LaRosa Johnson {dot} com

Yeah, I know what I said about study Bibles. I said I’d never buy another study Bible. I even selected the next (and last) Bible that I was going to buy, all $160 dollars of it from Amazon’s website. Well, you know what? Neither one of those happened. I bought another study Bible, and I didn’t purchase that mammoth of a Bible. So, what happened?

After writing that piece on stewardship a few days ago, I really took time to sit down and think through things. I talked with Robin and discussed where we were, how we planned on wisely using our tax return, and so forth. The more I thought about it, I just couldn’t bring myself to break down and spend $160 for a Bible, even if it’s the one that was formatted exactly like I wanted it to be. True, the Word of God is priceless, but when you can buy a paperback Bible for less than $5, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to put that kind of money into one. With many hours spent in thought, I ultimately decided that I wasn’t going to spend that much money on a Bible when my MacArthur Study Bible was still in great working order (study notes aside).

So, that’s where I stood, I wasn’t going to buy that wide-margin Bible, and I wasn’t going to look at buying another. Then I went out with the family today to run some errands. I had promised Robin a new dining room table with our tax return, so we went and purchased that (to be delivered in 2-3 weeks). The day was supposed to be spent visiting different furniture stores to find the right table, but we found the perfect one at the first store we visited, which meant we had the rest of the afternoon to do some other shopping as we made our way back home.

I decided to ask Robin to stop by Family Christian so that we could look around; they had a necklace she wanted to get for her mom (wasn’t in stock) and I wanted to get a copy of Fireproof. Generally when I walk into Family Christian, or any Christian store for that matter, I make a B line for the Bibles. Well, today I happened to spot a centennial anniversary edition of the Scofield study Bible. I’d been wanting to buy a Scofield just to have in my library (yes, I already own a digital copy in WORDsearch), but I never bought one because no one every had the NASB in stock. So, it just happened to be my luck and this copy was NASB, and the last one on the shelf. I debated for a minute and decided to crack it open (luckily it wasn’t wrapped in plastic, cuz if it is, I leave it alone). I flipped through the pages (thumb-indexed, nice!) and saw that the notes were sparse and didn’t overpower the Scripture in any way, that’s just what I was looking for. The cross references were in the margin, which wasn’t that big of a deal and the price was right (regular price $79.99 on sale for $49.99). So, I decided to buy it and let it become my Bible of choice for everyday use, replacing my MacArthur.

Knowing that this isn’t a top of the line Bible, although pretty high quality, I wanted to make sure I took care of it. You know, throwing a bare Bible into a book bag isn’t always the nicest environment for keeping a Bible looking nice. So, I opted to find a Bible cover to put this new Bible in; which is funny because I hadn’t owned one in years because I had always enjoyed looking at the leather and the way it felt in my hands. Anyway, I found a nice one for $20 that had the names of Jesus written on the front. I picked it up, gave it a look over and determined that it was large enough to fit my Bible, so I opted to get it.

Once I got both of them home, I was pretty impressed and pleased with my new purchase. I now have a Bible that is of good quality and a sturdy means of keeping it well protected, especially when putting it into my book bag for carrying around.

In making this purchase, there is one thing that I wanted to comment on. It amazes me just how much Christian bookstores sometimes mark up their items. Remember, I said that the sticker on the Bible had the Scofield listed at $79.99, which I thought was a fair price, and a steal at $49.99. Well, when I got ready to write this entry and find an image of the Bible, you wouldn’t believe that the MSRP for this Bible (the exact one I just purchased) is $49.99. That means the bookstore marked it up $30 above MSRP and were touting it as a “sale” when selling it at MSRP, when that should be its regular price. That just bugged me a bit, and these stores wonder why they’re losing out to online retailers and chain bookstores. If I wasn’t in the buying mood and wanted to do some comparison shopping, I would have been appalled at seeing the marked up value. Either way, $70 for a Bible & cover isn’t bad when you compare it to the $160 I was looking to spend on that other Bible.

That aside, I’m happy with my purchase and I look forward to using it. And being a centennial edition makes me feel good, especially given my pastor’s recent emphasis on remembering our doctrinal heritage. It’s good to know that this Bible will always be a reminder of Dr. Scofield’s original 1909 edition of the Scofield reference Bible. Now, to dig back into my 1 Thessalonians study…