National Bible Week Remarks at a White House Dinner in Observance of the Week.

Last night, in preparation for my introducing the guest performer, I reread the Book of Mark and tried to think ahead about the experience that we had in store for us tonight. It became much more obvious to me than it ever had before that the Bible is not just a spiritual textbook, but it's an excellent and exciting story, a story about Jesus Christ, one of the most exciting stories of all time, which sometimes loses its meaning and its fervor when we take each verse apart and try to analyze or diagram the verse or probe into every single word. There's obviously a time for that, but I think in the process we lose perspective to some degree and forget that Christ was a person who was alive, dynamic, vigorous, strong, with a great sense of humor.

And we have tonight a great performer to tell us this story in a similar fashion to what Mark might: have used when he burst forth to bring his Gospel to the world.

As you know, Mark was an intimate friend of Paul, with some ups and downs. He was an intimate friend of Peter. And, as you know, the Gospel means, in itself, "good news."

I've not seen this performance or heard this reading. But I think it is likely that we'll hear the story of Christ told not in a sad, dreary way of an interesting person approaching death, but a vibrant story of a man who was alive during the time he was on Earth and who was alive and is alive after death. So, it's a happy story.

Alec McCowen is a noted performer on his own. A small view of his biography is in the program that you have. He took upon himself the task of memorizing, I believe, 678 verses in Mark. And we're very delighted to have him here with us. I talked to him for a few minutes before we both came in, and he said it was going to be as though he was in his own home and among friends. And, Alec, that's the way we look upon you as well.

Thank you for coming. We look forward to your reading.