\n
Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nSome years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far away in another city.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe first said, “I had a big house built for Mama.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe second said, “I had a hundred thousand dollar theater built in the house.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe third said, “I had my Mercedes dealer deliver an SL600 to her.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe fourth said, “You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can’t read anymore because she can’t see very well. I met this preacher who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire bible. It took twenty preachers 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000 a year for twenty years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse and the parrot will recite it.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe other brothers were impressed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAfter the holidays Mama sent out her Thank You notes. She wrote:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n“Milton, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n“Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home, I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n“Michael, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound, it could hold 50 people, but all of my friends are dead, I’ve lost my hearing and I’m nearly blind. I’ll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n“Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And now for something completely different. A story shared with me by my sister.————- Mama’s Bible Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n
Mamma's Bible - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mamma's Bible - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"And now for something completely different. A story shared with me by my sister.————- Mama’s Bible Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-06T12:08:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mamma's Bible - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mamma's Bible - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"And now for something completely different. A story shared with me by my sister.————- Mama’s Bible Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2007-05-06T12:08:00+00:00","author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html","name":"Mamma's Bible - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-05-06T12:08:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-05-06T12:08:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2007\/05\/mammas-bible.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mamma’s Bible"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}