Hello, I'm Jim Littles, here to talk to you a little bit about worship arts in terms of using Bible rebinds as a place of worship. Let you know up front that I find myself as a part-time Bible rebinder and see it as an art form. One of the art forms I do not have is videography, so...
Apologies there. I am not able to record this in my workspace, which is roughly 7 feet wide and 11 feet long, so there's just not enough space there to set up cameras, that kind of thing. We'll get to that in just a little bit. If I'm asked why I got started doing Bible rebinds, I think this is the Bible that I would have to talk about. It has Dad's name on it.
which is the same as mine, except he's a senior, I was a junior. When my dad passed away several years ago, I received this Bible as my brothers and I were divvying up different treasures from dad's office. I received this along with his last journal that he recorded his sermons.
So that's a treasure of mine as well. When I got dad's Bible, which is an Oxford Bible from back in the 60s. He always carried one about this size along with the Thompson chain, which is found everywhere, of course.
I began to look for quality Bibles similar to this, wanting to purchase one like it to emulate Dad's use of a fine Bible. Oh, in those days, of course, finding quality products a little bit easier than it is now in a disposable society. I am guessing that this Bible... probably cost as much as many Bibles do today. However, he would have bought it 50, 60 years ago.
So adjusting for inflation would have been quite an investment for dad to have bought this Bible. As I looked around, I began to see that there were roughly three primary quality Bible makers in the world. This one is an Allen Bible.
It's number 53. purple, bound by Charfleet bindery. Most of them are done in England. Publishers in England, papers and most of the rebinderies are done in the Netherlands. So when I looked at the quality of Dad's Bible back in the 60s, which is the quality of today, and then realizing that the price point was pretty high for a Bible like this, I own three Allen Bibles, Two of them I bought off of eBay for a reasonable price. This one I paid full price from England.
A bit ridiculous, you might say. Probably $240 for this Bible. So that's what got me started.
Now, part two of my video today I want to talk about. my life as a worshiper. Now, as a preacher slash teacher, I frequently begin my presentations with, hi, my name's Jim, and get everybody to say, hi, Jim, as if we were in Alkanalix Anonymous basement meeting at a church someplace.
And after they say, hi, Jim, I say, and I'm a worshiper. I seek to live my life as a worshiper. And as such, when I think about Bible rebinding, It's not just the moment that I began Bible rebinding.
Dad passed away several years ago. I've been rebinding Bibles now. Finished my third year.
I am into rebounding more than 150 Bibles and working in that neighborhood for this year. Maybe by the end of the year, I may have close to 200 having been. rebound since that time.
But really, it's about my whole life. So when I think of rebinding and writing, it takes me back to my childhood even. I was sick a couple of times in fourth grade. I missed a month of school.
In sixth grade, I missed two months of school and began reading encyclopedias just for the fun of it. And also about that time, we had a headquarters representative come to our district from time to time. from Home Missions. His name was J.T.
Pugh, and he said that we needed apostolic writers. So I think I was 13 or 14 when I heard that. So I immediately bought a couple of journals and started taking notes on every sermon that I heard and continue to do that most of the time. from 14 or 15 years old up to now in my middle geezerhood. So life as a writer, not in terms of volume, but just cherishing words.
Second thing is when I was in the hospital, those two illnesses that I mentioned in grade school, I worked on a couple of leather projects. Nurses trying to keep little boys from going crazy would bring... buy comic books and products.
And I got a couple of kits and did some leather things. So during those times there, I worked on a few leather projects. When I was 17, took a trip to Germany on an international youth corps, now Apostolic Youth Corps, in Germany, visited Gutenberg's press there, where the first movable type press was done in Germany. And of course, that was with with Bibles. I had a significant Bibles throughout my life.
Acts during a quizzing time when I was in my teens, the book of Acts began to fall out, so I had to send it back to Nelson and have it rebound for their lifetime rebinding. As a pastor, I had Thompson chains and wore out a few of those. This one, which I rebound and will rebind again, because it was one of my early rebinds. I started rebinding some of my own Bibles, and I made some errors with this one, and I'll have to do it again.
My sweet wife bought this one for me. in 1992 for Father's Day. 1992 for Father's Day. She bought it for me as I was being, as I went active duty for training in the Army as a military chaplain.
The original binding was green, which is why this binding is green, and its new binding will be green as well. And it was the size to fit in my combat dress uniform pocket on the side. So, fond memories of that summer.
on active duty for training as military chaplain, which I felt like God had called me, called me to be and to do. This Bible is another one that I rebound early on. For myself, one of my daughters gave this to me, and what a treasure this Bible is. Wore it out.
I had to rebind it from one of my daughters. This one that I rebound is from my time at Gateway College. I taught at Gateway College of Evangelism from 1996. to 2000 and then Urshan graduate school started and then later of course I would teach at Urshan College as well. This Bible was given to me for those students for whom I serve as academic advisor and so they gifted me with this Bible for work with them.
Two of the students that are still in ministry today and what a treasure it is to have them February 7th year 2000 and what a treasure that. Bible is. So those are some of my Bibles as I think about it, significant Bibles that have been for me. Now, one of my spiritual formations in active worship is also reading through Scripture and writing through Scripture. So sometime this year, the year 2024, I will finish rewriting the Bible completely.
So for numbers of years, I've been handwriting Scripture. coming from the Old Testament commandment that leaders would write the Torah. And for me, I decided to go a little bit further from just the Pentateuch and rewrite the whole Bible. And so the New Testament's all done. Majority of the Old Testament's finished.
Neat and working on the last couple chapters of 1 Kings, and then into Chronicles and Judges, Nehemiah and Ezra. And then I'll be finished rewriting the Bible. My next project. Terms of Bible work is making a scroll for the book of Matthew.
So this is a sheet of parchment. A lady in Wisconsin donated money for me to buy 10 sheets of parchment. This is actually goat skin parchment from Pergamon. In Pergamon, which is where parchment was developed when there was an intellectual battle between Egypt and... Pergamum at the time.
The king of Pergamum said he was going to develop a library as large as the one of Alexandria, Egypt. Pharaoh said, oh no you're not, so he put an embargo on shipping out paper made papyrus, which is made from reeds. He says if you don't have any paper, then you can't have a library like mine.
So the king of Pergamum had to look around for natural resources he had and to develop writing, and that's where we get parchment, which quite expensive as you can imagine. So those are vital for me. Now, as I think about rebinding Bibles, as I mentioned, I've done roughly 152 or three of them. Some of them have taken as many as 35 hours. A Russian Bible has taken me that long because I had to take that Bible all the way apart and then put all the pages right back together again.
And that one was about 130 or 140 year old Bible, outlasted Stalin. communist Russia. And Son, of course, tried to stamp out Christianity.
And here's a Bible that outlived him. So when I think of myself as artist and worship, building on generations of both worshipers and artists in my family, mothers and grandmothers doing quilting and sewing, my dad being a builder and a metal worker, my mother being a musician, and my little brother, who's the professor for this course. a musician as well, and another brother being a trombonist and now bassist and piano player, musicians in the family, my wife Sherry with cooking, and various other art forms such as storytelling that she did in children's ministry.
What a delight to have artists around me. When I think about rebinding Bibles, some of them are brand new ones, such as Some of them are brand new ones, such as this Bible was a brand new one. ESV Bible that I did a couple of, about a year or so ago now. Now, if you can see, this is a partial quill from a ostrich.
Now, I had this partial quill kind of as a disposed piece. It was a brand new Bible. But it was a piece of basically throwaway leather because most people don't want just partial quill.
They want the whole Bible to be quill. Now a full ostrich. A piece of leather looks like this. Just got this in last week. It was on sale, so I grabbed it while I could.
It has this beautiful section of full quill in the middle. It also has this size, which is smooth and not as valuable. So when I think about this Bible that I did, I thought of my own life that has...
spots which may be valued but then spots which some folks would just say well why even keep that it's not full ostrich of course this side is equally ostrich couple of dimples there where there were some quills this side this was where the feathers would have been attached where you see all these bumps but no one would want this no one would want piece that i have on the spine no one would want the back As I worship the Lord, as I'm rebinding Bibles, I think in that way sometimes. Lord, you've taken pieces which are valuable, but pieces which are not valuable. And that's what my life is. And I seek to worship him with that, whether it's good or not so good.
I offer it up to the Lord. And so each Bible I work through, there are pieces of that. I've held some treasured Bibles in my hand, which were in very, very bad shape. And I had to... work a lot of time to put the pages together again.
And like the Russian Bible that I mentioned, 35 hours missionary asked, how much would it cost to do that? And I said, well, this is just a gift to you. I couldn't come up with a price for that, which would have been easy for him to pay.
So that was just a gift. I've had Bibles from him. missionaries and pastors and evangelists and dear saints of God that have worn out their Bibles.
So when I hold them and I read through the markings on the pages and I see how worn the pages are, I celebrate the way in which God is doing and has done astounding things. This Bible, it's in process. So I've taken it apart and redone parts of the spine.
They wanted to be redone. Each Bible gets new ribbons. They wanted a silver, a red, and a purple in that order. Here's the inside of it.
There's the outside of it. They wanted the name of the original lady that owned the Bible, and then the current lady embossed on the cover. So thinking of the generations of handing scripture down and offering that up as an act of worship, that the person, the elder lady, Flossie, was the lady who originally owned this Bible. thinking of the way that it had brought her comfort and strength. delight and joy.
And I'm sure there were some difficult and challenging times, and yet this Bible is sitting on my workbench as I'm working on it, and we'll hopefully finish it up today and get it in the mail tomorrow. What an opportunity to worship the Lord because he is faithful. Wonderful in those ways.
This Bible that is almost finished, I have to put end sheets in it to finish it up, and then it will be finished. This Bible I will be delivering in Ohio this weekend when I'm there. This Bible has been on the mission field in the lady in Ohio where they're currently worshiping the Lord.
What a treasure to know that. One of my other Bibles. I've got a picture of it in the PowerPoint. It was given from my grandmother to my grandfather in 1962 for Christmas.
So I would have been my first, actually my second birthday, a one-year-old whippersnapper that year when that Bible was given to my grandfather. Having that Bible, seeing his annotations in the margin, somebody preaching a certain, certain date, but then also knowing that my grandfather backslid for a season, 10, 15 years when he was away from the Lord. And my dad never would explain why. He just said, well, my dad got hurt a little bit and left the church for a while.
Never did understand why. We prayed for Grandpa constantly during those years. And then the end of his life, the last 10, 15 years, he was back in the church again.
And what joy to see his faith and passion and compassion for teaching. So when I hold that Bible, which is in my office at church, when I hold that Bible in my hand, it's not just my grandmother's love for my grandfather. My grandfather is a teacher, but also God's faithfulness. That even when folks have walked away, his word. sustains.
So when I hold on to those and cherish those and think about them, my spirit grows powerfully. Now in terms of art forms, of course I showed you the ostrich. This is a piece of sheep, makes beautiful binding with that. I just finished one and mailed it off. On Saturday, I think it was, actually my wife mailed it for me.
This is a piece of kangaroo. Let me see here. Yeah, hair to tail. Piece of kangaroo. Mailed one off to a pastor in Missouri.
and I've done several for him and for his church. So there's this intergenerational piece of worship. There's a sense of which I visited that church about three weeks ago, preached there. I came home with five or six Bibles to rebind because numbers of people there, let's see. Yeah, this is one of them.
I haven't tucked the ribbons in yet. I just pulled it out of out of the vice that holds Bibles when I'm working on the spine. This came from the church in Missouri there, of which I just did a Bible and kangaroo for the pastor.
So there's congregational levels of when I visit the churches and they'll come up. you did this Bible for me and all it's been so special and it's working so kangaroo did that one sheep I mentioned ostrich I mentioned this is a black kangaroo I think as that one. Here's a special piece of marbled calf from Italy, Italian calf. That'll make a really special looking Bible smooth without grain like some of these others have.
The materials now, part of my act of worship in doing Bible rebinds is I like nice material. I don't know, probably came from mom and dad. Now my mother loved nice material but she She hated paying full price for it.
So she would always find ways to negotiate and work around it. But Dad always taught us, if you're going to have tools, you've got to have materials, get the right material for the job. So I enjoy using nice material, quality material, beautiful material, varieties of colors, multiple colors of ribbons, and even get a chance to use beautiful end sheets, which are art in themselves. So the end sheet of this... this is a marbled paper that came from Germany.
This is my personal Bible, but that's something that I offer people when I rebind their Bibles. Now, it does cost an extra $20 to $30 to do that because it is actually, each of these pages are individually made. They're not made on a machine.
So, the beauty of that, when I stitch, learning to stitch leather, And I do have my hand. I have one of my mom's old sewing machines. I could actually do it with a machine. But each of these stitches are placed in by hand.
And I began to stitch leather after I was sick 11 years ago and was disabled for six months or so until I could get my eye-hand coordination back. That's when I went back into some leather work, including stitching, and then I added that to Bibles. A man in the church gifted me, two men in the church have gifted me embossing machines.
One was kind of a amateur leather worker machine, nice, kind of expensive, gave me the money to purchase that and what a treasure that was. A little bit later, another man in the church who is president of a printing company here in town, gave me a professional grade embossing machine which allows me to to square things up and get them pretty straight. So there's the gifting of people into my life that I offer back in worship as I'm rebinding, thanking for the pieces of equipment that's there.
When I was sick and recovering and building some briefcases and duffel bags and suitcases, my wife. purchased equipment for me. And so as I still use those pieces of equipment that were bought by my wife 11 years ago, as part of my worship is she bought it for me as part of my recovery process.
So I had tools to work with on those briefcases. My paper press, your professor Dan found it for me someplace in Missouri there. A vintage paper press would hold the paper down while things are gluing up and it pressing it, tightening it up.
So Dan's included on my workbench that I do that. I do other pieces of cases and journals and bookmarks. I do want to mention that there are, as an artist, offering up worship. Not every project works. So I have a stack of leathers that I just had to add another one to it two days ago.
I wasted a piece of leather, quote unquote, because I messed it up. So it's tossed over at the side. And not every one of our acts of worship are valuable from what we see.
I want to give my best. I want to surrender my best. It requires focus, attention to detail, and this art form, as do most art forms.
So I want to be careful with that and work at it in a way that brings God glory and brings delight to people that are holding it in their hands. Now, I know that I could read my Bible on my iPad, and I have tools on there, books on there, but There's something about holding this ostrich skin that somebody else would have thrown away. This is I would have been thrown away.
Something about reading from that. And this is a Bible I'm reading through this year. Holding a Bible that my daughter gave me in the late 90s.
my treasure to hold this bible and to think about her when i have it in my hands and now it's been rebound about uh two or three years ago with cat with uh sheepskin so precious to know that holding it and thinking about the power of the word as i as i uh as i read it in conclusion talk about the wonder of being able to hear god's word and to respond to god's word to share god's word to pray the word to worship with the word The Bible doesn't answer all of my questions. Some of my questions are lousy and I have to throw them away. Some of the answers I don't quite understand yet, even though I've been a licensed minister now for 44 years.
This year will be 44 years that I've been a licensed UPC minister. And yet I have unanswered questions. Matter of fact, every year I get a few more questions.
When I hold the word in his hand, or as I'm rebinding, gluing up, when I'm doing this fold over, or this hard part here that is the corners, which are the hardest parts. I'm taking the time to put those pleats in these corners as I'm folding it over. This one happens to be sheep on the inside and calf on the outside. As I'm molding those pieces together, trying to do my best to get them straight.
Some of these I have to discard because I mess them up, but others I'm able to finish it, put it in the box, and mail it off. but the power and the authority of the word. And I trust that in this course, you're finding more and more ways to worship him through your various art forms.
Even though my videotography is nowhere near where a 12-year-old's would be at this point, I trust that this video is an opportunity to think about uh your craftsmanship and art forms that you have and one of mine is rebinding of bibles and i trust that it's been instructive for you and i trust that an opportunity to you get a little glimpse into my reflective process when i'm doing so thank you lord bless