Did you ever wonder how many Bibles the Gideons have distributed worldwide?

 

By David McClelland

 

I can't think of a time that I didn't find a Gideon Bible in the bedside stand of a hotel room in which I was staying. They seem to be everywhere and I wondered just of extensively their Bibles have been distributed. You guessed it. I did the research.

 

From the Gideon's web site: www.gideons.org, I learned that Gideons International was founded in 1899 in Boscobel, Wisconsin. Gideons is an evangelical Christian organization dedicated to distributing free Bibles in over 80 languages in 190 countries. Gideons International is now headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Their web site states that, as of 2010, they have placed and distributed 1.3 billion New King James Version Bibles and New Testaments to hotels, motels, hospitals, penal institutions, members of the armed forces, school students and to those in the public nursing field all over the world. The name, Gideons, was taken from the 6^th and 7^th chapters of the book of Judges in the Old Testament of the Bible.

 

Gideons International is an association of about 300,000 Christian business and professional men, who have banded together in more than 175 countries, for fellowship and service. The Gideons have a Reading Calendar that provides a pace to enable one to read through the bible in one year. Now, you know a little about the Gideons.