Read Them and Weep

OK--I know I'm biased. I studied Bible and Biblical Languages in college and grad school. I have a passion for God's Word. That's why I majored in it and am spending my life teaching and preaching it. But as I tell my kids, the Bible is the most important thing you will ever study. Don't just take my word for it. God has a few things to say about His Word. (See Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Psalm 119; Proverbs 30:6; Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 5:18; Revelation 22:19.) Consider, also, what some of our past presidents have said. Read them and weep.

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." George Washington, 1st President

"I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world." John Adams, 2nd President

"Almighty God hath created the mind free . . I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively . . Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Life than that these people are to be free." Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government ... not in the Constitution... (but) upon the capacity of each and every one of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments" James Madison, 4th President

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society..." "The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. I speak as a man of the world . . . and I say to you, 'Search the Scriptures.'" John Quincy Adams, 6th President

"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests." Andrew Jackson, 7th President

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong . . It is the duty of nations as well as men to recognize the truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all of history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord . . I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man." Abraham Lincoln, 16th President

"I do believe in Almighty God! And I believe also in the Bible . . Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever," and exclaim, Christ first, our country next.” Andrew Johnson, 17th President

"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future." Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President

"If you take out of your statutes, your constitution, your family life all that is taken from the Sacred Book, what would there be left to bind society together?" Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President

"Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible." Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President

"The strength of our country is the strength of its religious convictions. 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." Calvin Coolidge, 30th President

"The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God, and spiritual nature and needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture." Woodrow Wilson, 28th President

"Menaced by collectivist trends, we must seek revival of our strength in the spiritual foundations which are the bedrock of our republic. Democracy is the outgrowth of the religious conviction of the sacredness of every human life. On the religious side, its highest embodiment is the Bible; on the political side, the Constitution." Herbert Hoover, 31st President

"We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity." Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd President

"The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!" Harry Truman, 33rd President

"The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth. The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope." Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President

"Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible." Ronald Reagan, 40th President