With Love From Chapel - Lent Term - Week 5

Do you own a Bible? 

Somewhere in your house? Hidden in a drawer? 

Chances are that you do - probably a little red one that you got given when you were starting secondary school? Maybe you had forgotten all about it and it is sitting in a box in the garage, but maybe - just maybe - some of you have opened it on occasion. Because receiving it was almost like a Rite of Passage. 

Last Friday, our Year 7 students were fortunate enough to receive their little red Bibles from ‘Good News for Everyone’ (you might remember them as the ‘Gideon’s’). They listened attentively and asked some great questions: 

How many different versions of the Bible do you have?

What is your favourite Bible verse? 

Why do they all have different shapes and sizes? 

And most importantly: Which football clubs have you made Bibles for?

Most of the boys and girls decided to accept the gift of the Bible, and many have shown me since that they carry it in their blazer pocket - some have shared the advice the little red Bible has given them when they have felt sad or lonely, others haven’t opened it yet but keep it ‘just in case’. 

I am getting to the stage where I need to borrow someone else’s reading glasses to decipher the writing in my little red Bible. I have so many (bigger) copies of the Bible in different places, some with beautiful artwork, some covered in post-it notes and full of highlighter and tiny notes; some Greek, some Hebrew, some German, some English….some with maps and explanations, others with beautiful artwork. I have it as an app and even as a graphic novel Manga-style - and I read it all the time. 

And yet, sometimes I find myself losing sight of how exciting the Bible is, no matter what shape or size it comes in - full of thrilling edge-of-the-seat messages. Seeing the girls and boys in Year 7 with theirs has been such a great reminder what amazingly ‘good news’ the Bible is. It doesn’t take maps or art or explanations - God’s word speaks for itself. 

Little and red with tiny writing, it is thoroughly Good News - for absolutely Everyone.

With Love From The Chapel