Don't Wait For Daylight

Harry Potter Brings Conviction.

I went and saw the (final?) Harry Potter film today, coming off of a two-week stretch of watching all of the movies for the very first time. I got into the story though, and ultimately, enjoyed the seventh installment wonderfully. However, as I got home and alone, and began thinking about this Harry Potter business, I started realizing there was a grim truth concerning believers just like me.

The Harry Potter series has found itself to become an empire among the entertainment industry, fueled by mainly my age group. When we were in grade school, it was all about Harry Potter. Although I never got into it at all, all of my friends seemed to love the stuff. Our generation has grown older, buying every book and reading it cover to cover, following up of course with the movie (though the movies are never as good, according to everyone!). This is no simple task. I recognize that these novels are quite the read, as I’ve seen the size of the books before. Then it hit me.

I pulled out my computer to do some number crunching. I calculated the number of words and pages in all of the Harry Potter books. Here’s what I found. 

#1 - 76,944 words/309 pages

#2 - 85,141 words/341 pages

#3 - 107,253 words/435 pages

#4 - 190,637 words/734 pages

#5 - 257,045 words/870 pages

#6 - 168,923 words/652 pages

#7 - 198,227 words/759 pages

Having figured this out, I decided to add them all up (since pretty well everyone reads them all) and wanted to see what numbers we arrived at for the entire seven-book series.

TOTAL - 1,084,170 words/4100 pages

As you can see, there has definitely been some reading involved with this story of Harry Potter. So much reading, that it’s even a heavy consumer of time, perhaps even money.
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My main question I came away with after the math was that I wondered how many of those people are not only Christian, but have claimed to have read the Bible in its entirety? I can’t say I have, by any means. Looking up the number of words and pages in a Bible, I found “alarming” statistics. There are about 788,258 words in the average King James, and though page counts vary moderately, my Bible sits close to the average, around 2009 pages with verses.

Why is that alarming? Because I know how many people out there are missing it. I know how many people out there have read these seven mega-novels multiple times, living a life of fantasy, yet when it comes to our very faith and being, we merely give it a glance when we deem necessary, if that. In fact, I think most people use Bibles to flatten folded paper, to use as a coaster, to serve as a dust collector, or to have for decoration in the home setting. Isn’t that disgusting to you?

We are all more than capable of reading a Bible, we just don’t want to admit it. It gets really intimidating at times, to see such a huge book with so many words. But it’s not just a book. It’s a book with answers to real problems, with real prophecy, with real stories of men and women who fought for the Gospel. A book full of teaching moments for those who may not understand. It’s a blueprint, a map, a sword, and a letter. Yet, we mustn’t waste our precious time on that…we have to re-read this fiction series that we already know the entire story of.

I’m not free of this just because I haven’t read the Harry Potter books. It’s convicting to me, and I haven’t even laid a finger on one of the books. I just want us to step back and think about it, though. There is absolutely no excuse. The Bible has 300,000 less words, and half as many pages as the Harry Potter series. Even if it had twice as many, shouldn’t we still be eager to read it? 

Let’s not lose our focus, our attentions, our passions in some made-up story of a boy with a cape. There is a very real God, who sent a very real son named Jesus, who lived a very real life and really died and really was resurrected and really left us this Bible as a means of teaching, rebuking, confirming, and helping. This, my friends, should be the book we spend a decade studying intently. This is the text that matters.