dual personalities

Yesterday we were enveloped in a thick fog that was straight out of an old horror film.

(The Wolf Man, 1941)

It brightened up a bit in the afternoon, but not much. There’s rain and more rain on the radar.

Meanwhile my women’s Bible Study starts up again this morning. We are reading the book of Matthew. Since I loaned my softcover NIV to daughter #1 so she would have a smaller tome to carry to her Sunday School class, I had to find something to use for my Bible Study. My ESV Reformation Study Bible is too big to carry around and my chronological Bible is not suitable. So I went searching in my house…I found the RSV Bible that was given to me in 4th grade, which is cheap and kind of falling apart. Check out the inscription:

They used my nickname and spelled it incorrectly! Also, my last name is misspelled! Good grief. I remember at the time, even in the 4th grade, being really chagrined.

I found my mother’s American Standard Version presented to her when she was, like me, 9 years old:

I am not surprised that she received hers in recognition of “excellent work”. I’m sure she took it all very seriously, unlike me, who along with my schoolmates were giggling pains in the neck. I think we actually made our 5th grade Sunday School teacher cry. Mrs. Brinkmeier. I cringe to think of my elementary school depravity.

I found multiple copies of the Book of Common Prayer and a few more Bibles, including this ancient one inscribed to an ancestor, Emmeline Cornwall:

Emmeline too was singled out for her “punctual attendance, good behaviour and attention to her studies at the Sunday School.”

Emmeline’s Bible also includes helpful marginal notes…

“The king’s scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language” (Esther 8:9, ESV).

…and a hand stitched bookmark:

We have not forgotten you, Emmeline.

I found my father’s Oxford University Press KJV, which his Mother had given him, hoping for the best.

Finally I unearthed the study Bible I had used in my small group back in the 1990s, borrowed from and, I confess, never returned to my old church. Maybe I will use it, although it may raise some PCA eyebrows .

Well, remember, a Bible is of no use unless you open it.

So open it already!

You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:14-17

*Psalm 119:105