A New Bible

My Mother recently gave me a Bible.  While I have several Bibles, this one is unlike any of the ones I have.  What makes it different is not the NIV translation.  It is not the hardback cover.  Neither is it the fact that it is a study Bible with notes written on various pages.  What makes it different is that it draws on the content of the Sunday School lessons former President Jimmy Carter has taught in his hometown Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia.  It is actually entitled, "Lessons from Life Bible" and subtitled, "Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter."  But, the thing which really makes it different is that it bears a personal autograph of our former President.

 

What do you do with a Bible autographed by a President of the United States?  I tend to abuse the printed pages of Bibles with personal notes, underlinings, arrows, and all sorts of strange markings.  My Bibles bear coffee stains, round marks from cups, and torn pages that are often re-united with scotch tape.  Does this one get treated differently?  Do I finally have what some folks call a "coffee table book," one that is just seen and admired, but never read?  Maybe it should be put up somewhere not to be read, but just to be shown to others.  Maybe it should become a keepsake and not a real Bible.

 

I have a hunch that President Carter would prefer that this Bible be used rather than admired.  Who knows? Maybe his signature gives it some value that it would not have had otherwise, but it may also be true that whoever gets the Bible after me might be just as interested in the way the written Words within the covers gave shape to my spiritual journey.  Perhaps, a President's personal signature and my personal markings and notes together might make it even more valuable to someone like a child or grandchild who might be reading it after I am gone.  Who knows?  All I know for sure is that a Bible contains the inspired Word of God and directs those who read toward God and a life of faith.  Nothing else added by me or a President can make it more valuable than it already is as God's Word.