Giving Your Bible Away

In the comments a few days ago, Dan Edelen of Cerulean Sanctum fame shared this story:

I won a sales contest in Bibles one year and the top Bible awarded was an NIV Study Bible in top grain. But because I had gone so far over the limit on sales, I asked Zondervan if they'd send me the Moroccan leather--and they did! So I owned that Bible myself.

But in one of "those" kinds of stories, I encountered a man who was searching for Christ. We worked together and I was leaving to work elsewhere. On my last day, he asked me, "Where can I find a Bible that can help me understand what I'm reading?" I thought about it and gave him that goatskin NIV Bible. I knew he had no idea how much it cost, but I pray it proved infinitely more valuable to him than what I might have received from it.

This story strikes a chord with me. The first "nice" Bible I ever had was a Cambridge KJV wide-margin in Berkshire leather with a thick red ribbon. No one in town seemed to stock Cambridge Bibles back then, so I'd ordered it sight unseen from the catalog, then waited for what seemed like months for the bookstore to call (since one couldn't order direct back then). It arrived in a magnificent slipcase and filled the room with the scent of leather.

I never rarely used it because I was in such awe of the thing. Once I got the Cambridge bug, I started ordering everything in the catalog -- often without much thought, so I was frequently surprised by what arrived -- until I soon had a superfluity of Bibles. One day I saw the ragged little bonded leather jobbie a friend in ministry was using, and I realized there was no point in my keeping a horde of unused Bibles. I gave him the Cambridge wide-margin.

Some people who visit this site are doing research for one big purchase, the Bible they'll commit to for the coming years. But a lot of us are also "collectors" on the hunt for the ideal format, and we tend to accumulate near misses. I guarantee you that, as Dan's story and mine suggest, God will put opportunities in your path to part with them, and you'll be happy you did.

In spite of what all these essays about design and binding might suggest, the Bible is not first and foremost a design object. When I think about all the Bibles I have on shelves, in boxes, tucked away into various nooks and crannies, I sometimes feel a little guilty. I could probably open a bookstore starting today with what I have on hand, and nobody for miles could compete. Wouldn't these things be better off in the hands of readers instead of languishing in a collection? Absolutely. And the same thing is true of your horde, too, if you've got one.

I'm not suggesting that you get rid of them all, but I do think it's worthwhile to look for opportunities. There are people who would benefit from the gift -- not the least of which is you.

Comments

[Mark]

The church I serve as pastor hosts a weekday clinic for the homeless population of our community. There are regular opportunities to give away accumulated bibles, either copies from the church's library (which seems to attract Bibles constantly) or from the bounty of my own Bible buying.

What surprises me, when I'm giving away these Bibles, is how often people ask for a "real" Bible which means, for them, the KJV or its descendants: the RSV and now ESV.

[J. Mark Bertrand]

That surprises me, too, Mark. I would have expected just the opposite -- that they'd prefer the more readable translations to the traditional ones. What do you know . . .

[DLE]

Mark,

Thanks for expanding my story.

Now for another.

I used to give searching people a copy of Mere Christianity. Like all my books, my own personal copy had my name stamped on the bottom edge. One day, I noticed that I'd given away my personal copy instead of one of the unstamped ones.

About fifteen years later, I was visiting a church in another state. With some time to kill, I walked through their library. They had a battered paperback copy of Mere Christianity on the shelf, but someone had shelved it upside-down. When I picked it up to reorient it, what did I see on the bottom edge? Yep, my name.

How that copy had wound up in a church library in another state hundreds of miles away was beyond me. I always wondered how many hands it had passed through to get there. Almost all the people I had given copies to were still living in the area around me, so who (but God) knows?

I just pray it got some good use over those fifteen years.

[chad]

I too worked at a Christian Bookstore and reaped the bounty of Zondervans points program. I must have gotten over 1000 dollars in books and bibles out of the deal. Most of mine ended up in the hands of friends and family. The one that I caught myself giving away alot was "The Quest" study bible in NIV. It was a bible that my friends would flip through and really dig the format. I just wish I could get in on a crossway incentive program.

Yeah, I have heard the "real" bible comment before. It was usually dealing with just a KGV, and they wanted "Holy Bible" stamped on the front or it wasn't real. The sad section of this story was the amount of people coming in that would ask a question like "Do you have the Bible the Apostle Paul read?" I usually knew that meant a black KGV with Holy Bible on the front.

[Tcblack]

I have for a number of years been giving my "extra" bibles to a ministry out of Butler Illinois called "love packages" (lovepackages.org). I know the director, Steve Schmidt, personally and he's an incredible man of God.
Send all materials and mail to:
Love Packages
220 Union St
Butler, IL 62015

[Schmaral]

How about someone searching for organizations that one can donate extra Bibles to, and listing them here? Good a place as any.