Is Our Bible Worn Out?

The story is told of a Bible teacher who held up his well-worn Bible and told his students, "Every Christian should wear out a copy of the Bible every 10 years." His challenge reminds me of the saying:

"A Bible that's falling apart is usually owned by someone who isn't!" This is certainly true in this Bible student's case. I'm not proud of the years when my Bible was considerably under-used. During that time, I found my life falling apart instead of my Bible!

Thankfully, God used my condition as a means of whetting my appetite for His word (Psalm 119:67,71).

When I consistently studied and made application of God's word (2 Timothy 2:15; Hebrews 5:14), I realized that the truths that were being presented to me from the sacred scriptures really did work in my everyday life. For me, the Bible was no longer just a guilt producer and a dust collector, but a valuable unending resource of practical spiritual principles that I could apply to my everyday living.

As I read my Bible, digesting it, underlining key phrases and entering cross references; little by little, day by day, month by month and year by year, the pages in my Bible began falling apart instead of me!

Beloved, as we study God's word, there's a practical way to increase our faith. When we put into practice passages from God's word and see that they actually do work in our everyday living, we can write the letters "T" and "P" in the margins next to those passages. The letters mean "Tested" and "Proved" (cf. Romans 12:2; Colossians 1:9-10; Colossians 3:10).

Is our Bible worn out? After almost 35 years of constant use, mine is.

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets