One year for Christmas, my parents gave my brother and me Bibles with their favorite verses carefully underlined for us to know where God had spoken to them, and this remains one of my most priceless possessions. Our family has one Bible that is the designated Family Bible where births, deaths, and baptisms are gently recorded. Not crunching and marking up books is how we showed our respect to the books. Some of you may find this a bit obsessive-compulsive and a bit odd, but it is what I grew up knowing. They should be written in a separate notebook with a reference to the page, line, and quote being discussed. Notes should not be taken in the margins. Any and all underlining must be done with a straight edge (what my Dad has always called rulers) in a blue or black ballpoint pen that is used throughout the entire book so that the book's appearance remains consistent. If we were required to underline or mark up a text for school, my parents would buy two copies of the book: one for me to 'ruin' and one for us to preserve on the shelves of our home. There should be zero sign that the book has been touched, opened, or manipulated.
The goal of reading a book is to ensure the book looks as pristine after you finish reading it as it did on the shelf of the bookstore. In our home, respecting a book means taking care of that book: not breaking the spine, not folding the corners down to mark our page, and ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO WRITING IN THE BOOK. The Bible is the Word of God, and is therefore the ultimate book deserving our love, honor, and respect. I was raised to love the written word, to love the books that hold them, to respect and honor the men and women who had given themselves to the practice of putting pen to page.
The following is a post that I was honored to write for Shanna Noel's blog at I was raised in a traditional, conservative, Southern Baptist household by two parents who love the Lord and who both love books.
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