An Ambitious Bible-Reading Plan

Just in time for America’s 250^th anniversary, Bunni Pounds and the team at Christians Engaged are gearing up for a massive Scripture-based event this spring – “America Reads the Bible.”

I spoke with Bunni Pounds for a radio segment about this upcoming event. She told our listeners:

“On April 18-25, we’re going to be in Washington, D.C. We’re going to have 475 of our national leaders reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation over the course of seven days.”

These leaders will include actress Candace Cameron Bure, who said that the Bible has changed her life. She told Newsmax last fall: "To come together for such a time as this — to celebrate America's 250th birthday and remind ourselves what this country was built upon — to read the Bible together is going to be an incredible event."

Bunni said first will be the opening ceremony on April 18 at the Museum of the Bible: “Then we start from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm for seven full days as they read through the whole Bible….It will be epic.” The version to be read is The King James Version Easy Read.

Their website, americareadsthebible.com, states that the overall goal of this is “reigniting America’s spiritual foundation as we celebrate 250 years of freedom.”

The website adds: “Just as Ezra read the Word aloud to the people of Israel (Nehemiah 8:1–3), awakening revival and repentance, inspiring them to rebuild the temple, and working with Nehemiah to mobilize the people to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls, America Reads the Bible is a sacred opportunity to call our nation back to its spiritual foundations.”

So, why all the fuss about the Bible and America’s upcoming birthday? Well, the Bible played a key role in shaping America.

I am writing this on Presidents’ Day. Consider some of the observations of presidents on the Scriptures:

John Adams noted: “The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy that ever was conceived upon earth.”
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the charter for a church he cofounded in 1777, he stated, “We the subscribers,…[are] desirous of encouraging and supporting the Calvinistical Reformed Church, and of deriving to ourselves, through the ministry of its teachers, the benefits of Gospel knowledge and…explaining the holy scriptures.”
Andrew Jackson said that the Bible is “the rock upon which our republic was founded.”
Abraham Lincoln said of the Bible: “In regard to this Great Book, ‘I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.’”
Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States, declared: "I believe in the Holy Scriptures, and whoso lives by them will be benefited thereby.”
Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth president of the United States, observed: “If a man is not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered the loss which he had better make all possible haste to correct.”
Woodrow Wilson wrote, “When you have read the Bible you will know it is the Word of God, because you will have found in it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.”
Calvin Coolidge noted: “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt had miniature Bibles (New Testaments or Portions of the Old Testament for Jewish soldiers) distributed to our military during World War II. I have a copy of my dad’s holy book. The 32^nd president wrote in the Foreword of these pocket Bibles: "As Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States….Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration.”
Ronald Reagan said of the Bible: “I encourage all citizens, each in his or her own way, to reexamine and rediscover its priceless and timeless message."

And Reagan also observed that we must make good use of the Bible and prayer on a regular basis: "We can't have it both ways. We can't expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living.”

Hopefully, the herculean efforts of Bunni Pounds and the whole team at Christians Engaged to stage this massive Bible read-through will help Americans at large to re-engage with the Bible, the source of our freedoms.

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Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.).