My Father’s Bibles
(Written as an introduction to the poem which follows which was first read at a Gospel Way concert on April 6, 1999.)

My father literally wore Bibles out. His Bibles were used so much and so often that it wasn’t long before the bindings got loose, pages began to get ragged around the edges, and pages even began to fall out. He would underline passages, write in the margins and on both fly leaves (front and back).
I don’t know how many Bible Dad wore out in his lifetime of almost seventy-five years, but I know it was certainly more than two or three.
Sometime in the late 1950's he bought his last Bible, the version that he had talked for several years of obtaining. It was a King James Version (he would never even think of using any other version) with Schofield References, bound in real leather. Over the years that he used that Bible, it, too, became worn, the bindings loosened and the pages became dog-eared. He used it right up until almost the last minute before he passed into eternity.
He had been to church that Sunday morning, January 30, 1977, just twenty-three days before what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. He was on his way home, riding in the right front seat of my Aunt Bertie’s car, with his bible in his hand, when he took a massive stroke and died instantly. His Bible slipped from his lifeless fingers onto the floor of the car.
When choosing a text for his funeral , Rev. A. J. Burton asked if he could look through Dad’s Bible to find a favourite verse or verses. He took the Bible home with him, set it on its spine on his desk and let it fall open. It opened on the 90th Psalm.
I am privileged to have fallen heir to that Bible, with its loose bindings, dog-eared pages, marginal and fly leaf notes, and it’s underlined verses. In fact, I brought it with me tonight. I have used it off and on over the twenty-two years since Dad passed on, but I have Lately retired it from active service and placed it on the Bible shelf of my small office as a reminder of my Dad’s devotion to the Word of the Lord.
Now let me tell you a story in verse:

THE MAN WITH THE BATTERED BIBLE

The Bible he carried was well-worn, yes, aged,

With highlights and notations on about every page.

The cover was shabby, the pages dog-eared,

And some, perhaps many, were stained by his tears,

Tears that he shed for the souls of the lost,

Out on life’s wild seas, by the world’s tempest,

Or for some poor lost soul he had met on the street,

Who was begging for handouts, with nothing to eat,

Or for the widow next door, whose family didn’t care

Whether she lived or died. They just left her there.

He cried for the family with six children just down the street

Who could hardly afford shoes to cover their feet,

And he’d spent his last dollar at the grocery store

To give them a meal, and wished he’d has more.

Oft times, in the evening, he’d kneel down by his chair

And just talk with the Lord in intimate prayer;

He’d tell Him the burdens he had for the lost

And thank Him for Jesus, Who died on the cross.

He’d pray for the hungry and the sick and the poor

As he knelt by his chair on the sitting-room floor.

When he’d finish his talk and get up off his knees,

He’d take that battered old Bible down, and he’d read

About Jesus and His parables and the sick that He healed,

Or the wondrous insights to old John He revealed,

About David the shepherd boy who was born to be king,

Then he’d lift his eyes heavenward and prayerfully sing:

What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! 

What a privilege carry Every thing to God in prayer!

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; 

Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure.

And each night, when at last he lay to rest on his bed,

He’d place that old Bible right next to his head.

It’s precepts he’d hidden long ago in his heart,

And he vowed he would never from those precepts depart

While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyes shall close in death,

When I rise to worlds unknown, and behold Thee on Thy Throne,

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.

a. franklin staples

1994

Copyright © 1994 by A. Franklin Staples