This may sound strange, but when I think about the bible my first image is the photo above.
This “painting” hung on the wall in my house when I was a child. The original is a photograph entitled “Grace” by Eric Enstrom. (You can learn more about this famous photo by clicking above.) I think that I memorized every part of the picture. The bowl, the “bible” and the glasses captured my imagination the most. They looked so real. I often wondered if the man was sad, or if he was tired. It never occurred to me that he was saying grace before eating his meal. I never knew the title until I became an adult and was doing some research! In my story of this picture the old man was studying the bible, had gotten tired, and needed to have a snack. He was pausing to think about his sermon and all that he had been reading. Really. That is what I saw for years. Maybe it was because my own father had grey hair, wore Pendleton plaid and used his glasses for reading. He would take them off, rub his eyes and rest a few minutes. My dad was always reading. He would read big thick books and next to the books was usually a bible. At some point I realized that the book in this photo could be any book. But to me, this is the bible. What we see depends on who we are and how we have lived. When we read the bible it is the same. What we read is colored by the lenses of our life.
What is your first image when you hear the word bible?