Saints and Sinners: What is your favorite Bible verse?
I’m guessing that since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the number of people who had gone to their bookshelves to take down their dusty Bibles has increased dramatically. And I’m guessing that the number increased again after the war with Iraq broke out.
It is customary for us to reach for the Bible and to fall down on our knees in prayer in times of stress and trouble. The passages in the Bible we turn to in such moments, and the prayers we say, are familiar ones.
I was visiting an old friend in the hospital a few months ago. I opened the Bible I had brought with me to Psalm 91 and read the ancient words. You, too, probably know them by heart: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. …”
“I was hoping you would read that,” he said and his eyes began to water.
Since then I have been asking people what their favorite Bible passages are. Psalm 90 (“Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. …”) and Psalm 91 have been mentioned several times. One man chose Hebrews 12:2: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross …”
Someone suggested I poll the readers of this column for their favorite Bible passages. So that is what I am going to do. At the end of today’s column you will find a post office box number where you can mail your selection. The results will be announced in a few weeks.
Of course, people read the Bible for all sorts of reasons (some better than others). A man I knew who worked at the Harvard Club in Boston claimed he was an atheist and from all I could gather, he was. He was well-read in most of the philosophers and he was also well-read in the Bible.
He used to be a doorman at a hotel in New York and he always carried a Bible with him. People would often see him with a pencil in his hand underlining passages in the Bible.
“They thought I was awfully religious,” he once said to me. “But do you know what I was doing? I was underlining all the contradictions I found in the Bible.”
A lot of us approach the Bible in a similar way. Our mouths are so full of questions about it that every time we open the Bible one spills out: Is the Bible true? Do you believe in miracles? What about the virgin birth? Is the Sermon on the Mount (“Love your enemies,” etc.) really practical?
Then there was the private in World War II that Howard Whitman wrote about in his book, “A Reporter in Search of God” (Doubleday, 1953). This soldier used to climb a hill near his camp and go up there so he could be alone with God. He carried a Bible with him but he never opened it. “I just wanted to show God I was on his side,” the soldier said.
Well, no one would want to despise that. There is a certain assurance a person gets from having a Bible with him in his pocket — just there. It’s a little like having someone you care for in the same room with you even though neither of you is saying a word.
There are many who find in the Bible a veritable treasure trove of help and inspiration. What are the beloved passages these people keep going back to again and again? Sometimes there is a story that goes with their favorite Bible passage. I like this story:
A missionary was translating the Bible for a native tribe in the South Pacific. But when he came to John 3:16 he was stumped. There was no word in the native dialect for the word “believe.”
Then one day as he was taking a walk he saw a large man stretched out on a hammock, a picture of peace and contentment. In that instant he had the word he was searching for. The hammock was the key to the locked door. He went back to his hut and translated John 3:16 in these words:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son that whoever (rests all his weight on him – i.e.: ‘believe’) shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
What is your favorite Bible passage? Send it and any story that may go with it to Favorite Bible Verses, Box 06580, Columbus, Ohio 43206.
(George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.)