In 1957, like every other child in Monmouthshire entering secondary school, I was presented with a Bible, a gift from the Monmouthshire Education Committee. On the fly-leaf was an encouragement to use the Bible throughout my life as a guide in all things.
Four years earlier, at her Coronation, our Queen was presented with a Bible as her source of wisdom for her reign.
Those were the days! Our decline as a nation has been accompanied by our neglect of the millions of Bibles that are still available on the bookshelves of the nation.
I have a copy of The American Patriot’s Bible, a gift from a friend when my wife and I returned back to the UK after our few years in the USA. This contains wonderful reminders of how the Bible was central to the lives of many presidents and other leaders, and referred to at significant times in the nation’s history. Throughout the Patriot’s Bible are quotations from various historic speeches and statements that relate to the passages of the Bible where they appear.
For example, opposite Genesis 1 is a record of the time when the first manned space-flight to circle the moon sent a message back to earth on Christmas Eve 1968. The three astronauts, Borman, Lovell and Anders, gave a live broadcast accompanied by pictures of the moon and earth from space. Before the flight a NASA official had said to Borman, “We figure more people will be listening to your voice than that of any man in history. So we want you to say something appropriate.”
Towards the end of their broadcast, William Anders said, “We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all people back on the earth, the Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send you. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…’”. Anders, followed by Lovell and Borman shared in the entire reading of Genesis 1:1-9, ending with “...And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was good”, before signing off with “A Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
How wonderful, and how wonderful are the things that God has done for us in the UK too, over many years. Let us remember them together at this time of crisis in our nation.
It reminds me of the time when Malachi needed to stir up the captives who had returned to Judah at the time of Nehemiah and Ezra. “Those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened to them and heard them, so a book of remembrance was written before Him” (Mal 3:16).
Author: Dr Clifford Denton
