SIR, — Christians all over the world have this year been celebrating the 400th birthday of the King James Bible. The Authorised Version, as it still known, has played a major role not just in the English-speaking church but also the English-speaking world.
As Christians in Ballynahinch we are extremely thankful that we have the Bible in our own mother tongue, a privilege that is still not shared by everyone throughout the world, and we wanted to mark this anniversary with an effort that would see the Bible once again in the hands of the people.
So in the weeks leading up to Christmas, members of First Ballynahinch Presbyterian, Ballynahinch Baptist, Ballynahinch Methodist and Edengrove Presbyterian Churches will be hitting the streets around our town to place a Bible in every home that wants one.
We have ordered 1,000 Bibles for this effort and hope that by Christmas every single one of them will be in the hands of someone who will treasure and read the book that quite simply is the Word of God.
In conjunction with the effort in Ballynahinch we also have Bible banks in each of the four churches. The plan with these is for people to donate Bibles that they no longer use which will then be sent to the growing number of Christians in India who struggle to have any access to God’s Word.
We hope that our plan for a Bible in every home will have a great impact at home and abroad and that this Christmas when we will once again fill our homes with soon forgotten presents and gadgets we will also fall in love with the never forgotten 66 books of the Bible, where every word and every page is a gift from God to show us His Son Jesus.
Yours etc.,
REV. SCOTT WOODBURN,
Edengrove Presbyterian
Church,
Ballynahinch.