What would you call a Bible that was often the only Bible in the home and the whole family read it together? You might have another term for it, but it came to be known as “The Family Bible”. Sometime around 1740 in English “The Family Bible” was first published and became quite popular. The idea soon made its way to American and by the late 1700’s Isaac Collins of New Jersey and Isaiah Thomas of Massachusetts had begun to print what was also called “The Family Bible.”  By the middle of the 1800’s “The Family Bible” was becoming an important and common item in many households, and by the twentieth century “The Family Bible” was often a gift for newlyweds. The wedding gift quite often was a new Bible but sometimes was a Bible that had been in the family for generations and was being passed to the next one.
            “The Family Bible” was often meant to be symbolic of the foundation of the family, that faith in God and the Word of God would guide the family, and a connection from one generation to the next. As the Psalmist wrote, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:1-5). “The Family Bible” was often the place where families recorded marriages, birth, and deaths, and even today is a reliable source for genealogical research. During the 1700’s, 1800’s and into the 1900’s “The Family Bible” was often the only Bible that the family possessed and so together they would read God’s Word learning events that took place from Genesis to Revelation. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:13).
            Living in the fast-paced twenty-first century, families may find it almost impossible to believe that a husband, wife, and their children would have sat together in the evening and read God’s Word. However, in many homes in times past the Bible was the key spiritual influence, providing moral values, a practical study guide to teach the children how to read, and a passing of the torch from one generation to the next as family information was recorded in it. Moses in the Law taught, “and you shall teach them diligently unto your children…” (Deuteronomy 6:7).
            The reality of how “The Family Bible” was used and the influence it had in the family motivated secular song writer Willie Nelson to write a song in 1957 remembering his experience, especially his mother and grandmother. A portion of the song lyrics are “There’s a family Bible on the table, each page is torn and hard to read, but the family Bible on the table will ever be my key to memories. At the end of day when work was over and when the evening meal was done dad would read to us from the family Bible and we’d count our many blessings one by one.” He poetically captured what was happening with one book, the Bible, in family after family for about three centuries.
            Families may no longer have what was once called “The Family Bible”, but that does not mean that the Bible can no longer influential. The book, the Bible, that sat on the table that was known as “The Family Bible” was a constant visual influence for the family and the power of God unto salvation. As the decades passed in the twentieth century the affluence in the American way of life allowed each person in the family to have their own Bible. Now in the twenty-first century one can have a Bible without cost simply by downloading an application on their phone, tablet, or laptop. Probably the modern family does not gather around the laptop to read God’s Word as was done with “The Family Bible”, but it can continue to be in the heart and minds of parents and children and held in high esteem, recognized for its authority (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and applied to one’s daily life (1 John 1:7-9) remembering that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).