The Value of a Well-Marked Bible

I flopped into my favorite chair and grabbed a blanket as I settled in. Lifting my Bible from the small table nearby, I held it, pages towards me, thumbs ready to open it up. I paused, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath as I prayed. “Lord, You know I need to be encouraged. I need Your help!”

I spent the next half-hour curled up with my Bible, refusing to let my mind wander or my eyes simply skim the pages. The passages were familiar, read many times over the years. They had become almost like old friends.

At first, I just drank in the words, making myself stop and reread any that pertained to my specific struggle that day, but after a while, I began to notice here and there the underlining, highlighting, and notes I had made in earlier days.

I found myself paying special attention to the verses I had marked, remembering the joy with which those truths had nestled into my heart. Several had been my source of consolation during a similar day of discouragement, and I clung to them now just as I had then.

By the time I closed my Bible that day and laid it back on the table, peace had returned to my heart, and there was a new verse marked—a reminder to my future self for the next time discouragement sets in.

As I marveled at just how much better I felt, having spent that time in God’s Word, I also realized the impact of those markings I had made in my Bible.

Sometimes, when we are in the throes of deep emotion, it is difficult to get even the most basic, most familiar truths past our heads and back into our hearts where they belong.

That’s where I was that day. I had a faithful friend sending me encouraging, true things, but it wasn’t until that same friend told me to sit down with my Bible and just spend time with God that things changed. I knew the truths were true, but I just couldn’t get my emotions in line with my intellect.

The Holy Spirit does work through the words of a godly friend, but He works even more powerfully through His own Word. Yet, we must respond to His truth in faith, and when discouragement has set in, faith seems hard to muster.

That’s why the markings in my Bible helped me so much. I was able to borrow, as it were, from the faith of that girl who had tried God’s promises years ago, and found Him faithful.

Seeing those verses felt like finding something I had left on the trail. Instead of being lost in my emotions, just wandering in any direction I think is right, here was a reminder of where I had been—and how to get back. A slow assurance began to calm my heart and I knew I was heading in the right direction out of the wilderness.

Those markings were a reminder that I had been here before, in this exact place of discouragement, and had come through ok. The lines and scribbled words in the margins held the promise that even though I felt unsure and unsteady, I would come through, I would be able to rejoice in the faithfulness of God again, no matter how I felt at the time.

God’s Word did the encouraging, the healing, the renewing of heart and mind, but those verses I had marked made me stop and take notice. It is said of David in 1 Samuel 30:6 that he “encouraged himself in the Lord.” I knew that day that I needed to do just that, but I just couldn’t get past the wall of emotion. Seeing those markings in my Bible, remembering the lessons learned and battles won was a literal, if delayed, way of encouraging myself in the Lord.

Passing it On

Perhaps one of the most precious gifts a Christian can leave the next generation is a well-marked Bible. A Bible not just full of study notes and facts, but a Bible full of memorials, verses clung to during a crisis, verses wept over in a season of waiting, verses rejoiced in as God showed Himself mighty on our behalf—these are the things that will point the way for the next generation, to help them see that you too travelled this way before, and that if they keep on drawing near to the Lord, He will indeed draw near to them. (James 4:8)

I have several friends who have inherited a Bible from a loved one. In talking with them, I noticed several things they all mentioned:

Counsel and Encouragement

When a godly loved one graduates to heaven, there is joy in the reality that he or she is in the presence of the Lord, but the sense of loss still stings, aches, and sometimes swells over us in waves as we grieve. If the loved one is someone we were used to going to for counsel, that sense of loss deepens whenever we face some kind of dilemma or struggle.

One reason a well-marked Bible inherited from a godly loved one is such a treasure is that it gives us a sense of connection, a way to still receive that input from the loved one as we flip through the pages and see the truths that they clung to during their dilemmas and struggles.  

It serves as a way to use that sense of loss to drive us to the Word of God, as one last opportunity for that loved one to point us to the Lord, to remind us to find our peace and comfort in Him.

Spiritual Legacy

A well-marked Bible also serves as a reminder of the loved one’s spiritual legacy, it is a record of what they believed, what they learned about God through His Word, and when paired with memories of a life lived in obedience and faith, can be a powerful source of encouragement and hope to the next generation, and generations beyond as well.

Years ago, I inherited several books from my grandmother. One was a beautiful old copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, which I had been reading in odd moments as we cleared out my grandmother’s house in preparation for her move to a care facility.

There were several antique books, but I still remember the wonder I felt as I opened one and found it was a Bible with notes penciled all over its endpapers.

It had belonged to a distant relative, long gone by then, but it encouraged me to know that someone in my family tree had been such a studious Christian, and had such a dedication to the Lord as the pages showed. It also gave me a glimpse into the spiritual life of a relative I will never meet this side of heaven, and it cast a vision for how I could impact future generations with my own well-marked Bible.

In our digital age, despite the convenience and practicality of Bible apps with their digital notes and highlighting, there is still something to be said for a physical copy of God’s Word, worn from use, but holding within its pages the story of the owner’s personal walk with Christ.

So, dear Reader, as we embark upon a new year, pick up a good study Bible, or a notetaking Bible with wide margins, and see how even one year’s record of God speaking to you through His Word can encourage and strengthen you in the years to come—and perhaps future generations as well!

“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105