Christian Living

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My husband, John, is a pack rat.

I knew it before we married, but didn’t realize how bad he had it until we were cleaning out the basement several years later.

Sorting through a sagging cardboard box, I found a set of warped and coverless ping-pong paddles.

Trash pile material for sure.

“You can’t throw those away!” John said, lunging for the paddles as though I’d tossed the family crest. “I’ve had these since college, when I lived in the fraternity house.”

With no Greek letters on our front door or fooze ball tables in the living room, I was certain that John’s toga party days were long gone.

“Honey, you now live with one wife, not 75 brothers,” I gently reminded him. “Why on earth would we keep these paddles?”

“Because! We might get invited to a…um…bring-your-own-paddle ping pong party?”

Hey, why argue with THAT?

It’s been years since that conversation, and though we’ve yet to get an invite to that ping-pong party, those paddles are still here.

Just in case.

Though my husband’s penchant for keeping things makes me contemplate monstrous yard sales, it also brings to mind this from Proverbs 2:1:

“Store up my commands within you.” (NIV)

When it comes to scripture, maybe we should all be pack rats.

“All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy, 3:16-17)

Recently, I heard a joke about a woman who received a home visit from her pastor. Realizing that her Bible wasn’t in the room, she said to her son, “Go get that favorite book that I love to read.” The boy returned a few minutes later and handed his mother the…TV GUIDE.

I had to laugh, but must admit, there was a time when God’s Word didn’t show up much on my reading list either. As a result, my scriptural smarts were relegated to the category of Bible Cliff Notes. I knew the basics, the Big 10 and had some passages committed to memory, but I was hardly prepared for the tests and trials of life and Christian growth.

“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4, NIV)

With that kind of promise, we should be storing scripture the way squirrels prepare for winter.

Interestingly, back in 1456, the first book Johannas Gutenberg printed on his newly invented printing press was the Bible. This work has been published, sold and translated more than any book in history. Many leaders have praised it, such as Robert E. Lee, who called it a book that “in all my perplexities and distresses has never failed to give me light and strength.”

So, why do people toss The Bible aside by leaving it unopened on the coffee table? It’s certainly not because it’s a piece of boring fiction—it has 40 authors, nearly 3000 characters and, though written over a span of 1500 years, it speaks on hundreds of topics with amazing continuity. Its accuracy and reliability has been proven and verified through fulfilled prophecy and archaeology. The oldest fragment of the New Testament is dated A.D. 130, making it the most credible document in existence! And the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1948, puts a sock in the mouth of anyone claiming the Old Testament was a fairy tale. 1

The Bible is the real deal, given to teach, guide and comfort as “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (Psalms 119:105)

We need to be storing, stashing, using and re-using scripture the way my husband keeps, well, everything.

Speaking of the pack rat, he recently asked, “Hon, have you seen that little metal thingy? It’s shaped like an “S” and has five multi-colored wires coming out of it?”

Um…yeah, I’d seen that thingy. About three years ago, when I classified it as an unidentifiable object and swept it out the door.

“You tossed it? I need it!”

That’s the thing about John—he’ll not only store something; he’ll remember it and actually use it later.

Shouldn’t we handle scripture the same way? After all, the more we store, the better off we’ll be. What we study today might not be applicable to any situations at hand, but it could be in the future.

It’s good to know it.

Just in case.



1 Facts from www.relationalconcepts.org, “The Authenticity of the Bible” by Jerry Collins



©Donna G. Morton, January 2006

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