Margurette Robison, 88, lives in the Macedonia community near Tupelo, Mississippi. Her two daughters, Vanita Billingsley and Sherry Smith, live close by. What makes Robison’s story unique is how she has spent the past three-and-a-half years hand-copying the entire Bible word-for-word. She completed her task on Jan. 14.
Robison had always enjoyed reading the paper first thing in the morning, but she decided she could find something better to do.
“I’d just heard David Jeremiah say to copy the book of Romans,” Robinson said. “So I did that, and it was good. Then he said he’d copied the whole Bible, and I said, ‘Well, I’ll start this. I’ll go back, pick up the Gospels, and go through the New Testament. If I don’t get any farther than that, that’s good.’”
Robison considers herself an early riser.
“There’s no one to have a conversation with at 5:30 or 6 in the morning,” Robinson noted. “That was a good time for me to write. So I got started with that, and when I finished the New Testament, I started on the Old. That was exactly three-and-a-half years ago.”
Robison wrote until she got tired, which could mean copying one page of Scripture, perhaps two. She estimates she averaged one-and-a-half pages a day.
“It started as a selfish thing to do,” Robinson said. “I just wanted something to spend some time on. But when I got started, it was a different story.”
Benefits
According to Robison, there were several benefits to taking on this project.
“The Bible is a very convicting book,” she said. “I’d memorized Scripture before, but as far as knowing the background of the Scripture, my daughters knew much more about it than I did. Doing this was convicting. It’s been such a blessing. It gave me something to do, and it was like having a good devotional every day. When I finished this morning, I almost cried. I thought, ‘Well, goodness, what will I do?’”
Robison said she wasn’t trying to call attention to herself but believes others could benefit from the practice.
“It’s God’s holy word,” she said. “It’s God speaking to you through Scripture. It’s not that I did it for that purpose at the time — it was just a time filler. Once I got started, it was very convicting, and I couldn’t stop.”
“It’s all been a reminder to me to be thankful,” said Robison. “His Word is sweeter than honey.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tony Martin and originally published by the Baptist Record.
