I would like to offer an apology long, long overdue.  I fear I have done some damage, and set back a cause I have long sought to further.

            The cause is Bible literacy – which, if I have a hobby horse that I go cantering upon, this is it.  Mel Hurley is always reminding the kids, “Read Your Bible.”  I have been playing a fugue upon that theme since before I went to undergraduate school.  I fear now, that my encouragements to engage God’s word have been, too often, self- indulgent.  In fact I believe that the way I have encouraged others to read, read, read God’s book has successfully discouraged some from doing so.

            God gave us a book – actually a collection of books, songs, and letters which develop a single theme of salvation and reconciliation.  It is a book filled with stories, engaging characters, wisdom, emotional resonance, reason, humor, action, analysis – truth.  But it is a book.  God gave us a book.

            Which is great for me, because I love books, and I love to read.  To paraphrase Texas Senator Phil Graham: “I have more books than I need, but not as many as I want.”  Of course Senator Graham was speaking about guns, not books.  Lots of folks feel that way about guns.  Some folks feel that way about cars, and DVDs, and video games, and Hummels, and designer handbags, and shoes, and tools, and guitars, and cats, and hand-tied dry flies, and neck-ties, and tie-died tee shirts, and any number of other things.  I feel that way about books.

            So I am fortunate that God gave us a book.  If God had given us a video game (especially one featuring a rocket-powered hedgehog) I’d certainly be less excited to learn more about Him.  But He didn’t give us a video game.  He gave us a book.

            Some people prefer video games to books.  Some people prefer almost everything to books.  To those people, I have taken the attitude: “well tough, God gave us a book, so put down the joystick and read something for once.”  I have had the attitude that a person who didn’t like to read had a real moral challenge to face: “God gave us a book - if you don’t like to read, how can you say you like God?”  This is a pretty narrow, exclusive thing to think, and although I’ve never said those exact words, I know I’ve communicated that view, nonetheless.

            Which is unfortunate, and unfair.

            Our brains are not all wired the same.  We learn in a variety of ways.  Some of us (perhaps many of us) have had the deep, joy-of-reading reservoir occluded, or sucked dry by public education.  Some of us never had a parent read to us, or teach us the value of reading.  I have never dealt with any of these challenges.  My parents were readers.  I have had great teachers from first grade through post graduate school.  My brain never feels so at home as when there are words on a page in front of it.  Some of you feel exactly as I do, because you have had similar experiences.  But, some of you do not.  That should not put you at a disadvantage.

            It should not, and it does not.

            You may not like to read books.  Alright.  But this book, God’s book, isn’t just any book.  It is unlike any other book.  In the first place, it is alive (Hebrews 4.12).  When you hold the Bible in your hands you hold a living thing – something alive with the very breath of God (II Timothy 3.16) – which is how you and I are alive (Ecclesiastes 12.7).  Furthermore, as Hebrews 4.12 points out, this book engages us more deeply, precisely, and thoroughly than anything else we encounter.  It “pierces as far as the division between soul and spirit….able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  And there is another thing that makes this book different.  It equips the reader to be a better reader.

            II Timothy 3.16 claims that this “God-breathed” word equips the believer for every good deed.  The more one reads the better one becomes at reading.  It is a self-equipping text.

            God has given us a book.  I know I have, at times, communicated that if you are one of those people who don’t like to read, you’ll just have to get over that.  This does a disservice to you, and to the Word.  So let me apologize if I have put any distance between you and God’s book.

            And let me say this: You may not like books, but you’ll like this book.  God’s book is different.  Don’t let your aversion to reading keep you from reading the Bible.  The Bible is unique, miraculous.  So pick one up.  Make sure it is a translation you understand.  Begin in Genesis, or one of the Gospels.  Make sure you read a psalm, and a few proverbs each day.  Then go from there.

            God gave us a book.  Open it up.  Trust yourself to read it, and trust it.  Listen to what God has to say – because this book is where He has said it.