Dad’s Old Bible–A Reading from Roger
From time to time, we like to share a reading from the My Coffee-Cup Meditations. Here’s one we think you will enjoy reading; it’s based on a text from Psalm 119 and you will find it in The “Thumbs-Up” Man (more info HERE)…
From God’s Word, the Bible
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.
Blessed are You, O LORD!
Teach me Your statutes.
With my lips I have declared
All the judgments of Your mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.
(Psalm 119:11-16)
It’s very old now, published in 1975. The pages are brown, and it has a musty smell. Some of the pages are loose. It is my Dad’s Bible, a King James Version.
I have many Bibles. I have the KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB, HCSB, NIV, the Amplified Bible, and the Living Bible. I have Study Bibles with all sorts of detailed notes and explanations. I have plain Bibles with nothing but the Bible books themselves and four or five maps in the back. I have expensive and inexpensive Bibles. I have large-print and regular-print Bibles. I have Bibles with black, burgundy, brown, and blue covers.
But no Bible is more precious to me than Dad’s Bible. As I open it I find the page where he wrote his name.
It is somewhat surprising to me that my Dad was not much of a Bible marker. I am. I underline and write notes in the margin. I seem to recall someone, after looking at all the underlinings in my Bible, asking: “If you underline the whole Bible, how is it different from one that is not underlined at all?”
My Dad did underline a little. One of the few verses, interestingly enough, comes from the tiny prophecy of Obadiah: “But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions” (v. 17).
I’m not sure why that verse was so special to Dad. My guess is that it made him look forward to that glorious day in which the people of God will possess all that God has promised to give them.
One of the underlined verses in the New Testament is John 6:29—“Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”
This verse points out the importance of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. While still a young man, my father came to faith in Christ. He loved and served the Lord Jesus. It is no surprise that one of his underlined verses is Philippians 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
Another verse he marked in Philippians is Paul’s warning to rejoice in Christ and put no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3).
One of the more heavily marked sections is in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15-17).
Dad died on August 4, 1985. His body lies alongside my mother’s in little Greenhill Cemetery, just outside Vanburensburg, Illinois. His soul is already with the Lord, and now his body waits for the sound of the trumpet, the voice of the archangel, and the shout of Jesus. That body will then spring from the grave, will be instantaneously changed into a body just like the resurrection body of Jesus (Phil. 3:21), will be re-joined to his soul, and he will soul and body be forever with the Lord.
How do I know these things to be true? They are all right there in Dad’s old Bible.
Though the cover is worn
And the pages are torn,
And though places bear traces of tears,
Yet more precious than gold
Is the Book, worn and old,
That can shatter and scatter my fears.
When I prayerfully look
In the precious old Book,
Many pleasures and treasures I see;
Many tokens of love
From the Father above,
Who is nearest and dearest to me.
This old Book is my guide,
This a friend by my side,
It will lighten and brighten my way;
And each promise I find
Soothes and gladdens my mind
As I read it and heed it today.
(Author unknown)