Almost without fail, when Jerry and I go to visit my parents down in Mississippi, we will come around to talking about the Bible. Mutt, my father, has his Bible by the recliner. He spends at least 15 hours a day in that recliner, and he reads a lot. Other than watching all the game shows on TV, some of the soaps, and a lot of sports, that's about all Mutt does. He reads. Co-Bell, my mother, doesn't read much. She says her eyes are not too good, and she's right – but I hunch she just doesn't like to read, and she gets plenty of jabs in at Mutt as he reads the daily paper and the weekly "Baptist Record" and Time Magazine from cover to cover. But, like Mutt, Co-Bell reads the Bible -- especially the Psalms.

For the past couple of years now, we've not gotten into conversation about the Bible …