Equipping University

For many families in the centuries since the King James Bible was completed, it was the only book they owned. Most learned to read from the well-worn pages of the family Bible and found their language shaped forever by the words they read. Simply put, the King James Bible has influenced the English language more than any book ever written and has done so completely out of proportion to what a single book ought to be able to do. We often do not even realize how many of our proverbs and maxims are direct quotes or allusions to this copy of God’s Word. How many times have you uttered “an eye for an eye” or “fell flat on his face” or “the salt of the earth” or asked “Am I my brother’s keeper?” without even thinking of how you know those words? Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no old Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address. How did we come to possess this remarkable book?