How many Bibles can you find lying around your house? A few hundred years ago, you would likely say, “Zero!”

Before the printing press was invented, only handwritten books existed. Some wealthy people could buy a Bible . . . but still, the whole household had to share it. Families might read the big book together in the morning or evening.

But let’s turn the calendar back even further. Two thousand years ago in the earliest churches, the Bible didn’t even exist—at least, not in the way we think of it. Paul and some of the other apostles were still writing parts of it! How were those letters to churches delivered? Did people pass them around? Maybe. But it’s likely many church members couldn’t read or write.

They could listen though. Maybe that’s why Paul encourages the church: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture.” (1 Timothy 4:13)

Eventually, churches would spend a year or two reading the entire Bible bit by bit during church services. No one got to skip the parts that were hard to understand. Everyone got the whole Bible again and again.

During some parts of history, most people not only didn’t have Bibles, they also couldn’t speak the languages Bibles were written in. People like Martin Luther helped change that. (He first translated the Bible from Latin to German. After this, Germans could finally understand the Bible in their own tongue. Other brave translators did the same work with other languages.)

Moms at the Bible Bee say they love listening to their kids practice Bible passages at the kitchen table. The kids are filling their hearts with the words of God by repeating them again and again—just like Christians from history.