Most of my religious songs are based on specific stories from the Bible. This is the main reason that the title of my first CD was Bible Stories. My motivation for writing these songs comes from a desire to share the stories from a different perspective, usually the view of someone on the sidelines in the story. I will at least choose a character in the story that usually doesn’t have much of a voice in the story that we read. I credit my familiarity with these stories to years of reading the Bible. I haven’t always been a Bible reader. There are a couple of key moments in my life that brought me to the point where I am today and the way that I look at Bible Stories.
I worked in the lab a factory and my job required me to work swing shift. I would spend 2 weeks on 1st shift, 2 weeks on 2nd shift and 1 week on the midnight shift. I was by myself in the lab on midnights and the work load was very light. Most of the testing that was required could be completed in an hour. It took another hour to catch up on the work left from the previous shift. This left a lot of spare time. I would occasionally read. I had a Gideon Bible that I brought from home and I decided to read it one night. I didn’t want to commit to reading a whole lot at that time. I looked through and saw that Mark was the shortest of the Gospels. The shortest book meant the smallest commitment so it was easy to pick Mark as the book that I would read.
This was sometime in the late 1980’s when I took on this reading assignment. The 1980’s was a time when there were many evangelists on TV getting a lot of attention. I was very skeptical of their ministries and motivation. I still watched many of them but I found myself disagreeing with much of what they said. They took scripture out of context and twisted it for their own profit or political goals instead of spreading what I understood to be the gospel. I would watch their shows and talk to the TV saying, “That’s not right!” when they said something I didn’t agree with.
I found myself taking the same approach with the Book of Mark. I would read something and I would say to myself, “That’s not right!” Then I realized that what I was disagreeing with were the words of Christ. I had to reassess my approach to this reading. If I was disagreeing with what Jesus said, how could I count myself as a follower? Somehow, I had to reconcile my beliefs with what I was reading. It changed my approach to studying the Bible. It also changed the way I believe.
A few years later, there was a revival at our church. The guest preacher challenged us to do a daily reading of the Bible. He suggested reading a consistent number of chapters daily to get through in a year. I didn’t start reading immediately but I did start at the beginning of the following year based on his challenge. I would repeat this practice about every other year. It’s been a few years since my last read through but as of this writing, I have made it through the entire Bible eight times. I have read a variety of versions with the only repeat being the King James Version. Not every day of reading inspires or changes me, but it has made a difference in my life often enough to make it worth my while. It has gotten me through the roughest times in my life. It has also given me the basic understanding of the Bible Stories that has helped me put them to music.