Greek in the fall. Should be fun to look at the original language.
I find the history of the Bible's development fascinating - the murky ways that is has been edited and compiled, interpreted and applied... All the mess of councils and politics and choices about what represents God and what doesn't.
I find it hard to believe that I ever treated the Bible as a seamless whole that revealed the complete and singular will of God to all of mankind.
My current relationship to the Bible is one of curiosity--that a book of so many scattered fragments can be considered an absolute guideline for life in the 21st century, in any century.
Yet because I honored it as God's inerrant word to me for over 20 years, I still return to the Bible as a source of potent images, some of my values and a counterpoint for how I navigate my life today and what I believe about the cosmos in general.
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