By a very wide margin!
You are losing concentration a little, and the speaker’s words seem to have become merely words. Then the preacher or Bible study leader says something unexpected—something that makes your brain light up. Perhaps he or she also mentions the name Jesus, and a sharp, sweet perfume from an unseen place seems to fill your nostrils for a moment. You are surprised. You sit up. You try mentally to grasp the moment and keep it. Then you realise that that is the one thing that in this life that you can never do.
Could you at least hold onto the words, onto that pearl of wisdom that inspired that flash of joy in you? What was it that the preacher just said? Yes, you remember: but have you a good pen? Yes. What about paper? You search your pockets. No notebook; not even a sweet wrapper or a till receipt.
Then your eyes rest on the book on your lap. Your personal Bible. You locate again the verse the speaker was describing. Then—in small print away from the main Bible text, small enough not to distract you while reading God’s Word—you unobtrusively add a note that makes the adjacent words of Scripture stand out for you now. You have already made many such notes. That verse was always a shining light of the Truth; the speaker's comment was a gem, one that you have now clasped as your own, to hold on to it. That small note you have made is not—by an infinite margin—to be compared at all with the adjacent Scripture itself, any more than your vanishing life is with God's eternal one. To put it another way, using a different motif, you may be the salt of the earth; but salt has no life of itself.
And should you have written in a Bible?
Note taking
By profession I spent 34 years as a scientist. In science, I always made notes. Similarly, the margins of my old Bibles are full of little scribbled explanations and insights that I felt I should capture at the time. If you are rich, you can buy a Bible with an especially wide margin for the purpose, or even a modern ‘journalling’ Bible (although personally I avoid putting my own story alongside that of Scripture). Alternatively, you may have a Bible on your e-reader or phone, and have obtained software you can use to make notes linked to a particular text.
Why remember yesterday’s story? I once asked a famous Christian speaker how I could tell what was God’s true guidance to me. They gave me two tests. First, true guidance grows stronger as you pray about it. But second, if you want to know what God is calling you to in the future, look at the training course He has put you through in the past. So you should preserve and learn from the personal notes made along your life journey, by which God has guided you over many years. You should let the details of that journey continue to bless you.
A bad habit?
Scribbling even neatly in a Bible is, of course, a habit that upsets some people. They have a point; the Word of God is incomparable and nothing should be set alongside it. That is partly why I headed this introduction By a very wide margin, to show that the distinction is absolute between the Bible and anything any of us can say about it. Also, I keep fairly private my ‘working’ Bible with notes for study sessions, and do not write in or underline Bibles I pass around to others, so that nothing distracts one from reading the pure Word. I would never wish to shock anyone.
Non-Christians might also take it amiss—particularly Muslims, for whom writing in the Qur’an, which they regard as God’s physical message to the world, would be the blasphemous equivalent of a Christian writing with a biro on the living flesh of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Yet the tradition of making notes in paper Bibles—which for Christians are our plain working tools that contain God’s written Word—is an ancient and respected one. So I always make notes in at least one Bible. As I did in my science career, I add many comments to help me understand what I read, or to fix any new insights in my mind. When that Bible is worn out, I start in a new one—although I do not repeat my old notes; I transfer little from my old Bible, so that God can refresh me in His ongoing purposes every morning.
Thus, my Twitter series offers you my personal margin notes (with occasional explanations) recorded in, or sometimes on scraps of paper around, my working Bibles over many years both by me and by my lovely wife Christine.
No new wheel
There is no point, however, in re-inventing the wheel. The best translations of Scripture can be obtained in the form of substantial Study Bibles, which place many useful explanations of the text beside or at the bottom of the page. My little additions do not duplicate the material in my current Study Bible, except rarely for emphasis when a point touches me deeply. And I find that my notes are not more numerous in well-known and important passages of Scripture, for the great principles that we learn from these are well-taught (and fit with difficulty into my margins). Most likely I will be able to show you only a few small new wild flowers growing alongside quieter sections of Scripture’s path.
Precedent
Perhaps the most famous margin emendation in history was the one made by the brilliant French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in about 1637. He was reading Book II of the Arithmetica, the classical Greek work by Pythagoras, when he wrote down in Latin a statement of his latest mathematical idea, starting with ‘It is impossible for cube to be written down as the sum of two cubes…’. That preserved his own thinking; but he also then scribbled down the enigmatic words that would haunt generations of mathematicians:
‘I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.’
Unlike Fermat’s Last Theorem, which was famously not proven until 1994 by Andrew Wiles, my notes are unlikely to frustrate anyone! Nevertheless, I take literally—probably more so than it was intended—Thomas Cranmer’s injunction, in his 1662 prayer book’s Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ the holy Scriptures.
Incidentally, a friend of mine once spent several years on a profound study of the gospel of Mark (from which I benefited richly and made various notes). But he was struggling to think of a title for his epic work, and asked me for help one day as we walked together. Being a writer used to thinking of snappy titles, I suggested Cranmer’s words to him: ‘Read Mark, learn and inwardly digest’. He was so amused that he had fit of the giggles.
Underlining verses
It is even more valuable (and useful) to underline or memorise verses in our Bibles. I may indicate verses I think could be underlined in any Bible. I have always underlined some to help me learn them. Others do far more. A very old friend of mine, Dr Edward Short, who spent decades as a surgeon in a mission leprosy hospital in southern India, once showed me his very worn Bible in which nearly every verse seemed to be underlined in one of many colours, as he variously showed God’s promises, blessings, warnings, edifying stories, etc., through all of Scripture.
On another occasion, I heard the great Bible teacher Dr Alan Redpath tell us that we should underline one Bible every ten years. Alan’s timing was a good point: we should not assume that what God said to us yesterday is today’s instruction also.
Take care!
As a scientist, I know that we should say and write things with care. Getting it wrong can have ripple or even splash consequences. If we do make notes, we should make them responsibly and with clarity, even in our private Bibles; for we do not know who might read them one day. Notes should be legible and intelligible.
Also, when we memorise verses we should memorise their references carefully with them, so that we can find them again with ease. In my school years I attended a Bible study where we learnt many Bible verses and references by heart from the magnificent old King James Version of the Bible. (Nowadays I would recommend the New International Version or the New King James Version). Years later, my best friend Simon took a gap year and went to a village school in Uganda to teach. I felt it my duty to airmail regular encouraging letters to Simon, to give him spiritual support in his isolation. In my letters I always included the references of helpful Bible verses. One of the verses we had carefully learnt together was the mighty question God poses to the prophet in Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 29. In the King James Version it says this:
‘Is not my word like a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?’
I thought that was a fine reference to cite at the end of one letter to Simon. But sadly, my memory played a trick on me. Instead of Jeremiah 23:29, I named the Bible’s next book, Ezekiel 23:29. My letter to Simon received an immediate, obviously shocked reply. Did I really mean Ezekiel, not Jeremiah, he asked?
I looked up my mistaken reference, to find out what word of wisdom I had mailed to Simon in error. Ezekiel chapter 23 verse 29 says this:
‘And they shall deal hatefully with thee, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.’
Since then I have taken great care while hearing, speaking or writing about the Bible! Over fifty years I have tried—accurately—to note wise things others have taught or said, or that I have learnt from digesting God’s Word myself. I have also recorded funny things, for the Holy Spirit has a merciless sense of humour. One of the spiritual forerunners of Jesus in Scripture was Abraham's son Isaac; and the name Isaac means He laughs. In the parables Jesus told, there are quite a few lines that we read with po-faced reverence but that would have had a contemporary audience rolling in the aisles. ('Did you hear the one about this crazy shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep alone to rescue just one?') Of course, Jesus also had a great sense of timing. ('Can you believe that God Himself would act as stupidly as a shepherd, if He thought He could save us?')
And nor do I suppose that my insights are any better than yours. Quite likely the opposite; but mine will not, of course, be all the same as yours. Everyone who observes a lighthouse sees its beam from a different point. I merely point out those few hints of light that Christine and I, to our delight, have noticed and noted down the years.
Earlier, I mentioned salt. Salt is of the earth, as we all are, but its crystals speak of heavenly perfection. It has very many lessons for us. Jesus linked having salt with having peace between us [Mark 9:50]. In my book entitled Discovering Jesus in a Chemistry Lab (link to details elsewhere in this website), I mention a retired friend of mine who worked all his life in the salt industry. He obtained, not surprisingly, some unforgettable insights into the properties of salt and the lessons the Bible draws from its use.
As a former research chemist I know all about salt crystals. Clear crystals can transmit or redirect almost all light that shines on them. This can create enormous beauty; yet even the greatest crystals, like the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London (which include the biggest diamonds in the world) do not create their own light. They only reflect (or strictly, refract) the light, which itself arises through the hidden power of electricity.
And those viewing them will each see something different. Even if you and I were standing together, your eyes would never see exactly the same glints of brilliance as mine. So it is a duty on us all to pass on those good things each has received.
Christ-centred
To make these notes user-friendly and Christ-centred, my Twitter selection of meagre notes begins with Matthew and the New Testament, rather than with Genesis.
My notes should disturb no-one. In the same tradition as the best Study Bibles, I aim to offer none (or possibly all) of any interpretations of Scriptures known to stir controversy. I make potentially sensitive points only where it would mean a denial of plain common sense not to, as in, for example, my very first Note on Matthew 1:1. I aim merely to bring out all that is good and has blessed me and Christine. I hope it blesses you, too.
You will need a Bible alongside, to understand my notes.
And feel free to throw my notes away, and just read the Bible, if that seems better to you! I pray that you may find blessing, as I have, among these gleams of light shining through my dull crystals of salt in the margins of my old Bibles.