THE BOOK ALMOST NOBODY READS

Yet no other book tells us so much about ourselves- about who we are
And where we are going

Have you read the latest Harry Potter book? Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol?
What kind of book do you like to read? Is it a romantic novel? Comedy? Or just a simple and boring book?

Like the plays of Shakespeare, the dialogues of Plato, and a forum about the current political issues, the Bible is a sore spot on many people. You are bothered with your conscience because you feel you ought to have read it. There are, of course, all sorts of reasons why you haven’t. For one thing, there is this very sleepy format that on one glance you say, “Can I have this book and tear the pages? Because it’s very dull.” The binding is likely to be extremely dreadful. Then, there are these passages that even Moses must have nodded over. There are also those unfamiliar names of different kinds which are more difficult to pronounce than tongue-twisters.

And there are other reasons. One of them is that the Bible not only looks awfully dull, but some of it is. Some of the oldest Bibles are most likely to be made with very old and unstylish hands. Just tear one page of it and you will have many reasons to say to your mother to have it discarded. There is so little laughter in the Bible. You can never read a single word expressing happiness except for happy, tears of joy, hope fulfilled.

In short, one way to describe the Bible would be to say that it is a disorderly collection of 60-odd books which are often tedious, obscure, barbaric and teeming with contradictions and inconsistencies. It is like a mountain of compost of rotten apples and vegetables, dog left-over, vomited and spoiled foods.

And yet…..

And yet just because it is a book about the sublime and unspeakable, it is a book about life, about how all these things started. It is about people who at once believed and doubted, accused and blamed, hoped and failed. In other words, it is book about us. And it is also a book about God. But the story we find in the Bible is not God’s story but it is ours, our very own story. It is only God’s interactions with us.

But we find something in it also. Behind those dull pages, we discover many things and find the answer to your questions. Reading the Bible is like looking out the window and seeing all the people on the street gazing up into the sky toward something which is hidden from us by the roof. They are pointing up. They are speaking strange words. They are very excited. Something’s happening that we can’t see. Something beyond our comprehension has caught them all up. To read the words in the Bible is to try to read the expressions on their faces. To listen to the words of the Bible is to try to catch the queer sounds they are making. Therefore, the Bible is a dictionary, a book for the unspeakable, slaves and harassed.

There are people who read the Bible only for the sake of others or because their friends or relatives told them to do so. There are also people who say you should read the Bible as literature because of stories it tells and the history it contains. Some people might only se the Bible as unreadable but this is the Word of God which speaks out the depths of an almost unimaginable past into the deepest place of our own hearts.