Reepham Benefice

The Bible is perhaps the greatest book in the world. Most of us have one. We may even have more than one on our book shelves, given to us at special times in our lives. Perhaps we might have a family bible, given down through the generations, inscribed with the names of our ancestors who have long since been promoted to Glory. We might even have one we have bought for ourselves. You know, the sad reality is, while this is still the world’s best selling book, it is in our western world, perhaps the least read book.

We all have one; even those of us who are followers of the faith of which it speaks rarely pick it up and read it. And I can understand that. Some years ago I decided that I would read the bible from cover to cover. I had never done it before and so did a quick calculation and realised if I read three chapters per day, give or take the odd chapter, by the end of the year I would have read the whole thing through from cover to cover. So I started on the 1st January by reading Genesis: In the beginning. Genesis was good - it was interesting, I enjoyed it.

I started to look forward to reading my 3 chapters an evening and enjoyed everything I read. I then moved on to Exodus, which was equally enjoyable, those wonderful stories about Moses taking his people out of Egypt into the promised land. Then, eventually, I got to the book of Numbers. If you’ve ever read the Book of Numbers, it’s a bit like pulling teeth. It’s not the easiest book in the world to read. And when I read it, I became so disinterested in what I was reading that it really took a lot of strength, courage and conviction to carry on and read the rest of the bible...