Discount Bibles

Have you ever looked at Bible catalogues? They are an interesting read. Or go to the nearest Christian book store and look in the Bible section. There are some wonderful Bibles. My favorite are the Life Application Bibles, where biblical scholars offer commentary and explanations matching the text through every chapter of every book. They brilliant and really help me understand the Bible. The Message is also a great translation. Another favorite is the Life Application Recovery Bible. To be sure, there are some great Bibles out there. However, I'm puzzled by the Bibles at the other end of the spectrum.

Most Christian book catalogues or book stores offer a selection of "award Bibles." A catalogue I was looking at today called them "discount Bibles." You've seen them. They look like the cheap King James version found in most hotel rooms. Only a puritan from the 1800's would find these Bibles the least bit interesting. Only a baby Christian in a third world country would appreciate these Bibles today. Does anyone really think it would be valued to offer one of these cheapo Bibles as an award? Really, it's appalling. Does anything think that there will be life transformation in someone who receives one of these Bibles?

Somehow churches keep buying these Bibles, usually in bulk. They and them out in Sunday schools, stock them in the backs of pews in the worship center and even offer them to high school graduates every May. To be sure there are a lot of them and they do get around. I wonder though how much they actually get read. I bet little, if at all.

If I wanted to make a gift of a Bible to someone; if I cared about someone enough to go to the effort of purchasing a Bible for them, I think it would be worth paying extra for. I mean I would love that person so much that I'd want their life to be transformed by that Bible. I'd want it to be the most special, engaging and inviting Bible I could find. I'd want to make sure it were a Bible to be cherished, a Bible to be worn out from over use. In other words, I would want to give as a gift the most relevant Bible I could find. How could anyone put a price on that?

I don't really know what God's perspective is on these run-of-the-mill discount Bibles. I know if I were God I'd be a little disgusted that Christians were so cheap as to give them. But of course I'm not God. So I guess I'll just keep purchasing Bibles that are my favorites as gifts, and hope that I get to the individual before someone else turns them off with one of these cheap Bibles. I actually gave someone a Bible that they cherished --- and they confessed that they had three of the cheap Bibles and were using them to replace a broken leg on the couch!

If I could persuade Christians in general and churches specifically, to stop purchasing these Bibles, then maybe we could eliminate them from the market altogether! Wouldn't that be great! We'd have a world of only Bibles that were relevant, engaging and inviting. They'd be the Bibles that everyone would want to read. They'd be the Bibles to fight over.

So how about it, fellow Christians --- do you want a world filled with only Bibles that people want to read?