When I was very young, I began to "eat" the Bible. Yes, you read that first sentence correctly. I "ate" the Bible. Here's how it happened. When I was growing up, the Sunday School at my church gave little cards each week to those of us who attended. On the cards were Bible verses and, sometimes, a picture that tried to capture the essence of the verses. Each Sunday after class, my parents would ask me to show them my card. Almost always I said, "I ate it."

Who knows what possessed me at that tender age? I had made a mid-morning snack out of the Bible verse card—literally! Eventually I outgrew this little trick, but somehow the blessings that came from "devouring" the Bible grew steadily over the years. The devotions my parents held at home each day became increasingly important to me. And I discovered that my father, who read his Bible each night before going to bed, was a fine role model.

I came to love the Bible, and cherished the one I received at the time of confirmation in our church. I have it still, although it is a bit tattered from long use. And I have several other Bibles at home that are special to me. Some are quite old, such as the one my grandparents received when they were married. Some are wonderfully new. Each one speaks to me in a unique and personal way.

I remember how excited I was when I got one of the "just-off-the-press" Good News translations that were printed several decades ago. It combined easily understandable language with thought-provoking, single-line figures as illustrations. The cover looked like a newspaper page, and the intent was clear: The Bible is as contemporary as the daily news.

I love to hear the Bible when it is set to great music by Bach and Handel and Beethoven and Schubert, and by more contemporary composers. A setting of Psalm 8 by the French liturgical composer Joseph Gelineau made that psalm one of my outright favorites. His adaptation reads: "How great is Your name, O Lord, Our God, through all the earth." And later these words ring out, "When I see the heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars which You arranged, what is man that You keep him in mind, mortal man that You care for him?"

Maybe you like to do what I do. I compare how different groups of translators have made the original languages of Hebrew and Greek come alive in English. There always is some nuance that jumps out at me as I make such comparisons.

I love to compare the words of the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version with the New Revised Standard Version and the Jerusalem Bible. There is always something there that makes me think more deeply and encourages me to approach God's Word carefully and reverently.

Among the love-gifts I gave to my daughter at her confirmation, and later when she married, were different versions of the Bible. I wanted her adult Christian life and her married life to begin with God. I wanted to be sure she knew that God's word is sweet to the soul and empowering to the spirit.

In a sense, my childhood days have remained with me because I continue to "eat up" the Scriptures. It is the richest feast imaginable. Through many years, they have provided me with solid nourishment for the soul. And nothing has proved more important to me than the words of Psalm 119: "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (verses 103–105, New Revised Standard Version).

Bible Week is November 23–30 in the United States.