The Incredible Montana History of the Gideon Bibles

Have you heard about the incredible history behind the Gideon Bibles and how they first got started in Superior, Montana?

Lawrence Reed is president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education and blogs at www.lawrencewreed.com. He also serves on the board for The Frontier Institute, a free market think tank here in Montana.

A couple weeks ago, I was hanging out with some great guys in Billings and one of them shared the great Montana history behind the Gideon Bibles. So, needless to say, when Frontier shared Reed's column it immediately caught my eye.

Reed writes, in part:

Gideons International was founded in Wisconsin in 1898 to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Montana connection dates to 1908, when the young organization began distributing Bibles. It happened at the Superior Hotel in the Mineral County town of Superior, Montana, where the Gideons placed their first 25 Bibles. Today, a plaque commemorates the event on the site where the hotel once stood. It’s about 60 miles northwest of Missoula.

The Gideon's have now distributed more than 2.5 billion Bibles in over a hundred languages all over the world.

Here's some other interesting numbers Reed shared:

From that humble start—just 25 Bibles in the guest rooms of the Superior Hotel in Montana—two Gideon Bibles are placed somewhere today every single second. That works out to be more than 70 million in a year.

If you're a soldier who went to basic training, you likely got a Gideon's Bible. Maybe it was a camo colored Bible that you kept with you in your rucksack. Or, maybe you spotted a Gideon's Bible in a hotel room while travelling.

Click here for Lawrence Reed's full column. Click here to learn more about the Gideons.