Happy New Year! Whatever resolutions you have made for 2011, I hope you have a joyful and peaceful year ahead. But I wonder if I could encourage you to consider one more resolution...
2011 will be the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Most of us will have a copy of an English Bible at home, but it is easy to forget how unusual this would have been in earlier times. For centuries, the Bible had only been available in Latin, and so remained in effect ‘a closed book’. But, as the translators of the King James Bible wrote, “Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light, that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel.”
There are many more modern translations around today. Yet, as Andrew Motion, until recently Poet Laureate, has commented, “to read [the King James Bible] is to feel simultaneously at home, a citizen of the world, and a traveller through eternity.” Many phrases from it will be 400 years old this year:
salt of the earth
the powers that be
the straight and narrow
a time and a place for everything
all the days of my life
But I wonder when you last read it? Maybe it was only yesterday, but maybe it has become ‘a closed book’ to you again in recent times. Perhaps, therefore, I could encourage you to make a resolution to find again your copy of the King James Bible (or, if you prefer, a more modern version), and to open it, and to read it...
Yes, reading the Bible is often difficult - but perhaps not as difficult as you may fear. Yes, it is easy to think of it as irrelevant - and yet it has a surprisingly timeless message. Yes, it is difficult to find the time - but surely we could find just ten minutes each day? Perhaps start with your favourite Gospel or with the Psalms, or maybe even join in with the e100 challenge at church (ask in the Church Office, or check online, for further details).
For, as the KJB puts it, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” May it be so for you in 2011.
with best wishes,
Mark
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