178 thoughts on “Highlighters”

  3. Aww missed it 🙁

    I always felt like I wasn’t a good christian because I didn’t mark my bible, but I couldn’t bring myself to mess it up. I like ebibles for that purpose, you can put little notes there and still have a nice clean page.

    1. I always ended up with lined margin versions for that very reason. The lines were way too short and close together, but at least I could keep from having to scribble awkwardly around the text!

    2. I got thrown out on the side of the road on a trip once when I told the fundies I was riding with that I read my bible on eSword that morning. No joke. 👿

    3. Above, I misread “ebibles” as “edibles.”
      That’s an interesing concept. Is there anyone selling edible Bibles now?

      They would be especially good for that Fundy (I don’t remember which one at the moment) whose Web site boasts that he is good at “digesting large amounts of information.”

  4. “A bible that’s incessantly overwritten by highlighter marks is usually owned by someone with obsessive tendencies.”

    2. Oooo, no, I’d say the opposite is true. As someone who really IS obsessive, I could never bring myself to draw, write or highlight in my Bibles. It stressed me out when people did. I can’t even put my Bible under other books or anything else: has to be right on top, no matter what. It’s a weird carry-over from fundy days.

      1. I still cannot stand to have a Bible face down; I’ve never heard it preached against… it just bothers me to see a Bible face down.

        Like you, I also had problems with putting things on top of the Bible; that has kind of given way to practical issues; too easy to drop stuff if the Bible is on top.

  5. I’ve never liked to write in any books that I own. Especially not Bibles because if I wrote small enough to fit in the margins then I pretty much guaranteed I wouldn’t be able to read it the next time I came to that page.

    That being said, an occasional circled word or highlighted passage is helpful to call attention to certain things. But when you highlight and circle EVERYTHING and cram notes in every available space then it just makes your Bible a giant, illegible mess.

      1. My handwriting is so bad that wide margins don’t make a difference. I routinely have trouble reading what I wrote on otherwise blank paper. So writing in my Bible would be a waste no matter what kind of Bible I have.

      2. i have an ESV journaling bible and an NRSV notetakers bible (sadly no longer in print). both have 2-3″ margins. the ESV in particular is very high quality, and has a rubber band place holder. in fact, it looks just like a giant moleskine.

  6. There is one thing every serious student of the Bible, and its not a highlighter. It’s a Greek and Hebrew concordance. I used to be KJO too. The first thing that changed my mind was in Ecclesiastes. The KJV says that God put the wod in our heart. If you look that up in the Hebrew it actually should be translated eternity not world. There area by translational errors in the KJV, but I still believe in the inerrancy of the scripture. I now use several translations in study, but mostly use only the NASB in the pulpit. Only others ill use in the pulpit are the KJV, NKJV, ESV

    1. I put my KJV away after discovering that the phrase “making a difference” I had heard so many sermons about in Jude (“compassion makes a difference in the world, folks!”) actually meant closer to “making a distinction” or “drawing a line.” I was shocked that so many pastors I’d grown up with never cracked open a greek lexicon for this verse.

      1. To hear another point of view, I was amazed at how closely the KJV followed the Koine Greek structure and word order (if it did not actually violate English rules).

        1. I was nauseous when I learned that “peculiar” doesn’t mean “strange” or “odd” but a treasured possession. I heard dozens of pastors teach that it was God’s will for us to look weird (long skirts, cullottes etc). 👿

    2. It’s important to realize any word has a range of meanings (semantic range). At least in the New Testament, the words translated “world” and “eternity” are often the same. The central idea is that ALL OF time and/or ALL OF space is being referenced.

      Some hard complementarians who are sticklers for Greek suddenly forget this when it comes to “submission.” One of the more Greek common words for that isn’t exactly clear: it could mean anything from cooperate to “give heed” to military-style obedience. Given ancient culture, it’s unlikely that “cooperate” was intended but the word wasn’t generally used to refer strict authoritarian submission (although it could).

      1. I can’t tell you how many Bible studies I’ve seen ruined with a lexicon. It seems like sometimes people choose all the meanings (illegitimate totality transfer), or just pick the meaning they like (equivocation).

  7. In the Episcopal Church, Scripture is not read a verse here or a verse there, with a verse somewhere else.

    We read large sections of Scripture. We recite whole Psalms. We include the context.

    When I started going to the Episcopal church to visit, I was astonished by how much Scripture was read, and by how much more was included in the prayers, in the liturgy. Much more Scripture than I had heard in my IFB church over several weeks was in one Sunday service!

    I find the difference in attitude toward Scripture startling. IFBers talk a lot about how much they revere Scripture, but they use it so sparsely. Episcopalians don’t talk that way nearly so much, and are even willing to ask uncomfortable questions — but they read it generously and with respect.

    You would never see an Episcopalian rector slam his fist on the pulpit or the Bible. After all, the Word of the Lord is to be listened to with an attentive and a open heart.

    1. That’s because in order to be able to get the bible to ‘support’ an IFB’s theology, they have to spend so much time on explanations that there is very little time to read scripture. And then you have to be very careful to only include snippets and pull them out of context just so, or else people will actually hear biblical truth and leave the church.

      1. ” And then you have to be very careful to only include snippets and pull them out of context just so…”

        …and connect those snippets to other random snippets elsewhere, and add the verse numbers together to show how they REALLY mean this other thing…

        I wonder why it’s never considered a red flag that Fundies think the Bible is so wildly complicated to understand?

    2. Many churches, including the Episcopal church, use the Common Lectionary, a cycle of readings that covers most of the Bible each three years. Roman Catholic churches also follow a version of it.

      I really like it when preachers base their sermons on the Lectionary’s scriptures for the week, because it helps keep a preacher from preaching variations of his or her favorite sermon 40 or so times per year, as well as making me look more closely at passages I otherwise might not have paid much attention to.

      I don’t think Baptists or most “non-denominational” or Charismatic churches have anything like this. In those churches, you’re likely to just hear the preacher’s pet verses over and over. Considering that the majority of them insist on the direct inspiration and literal inerrancy of scripture, the are rather light on reading it in church services, compared to the more “mainstream” churches.]

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Common_Lectionary

      1. For Episcopalians we also have Morning and Evening Prayer which supports daily personal and corporate reading through large swaths of the Bible. I know that RCC and a couple other mainline churches also have versions of the Daily Office but I’m not familiar enough with their lectionary to comment on it. I suspect since we’re all close relatives on the family tree of Christ that it’s the same deal, though.

      2. Not my non-denominational church, anyway 🙂 The pastor is a big fan of expository preaching, and I love it.

    3. This is one of the things that I love about my liturgical Lutheran church. Gobs of Scripture. In the “Sunday School” hour we sit around tables and talk through the lectionary readings for the week and ask questions. In the service, the pastor preaches from one or more of the readings. It is really a three dimensional tour of the Bible.

    4. I don’t know if this is a liturgical church thing, but in my ELCA and ECUSA church homes, we NEVER marked up our Bibles. Bibles were to be read, discussed, meditated upon, and hopefully memorized in part. If you had to add a note, it was a sticky note or written on a bookmark. When I took Education for Ministry, many of the adult students had to steel ourselves to highlight passages in our study Bibles!

      Have you seen the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau’s four-volume For All the Saints? For every day you get three Bible readings and a hymn, sermon excerpt, or religious poem, plus the Psalter and prayers. Each volume has reproductions of ikons bound into it with an explanation of the symbolism. I used to read it on the bus.

    5. Same with my wee Mennonite church. The pastor always starts the sermon by reading the main text his sermon is based on, which is usually at least 10 verses long – often an entire event or parable. Then, of course, during the rest of the sermon he’ll reference other verses in the Bible that sort of ‘support’ or have relevance to the main text. I never realised that before: how wonderfully different it is to have the sermon text be an entire section, rather than one verse.

  8. My experience from college days is that it was females who usually used highlighters in textbooks. Whenever I bought a used textbook, it was pretty obvious which ones were previously owned by females.

    Is it the same with Bibles?

    2. I always looked for books previously owned by people who appeared not to have studied much– nice clean books for me to read.

      1. I still have all my college textbooks that are heavily highlighted up through the first third or maybe half…with spotlessly clean pages all the rest of the way to the end. Oops. 😳

      2. I always looked for textbooks that had been highlighted. That way, I could breeze through and just read the highlighted parts. :mrgreen:

  9. One definitely wonders… Absolutely!

    Ran into a First Baptist Church member who said Jack Schaap is refusing contact with his supporters… the shame must be so unbearable! Good!

    ~~~Heart 😯

    1. That raises so many fascinating questions.
      I guess most of them will not be answered anytime soon.

  10. Plus, doesn’t highlighter bleed through the paper? What if you end up reverse-highlighting something you didn’t want to? (like verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 2 😉 )

    1. The paper in that blue KJV award Bible you should have received after you were baptized has paper thick enough to prevent highlighter bleed-through.

      You ARE using that signed (by the preacher, not the author) award Bible, aren’t you? 😉

        1. When the old lady who serves (read: guards) the cookies in the foyer dies, her soul is used as a coating for the pages. It makes them impervious to everything except her handsome young pastor’s smile.

    2. I found a dry highlighter pencil. It was a smooth, bright orange lead. Not sure what the lead was made of but it worked very well. Didn’t bleed through at all. Small sized, but with a cap so it didn’t mark anything else up.

    3. I use a wax highlighter in my ESV study. I don’t write in any other Bibles. I can’t even stand my pages to get dog-eared.

  11. I like to write notes and underline in my Bible, but I try to keep it reasonable. I definitely don’t want it to look messy.

    Once while studying all that Proverbs had to say about the tongue, I used an orange colored pencil to highlight all the verses about speaking and words. I like that I can quickly glance at that book and those verses will jump out at me.

    1. Here’s a challenge: Underline or circle or highlight in green (or whatever color) everything in the Bible about money. I’ve often heard it claimed that Jesus in the Gospels mentions money more often than anything else, but I’ve never counted up to see if this is true.

      1. I did that in Proverbs too – green for anything about money or business – but didn’t do the rest of the Bible.

  12. I commented this on the “Creative Definitions of Words” post a few days ago.

    I highlighted all the juicy words in Song of Solomon when I was about 11. Then I realized how much trouble I would get in if my parents saw it. So I highlighted the whole book.

    Then I realized I’d STILL get in trouble, so I started highlighting the whole Bible. I got about 10 pages into Genesis, gave up, and threw the Bible away. I still feel a little bad about that to this day.

    1. That made me giggle, but I can imagine the panic a child in that situation would feel!

      (This would make an awesome anecdote at one of those short story reading events I’ve heard on NPR.)

      1. That actually IS a short story right there. It doesn’t need anything else.

        It reminds me of the purported “world’s shortest novel”:

        “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

  13. I HATED when pastors demanded that everyone underline something or circle something. I knew I SHOULD obey, but if I thought it was kind of a meaningless word to highlight, I didn’t want to do it.

    “Everyone, get your pens out. I want you to circle the word “then” in vs. 8. You got that? Circle it! Because it wasn’t until THEN that Jesus spoke the words of healing the man needed. . . ”

    I don’t want to circle “then.”

    1. During summer camp, Tom Farrell used to demand that we circle and underline the weirdest things. I have an old Bible with ands and thes circled all over the place. A lot of good it did – I have no idea what they’re supposed to mean now!

      1. Your point highlights (lol get it) the basic issue that goes along with highlighting/underlining in the bible, namely, *how am I supposed to remember, years later when my life context is entirely different, WHY I underlined this passage/word in the first place?* If the bible really is the richest text in the world, more applicable to real life (in all its vagaries) than any other text, we should expect it to mean different things to us, depending on when and how we read it. If I’m particularly struggling with faith, Jesus’ words of comfort will be especially meaningful to me *in that context*, but later if I’m struggling with complacency, Jesus’ words of challenge will be far more meaningful. Highlighting and underlining, to me, amounts to a futile attempt to domesticate the text.

      2. Tom Farrell probably just needed you to add his words to the scripture to make sure your Bible actually contained what he was preaching.

    2. I was far to contrarian to ever even THINK about following instructions to underline or circle anything. The few times I heard that before PCC, I often thought “how about you make a good enough point that makes me feel compelled to circle or underline or at least take note”, when they’d say it at PCC, I thought “how about you come make me, pal?”. :mrgreen:

    3. I always hated that too. I think I did it about twice, realized I didn’t want to mark up my Bible, and have never done it since. I guess I was a bitter rebel even back then. 😎

    4. P’sW, you could always draw a SQUARE around the word, there’s some real rebellion right there. 😛

    5. Pastor’s Wife: I, too, dislike speakers who insist that I highlight something; I rarely highlight these days… but I do sometimes underline verses that God used to speak to me personally.

    7. Once in Bible college, our president told us that we should always obey the preacher when he told us stuff; ie, if he said circle a word, you better circle it. Even if was already circled, you had to circle it again. Same was true with the song leader, when he said “turn in your songbooks to page…” you were supposed to turn there, even if you knew the entire song by heart.

      1. Wow. He was pretty blatant that what mattered most to him was power and controlling people.

      2. Talk about treating adults, joint-heirs with Christ and equally vital parts of the body of Christ, as nothing more than children.

    8. How interesting! I had pastor expound an entire sermon on the “now then” in Joshua 1:2.

      I wrote a blog about that sermon a few years later, about how bizarre it was. One of the people I used to know from that church read the blog and commented that it was one of the best sermons he had ever heard (or something to that effect).

  14. I hate highlighting in books. It makes the books look super-ugly.
    And when I tried highlighting or underlining in school, I always ended up highlighting the whole thing, so what was the point?

    If highlighting works for you, more power to you and the pale ink in your pen. But it’s not for everyone.

    1. I’m pretty sure highlighting and underlining only work as tools for well-structured non-fiction textbooks. You know the kind – a chemistry textbook, for example. I really have no idea how one would go about highlighting narrative, which is why I never really understood underlining or highlighting the gospels or most of the NT.

      1. In Education for Ministry, we highlighted the different narratives that were braided together to create the first part of Genesis. (But we had to steel ourselves to do it, by and large. Because BIBLE.)

      2. I highlight phrases that are particularly telling or that I especially enjoy.

  15. The language of that supposed Spurgeon quotation seems atypical of nineteenth century American English. I often find quotations people use and attribute to famous people which are highly dubious. Patrick Henry is a favorite supposed source of such quotations.

    1. I had the same thought.
      I’ve read a fair amount of text written in Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s era (1834-1892), and I’m reasonably certain that the phrase “falling apart” was not used in this sense (losing one’s composure, or beset by myriad problems) until much later.

      So whoever first said it, I don’t think it was Spurgeon.

    2. Abraham Lincoln seems to be the all-time favorite target for dubious attributions of quotations.

      Just think up anything that sounds sort of wise or folksy (preferably both), and you can get away with claiming Lincoln said it or wrote it.

      2. Don’t forget Mark Twain! He said a lot of witty, funny things but not nearly as much as gets attributed to him.

    3. Charles Spurgeon was British, by the way, but the same point applies just as well to British English of the period.

    4. I believe 19th century families not individuals might’ve had a Bible, and I suspect not all families had Bibles. The singularity alone of “someone’s” Bible is very fishy from “Spurgeon”.

    5. Of course THE ultimate source for quotes is William Shakespeare, 😎 esp you’re looking for Biblical-sounding language. There’s a fair number of quotes supposedly from the Bible, that actually have sprung out of the Bard’s golden pen.

  16. I was weird, I wrote notes … in a notebook! Now, I use the note taker and bible reader on my phone, and the tablet when I teach.

    The strange thing is, many of the people whose Bibles were underlined/marked, there were lots of empty pages that looked like they’ve never been read. The big crease on the spine is probably around Matthew 5, Revelation is easy to find being on the last page, but I doubt they know their way around most of the OT, particularly any prophet not Daniel, or even where Philemon is in the NT.

    Not that highlighters are bad, or that a focus of study is bad, but relating back to the Spurgeon quote, there is often a lack of comprehensive study and teaching of the Scriptures. It’s not the whole Bible that’s falling apart, it’s just a couple of go-to prooftexts.

    1. Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James … any good fundy kid who has gone to Sunday school had better doggone well know where Philemon is! They don’t teach you the books of the Bible for naught, you know!

      1. Yeah, we good kids prided ourselves on knowing where everything was so we could win Sword Drills. We also obediently highlighted/underlined whatever the pastor said plus whatever it looked like the really spiritual grownups might be highlighting.

  17. It was the opposite for me. Any markings in a bible would have been considered disrespectful, at least. I grew up in Russian fundyland (in America), and once I brought my oldest brother’s NT to sunday school because we didn’t have many bibles then. Anywho, my bro had done a little bit of underlining here and there with an ink pen, and those markings were immediately noticed by one of the elders in that particular church (not sure what he was doing in the sunday school class at the time). With his trademark ‘stern’ face he asked me who done it, then left me alone after telling me it was wrong.

    Hello everyone!

        6. Stuff Fundies Like: We do what we must, because we can

          BTW, stay out of the cockpit, or at the very least make sure you are at least a little fond of Scorpio before you go up there, it can get a bit frisky.

        7. Welcome aboard “The black Pearl of Great Price Before Swine” Leo, glad to have you sailing with us.

        8. Glad to have you on board, Leo!
          Don’t know about the butt cushions, but I can get a deal on a lot of butt dust. :mrgreen:

      1. Hello, Hello. Doctor, doctor. Doctor, doctor… ya’ll do have yer ornery degrees, don’t you?

        1. In fact somewhere around here we have our own Degree production app. Anyone remember where we left it? We’ll confer a Doctorate on you faster than you can get to the altar in a revival meeting. 😉

  19. I find it poignant that the owner of the Bible in photo wrote in the center margin, in all-caps, “MY LIFE IS NOT OFF TRACK.”

    Protesting too much?

  20. My mother, who is into the End Times more than she should be, really liked Hidden Prophecies of the Psalms by J.R. Church.

    I remember opening her Bible to the high double digits of the Psalms, and seeing “Anti-Christ” and “Second Coming” written in pencil.

    In Hidden Prophecies of the Psalms, the author makes the claim that the Psalms correspond by number to a year in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and each Psalm has something cryptic to say about that year.

  21. What is wrong with you guys? Is there anything that you agree with us on. Why don’t you get a real job and stop bashing EVERYTHING about Christianity, the Bible, Christians, and God. I have never seen the beat. I have asked before if you would tell us just a little of what you RELLY believe. Nobody knows what you believe and what church you attend, if any at all. I don’t mind you disagreeing with our Christian beliefs, that’s your right but it also our right to believe what we choose without you calling us everything you choose to call us. I do agree with some things you say on here but at the same time do you have to run us down like we were a bunch of dogs. If you are really saved and I am really, saved we are all going to Heaven and how are we going to act when we get there? I suppose you don’t believe in the term “Saved” because that’s the term we use.

    I know what I believe so you don’t need to reply with a bunch of garbage about how stupid you think I am. O.K.?

        1. “Catholic” just means “universal,” as in the entire church, the whole body of Christ. It doesn’t mean a denomination.

      3. This week’s Chuck Knows Church video is about the Creeds of the church. We recite the Apostles Creed every Sunday, except for communion Sundays where we say the Greek Orthodox version of the Niceen Creed.

        http://youtu.be/HsIMItXSipU

        1. I mostly like “Chuck Knows Church,” but that opening montage is truly seizure-inducing. I wonder if they would consider changing it.

      4. I’m a little more nitpicky than that. It’s Nicean Creed or nothing for me.

    2. “I have never seen the beat.”

      I have never felt it, either…at least not in a fundy church.

      😈

    3. Dear Jean,

      The folks at Stuff Fundies Like generally make fun of fundamentalism because most of us used to believe it. If you’ve read the comments prior to yours, you may have noticed that not a single person on this thread has bashed Christianity, the Bible, Christians, or God. If you hadn’t noticed, a few of the commenters were talking about how much they loved the churches they now attend BECAUSE they actually preached from and read scripture, unlike the fundamentalist churches with which they were familiar, who only CLAIMED to preach scripture (and did it frequently).

      We do disagree with your beliefs, but as J. Heller has pointed out, we are Christians. We believe the Apostle’s Creed. We believe the line items on it. I don’t think anyone here has called you names, at least not in this thread. No one intends to say anything negative about you personally. The point of SFL is… well, I’ll let Darrell say it.

      “Imagine for a moment that you’re a child who every night as he lies in bed is terrorized by a terrible monster. One day you grow up. You leave home. You don’t talk about the monster because nobody else believes that it is real. Surely you only imagined it. Then one day you find a website where someone has taken pictures of that monster you used to fear and posted them adorned by funny mustaches. The monster used to scare you but now you can laugh at it. The laughter is therapeutic. The laughter conquers your fear. And then you find that there are hundreds of other people in the world who also were terrorized for years by this monster and others like it. Now they laugh at it too and you know that finally you’re not alone.” (From the interview at http://mikeduran.com/2013/01/interview-w-darrell-dow-of-stuff-fundies-like/ )

    4. Jean, I don’t understand: You’re offended because some of us don’t like writing in our Bibles? How on earth does that affect you? Write, highlight and sticky note every page if you want. Just keep away from my Bible, please.

      1. Persnickety Polecat

        I don’t underline that much in my Bible and I am not offended at what you say about that. I am offended that EVERYTHING you say is against those of us who things different from you. I am against the teachings and the followers of FBCH and the likes, but I am an Independent Baptist. I mean by “Independent” that I don’t have to answer to anybody except the Lord Jesus. He directs my path and I follow Him and what I believe the Bible teaches. You can do and say what you want to and I will do the same. I do, and say that with love, and I don’t believe you do. I believe you are correct in many things you say, but you all seem to be so angry with everyone and it leaves a very bad impression. Say what you will…I am finished, and I will not respond again.
        In Christian love, thank you and have a good day!
        say what you will!!

        1. Jean, you sound like you have a lovely faith. Jesus is a great master to follow. Keep it up!!!

          That said, not sure what that has to do with you being offended by anything on this webpage.

        2. I get angry with Fundamentalists who hurt other people.

          I am saddened by those who hurt themselves.

          Otherwise, they merely amuse me, not anger me.

        3. All Christian churches follow Christ. My issue with Independent churches is that they are just that – independent, their own island. I now belong to a United Methodist Church. Each church is different in its style and ministries – but we all follow the same rules. We are also connectional, we work together. Currently we are working on eliminating Maleria from Africa. We have to do that together.

          Not all, but a large number of pastors in independent churches see themselves as little popes. I also believe that woman should be in leadership and the pulpit!

      2. Persnickety Polecat

        That is exactly trying to say. I know I am not good at expressing myself. I was not offended that
        you don’t underline in your Bible, but it appeared to me that you were offended because I did. I won’t get near a Polecat’s Bible you can count on that. Now I am just kidding with you about that, but you know what I mean. Have a good day. I think you are a good guy (or gal)

        1. Jean, perhaps you don’t understand what this site is about.

          It is NOT about underlining Bible passages.

          We are a motley collection (some more refined than others) of people who have escaped fundamentalism, particularly of the Independent Baptist kind. Some of us have experience in other branches of fundamentalist theology and leadership.

          Fundamentalists tend to take themselves very, very seriously. They like control, particularly of people in the congregation, in their little “schools,” and in society in general. They like order. They like to be obeyed. They think they are God’s gift to … well, everyone.

          But Fundamentalism has its dark places, its secret sins, its open sins, its laughable foibles. And those of us on this site are people who have felt the dark side.

          It hurts. It often still hurts for many of us. We need to laugh.

          So Darrell posts these marvelous examples of the foibles we were all told to take so very seriously and we all get to chat and laugh. It relieves some tension. Call it group therapy, if you like.

          I am fairly new here. But I enjoy the group a lot.

    5. In reply to Jean:

      What is wrong with me? Why don’t I get a real job & stop bashing Christianity? What’s wrong with me could take a long time since I’m a child of Adam & Eve just like you, but I do have a real job: I teach English in a Christian school. Bashing Christianity? Never…I’ve been a Christian for almost 40 years.

      What do I believe? I believe that’s been answered in J Heller’s comment. Where do I go to church? I attend a small Baptist church.

      Run “you” down like dogs? Really? Because I disagree with the IFB stand on most issues? Because I don’t believe women wearing pants is sinful? Because I don’t believe drums are evil? Or that God speaks only in Shakespearean English?

      I attended IFB churches from 1973 to 1991. I thought I was pleasing God by following rules and watching the externals. It was so easy: do these things, please the pastor, and don’t question – never, ever question.

      The shallowness of that type of Christianity finally got to me. I really wanted to know God (I still do). And I couldn’t find Him in the rules and the constant church attendance. I couldn’t hear Him over the pastor’s screaming.

      So, with great fear, I resigned my unpaid position and left to find Him in His Word and in another church (that actually preached long passages of Scripture). My “exit interview” involved the pastor chiding me that the women at THAT CHURCH wear pants (!!).

      I was once totally immersed in the IFB lifestyle, so I understand where you are. I’m just grateful I’m not there anymore.

      (Sorry for any typos…)

      1. Daylily

        I have never said or thought that women will go to hell for wearing pants. I don’t wear pants to church…that’s a personal conviction of mine. I know people who do wear them, and I find no fault with them for doing so; however I believe you should understand my feelings on that and not condemn me for nor wearing them. My husband is a pastor, and a very good one at that.
        He is not of the IFB kind that you are referring to. We are Independent Baptist. We are not followers of the IFB. I know some IFB pastors that I wouldn’t walk across the street to hear. Do you understand what I am trying to say. I think we disagree on some things that are really not that important. The main thing, as far as I am concerned, is to be totally committed to God and His plan for our lives. We will never agree with each other on everything. I will say I do not agree with the dictator type preachers, and there are many in the Baptist Churches today. They do more harm than good. I understand when someone has been in they type of church and finally realize what is going on, they need to get out and we need to warn them. I am simply saying disagree but, not on the important things. It’s kind of like, if you don’t want to underline in your Bible, but I do want to underline in mine…what difference does it make.

    6. That seems a bit out of left field. There are comments by both people who do & who don’t mark Bibles and why. There’s some negative commentary on speakers who tell you what to mark/write. I’m confused by this post.

        2. Sorta like how IFB MOGs say, “and now for my last point ……. ” and go on for another 45 minutes?

    7. Unsaved and proud of it.
      Seriously, fundies love to bash everyone not their strange religion, heck even other members of IFB who might disagree on some minor piece of theology.
      I can remember sermons where the pastor read one bible verse and then ranted for an hour about the Methodists, network television, jogging, or unisex hair salons.

  22. I could never bring myself to scribble in my Bible. It just felt so *disrespectful to do. My dad’s Bible was all marked up AND bound with duct tape. It was pretty spectacular, lol.

    I still have my mom’s Bible, though, and I have to say, I enjoy going back and reading her notes and thoughts. She didn’t write in it during sermons (she had notebook after notebook for that), but she did make notes to herself during her daily Bible reading. That’s been pretty meaningful to me as the years have passed since her death. It gives me a new insight into her mind and her heart.

    What bugs me far more than Bible marking EVER could, though, is how so many people turned their Bibles into autograph books. That seems not only disrespectful but borderline idolatrous.

    1. Personally, I’ve never asked anyone to sign my Bible and never plan to. It smacks of “celebrity” kind of things, and we are all to be humble servants of Christ.

      It would be interesting to ask people who do this Why they are doing it, and see if they can come up with a non-prideful reason. If one is a serious autograph hunter, carry an autograph book. It seems to me like the only purpose of having a bunch of preacher’s signatures in the Bible is to brag about it — and that’s all I’ve EVER heard people do.

    2. That was a big thing at the college my wife and I attended. I even signed some bibles myself as a young preacher! As a pastor, several years later, I disagree with the practice for the very reason of idolatry and making the preacher a celebrity! The Bible is God’s Book to Man, not an autograph collection.

  23. I never did understand during my stint through Fundyland how writing, highlighting, drawing, underlining, folding, etc was ok in light of Revelation 22:18. I always figured that if God wanted something highlighted, it would already be highlighted for me? 😆

    Of course these days whatever Bibles I may have lying in the bottoms of boxes are completely without any lines, highlights, writings, or otherwise. Time, however, has added dust to the covers.

    1. The way standards are taught in many fundy churches, it’s no surprise that they conveniently forget that verse is there.

  24. I would highlight verses that were important to me, but I was very particular about the type of highlighter. It had to be yellow, but not the neon yellow kind. No blue, pink or purple for me. Now I either read the Bible online or on Kindle.

  25. I don’t understand why people who don’t like this blog come on here and then criticize what is said here. If you are being forced to read this stuff, that’s one thing, but it’s probably the least of your problems.

    I don’t go to “Stuff Jack Schaap Likes” and comment on how I don’t like his theology.

    2. “Stuff Jack Schaap Likes” would be a pretty wild and wooly blog. Guaranteed to excite.

      Someone else will get around to making that blog before I do, though.

      1. The FBI would be wise to trace people involved in a site called, Stuff Jack Schaap likes…

        1. Now that you mention it, it’s illegal to post pictures of some of the stuff Jack likes on the Internet. 👿

  26. I had a panicky moment there when I thought that was a picture of my childhood Bible. OMG, SFL, what have I become?!?!

  27. 🙂 That looks exactly like my Bible from when I was a kid. I had lots of verses underlined, that I now no longer remember.

  28. I love to underline words for emphasis and circle words (sometimes connecting them) to show a recurring thought. It helps me find the key verse of a chapter(s) and understand the context better. Wide-margin is great too for writing notes, especially Greek definitions of English words and English definitions of Old-English words! Strong’s and Thayer’s are invaluable for study too! When preaching, I’ll encourage folks to underline the key verse/phrase of a chapter, but that’s about it.

    2. I underline and write notes too. I do it in pencil in case I change my mind about a note later and so it doesn’t show through to the other side. So I guess my Bible is messy in spots. But it helps ME study, learn, and remember, and isn’t that what reading the Bible is all about? 🙂

  29. I think there’s a Jack Chick tract out about the importance of highlighting this and that verse in the Bible, and using difference colors for different ideas, and how, if you do it right, “Your Bible Will Look Like A Rainbow!” plus a grinning demon who smirks Why don’t you just put this stupid pamphlet aside and fuhgeddabotit? 😛
    Too lazy to look up which one it is. :mrgreen:

    2. Page 16:

      “Won’t you feel silly when you talk with Habakkuk in the next life and you have to say to him … “Uh, no, I didn’t read your book! I didn’t even know it was in the Bible! (Gulp)”

      Somehow, until now that was never one of my major worries.

      (I did read Habakkuk’s book, but not for that reason.)

        2. Heck, I’d buy a beer for Habakukk, poor guy deserves it: “That’s okay, most people don’t read me either. Jonah had the whale, Daniel had the lions, me, all the good stuff was in the Apocrypha…” 🙁 🙄

      3. Jack makes Habakkuk out be a jerk. The cartoon implies that there was conversation prior to the response by the embarrassed man. The conversation, according to Jack, must have gone something like this:
        Man: Who are you?
        Habakkuk: Habakkuk
        Man: Who?
        Habakkuk: Habakkuk, you know, I wrote a book of the Bible? Boy, you’re an idiot.
        Man: Oh no! I didn’t read your book…
        Habakkuk: I should just butt punt you out of here.

  30. I love having Bibles (and any other book) on my Kindle. I can highlight anything and type up notes without having to worry abut clutter or making it look messy.

  31. When I first went to HAC, I took a class in which the professor had us circle different theme words from First John in different colors of pencil. I was so uncomfortable with it the first day that I actually called my dad to ask him if it was acceptable to write in your Bible. Now I only highlight my Bible when I prepare a bilingual radio or book script. It is so hard to find and retune Old Testament Korean names if they aren’t highlighted in the passage. Now I have a Bible where the only markings are Old Testament named an it looks so weird.

  32. I underline my NIV, but I haven’t done it in years.
    I used to do it because the content of certain verses and paragraghs amazed me. They still do and now, I still find new amazing verses but I don’t underline.

    By underlining verses, I have simply documented the thoughts that have had a great impact on my thoughts and life. It has become my sprititual diary that is between God and I.

  33. Spurgeon’s life was bit of the mess. He overate to deal with stress. There are many reasons why someone can be overweight or obese. Maybe food is filling the void that their faith is not. No wonder gluttony is one of those “sins” that get little mention in the IFB.

  34. Seems like much ado about nothing. Must be a slow news day at mock-fundy-central for this to see the light of day.

  35. I heard a guest preacher in fundy U who made his own, much more negative, version of this quote: “If your Bible isn’t falling apart, then you are!” 🙄 Or you have a new one, own more then one, actually try to keep yours from getting beaten up, etc…

    When I find something of note, I usually end up writing it down in more detail in a notebook. I can never remember a week later what I was trying to get across if all I do is underline, circle, or write a few words in the margins. And the reasons behind the random words the speakers had me circle were gone the next day. Now all I have are mysterious preacher circles in this one old Bible…

  36. Something about this smacks of viewing the good book as a good-luck talisman.

  37. My mother’s bible looks like that. She refuses to go back to rehab but absolutely needs it. Her picture is in the medical dictionary next to “polypharmacy” and she doesn’t understand her mysterious blackouts have something to do with the combination of Ambien, Ativan, and a fifth of booze a day. And they can’t figure out why I don’t go to church.

  38. By the way, has anyone pointed out that it is not a good idea to highlight verses with a black marker? 😀

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