Editor’s Note: A version of this article appears in the July/August issue of Nurturing Faith Journal.

My rotating slate of remote workspaces includes the recliner in my TV room, a desk in the front room of my house, and coffee shops in and around Waco, Texas, or whatever city I happen to be in.

Pinewood Roasters is the Waco area establishment I frequent most often. It is named in honor of the Piney Woods of East Texas, where both owners grew up. I also spent my childhood and early adult years in that region, so I have an emotional connection. 

The decor at Pinewood is minimal. As you might expect, the coffee bar and tables are made of pine. The business is in a U-shaped building with a courtyard containing outdoor seating. The Pinewood Pub is on the opposite side of the coffee shop.

Vinyl is constantly spinning on the record player, mostly with albums released decades before the average year most Pinewood patrons were born. Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, Marvin Gay, Bonnie Raitt, and Dolly Parton are all in heavy rotation, with more contemporary artists thrown in for good measure. 

The morning crowd, of which I am a member, consists mainly of remote workers and those on their way to the office. In the afternoons, more people read and visit with friends. At almost all times, however, individuals or groups enjoy their preferred cup of coffee over an open Bible. 

Nearing my fifth decade, I have seen an evolution in the type of Bibles used in public spaces.

During my adolescent years, Bibles were large and colorful. In the mid-1990s, miniature, thin-line Bibles were all the rage. In college, a friend of mine studying to be a preacher called the narrow, tiny Bible he kept in his back pocket his “dagger,” a nod to Hebrews 4:12: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” 

With the turn of the millennium, the Bible landscape became the Wild West. Every niche personality, movement, and school of thought had its unique version of the Bible. If you want a humorous reflection on this, read A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs, an agnostic and admittedly ignorant of all things related to the Bible, wanted to understand what this bound collection of books made so many Americans want to read and follow it. The book is his attempt to read and follow the Bible for a year. 

While visiting a Christian bookstore in Manhattan, where he lived, Jacobs noted all the different versions and translations of the Bible, not to mention covers and sizes. The salesperson eventually pointed him to a Bible-in-magazine form designed to look like Seventeen or other teen-girl publications, suggesting that this may be what Jacobs was looking for, as it is the type of Bible you can read on the subway without anyone thinking you are reading a Bible.

Jacobs joked, “You know you live in a secular city when it’s considered more acceptable for a grown man to read a teen girl’s magazine than the Bible.”

Few at Pinewood are concerned about anyone knowing they are reading their Bibles. The current Bible trend is large—very large. In fact, an Instagram account marveling at the sizes of Bibles read at Pinewood has emerged with the handle “Big Bibles of Pinewood.” The account posts photos submitted by Pinewood regulars who get in-the-wild pictures of the large, primarily leatherbound Bibles scattered around the coffee shop. 

It’s tempting to assume this is only a trend in the Bible Belt or college towns with large Christian universities. But I have seen small-group Bible studies break out over large Bibles throughout this country and even in European cities. 

These highly visible displays of public devotion can irk me on my more cynical days.
Jesus told his followers not to be like the hypocrites, who pray on street corners, but to pray behind closed doors, out of sight (Matthew 6). Though this teaching was primarily about prayer, it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to say it would also apply to people lugging a massive family Bible into a coffee shop and cracking it open for study while I enjoy my Americano (hot, black, no room). 

But then Jesus tells me in Matthew 7 not to judge, so I cower into my corner, appropriately chastised. (I also must admit that my knowledge of Scripture, however limited, is due mainly to the years I spent as a young adult reading the Bible in public places.) 

I am mindful, though, that we live in a multicultural, multireligious country that extends the freedom to read large Bibles (or Korans, Vetas, Tao Te Chings, etc.) in public, provided we don’t coerce others to do the same. We also, ideally, protect people’s right to have nothing to do with any of these sacred texts, and for this, I am thankful. 

What would be helpful, however, is for Christians in Western nations to be aware of the immense level of privilege we have to practice our faith in public. In parts of this country, including my own, pulling out a large Bible to read in public will boost your social status among your neighbors far more than diminish it. Being seen reading a Koran, on the other hand, comes with a level of risk that we don’t understand. This should cause us concern and spur us on to greater humility. 

I’m not asking us to bring “daggers” back, but maybe we could return to more modest-sized Bibles to display at Pinewood.